Agenda Highlights

Detailed Agenda PDF

Pre-Conference Workshop – 21st Century Assessment: Measuring Learning for Ever-Changing Environments
Dr. John Bransford, Professor, University of Washington

Assessments are extremely important for measuring the quality of learning and teaching, but existing assessments tend to tell us what individual students have learned in the past and not necessarily how prepared they are to learn in the future. With this problem in mind, and using findings from the learning sciences to guide us, this pre-conference will examine how well students are being prepared to use a variety of resources, including technology-enhanced access to information, virtual and actual tools (e.g., simulations), and social networks in order to learn to solve new complex problems. ($20 fee includes lunch)

Concurrent sessions will feature the following presentations:

  • NASA Education: Yesterday’s Dream…Today’s Vision…Tomorrow’s Hope with Joyce Winterton, Assistant Administrator for Education at NASA
  • Human Creativity and the School of the Future with Mary Cullinane, Director of U.S. Partners in Education at Microsoft
  • The Brainpower Behind the Horsepower with Dr. Mimi Dyer, Program Coordinator at Kennesaw Mountain High School, Georgia
  • Connecting Curriculum Using Brain Research with Linda Jordan, Associate Professor at Hope College, Michigan
  • Using the Rigor/Relevance Framework to Improve Instruction in the STEM Classroom with Dr. Richard Jones, Senior Consultant at the International Center for Leadership in Education
  • Developing a High Performing Rigorous and Innovative STEM School with David Pinder, Principal at McKinley Technical High School, Washington, DC
  • Highland School of Technology—STEM Connections with Lee Dedmon, Principal at Highland School of Technology, North Carolina
  • A Tool for 21st Century Learning and Assessment with Dr. John Bransford, Professor at the University of Washington
  • Using a Public/Private Partnership to Build Momentum for Enhancing the Assessment and Instruction of Science and Math with MetaMetrics, Inc
  • Science Inquiry – What’s Going On in There? with John Cafarella, Independent
    Education Consultant
  • Advancing High School Innovation through STEM Education with Robin Marcus, STEM Program Director of the New Schools Project, Raleigh North Carolina


"The bedrock of our future is the commitment to provide young people with education experiences and opportunities to prepare them for a knowledge-based economy and world that is much more interconnected. By enabling students to engage in the use of new technologies and new resources, they can build a solid foundation of science, mathematics and technology understanding — keys to the global future."

Dr. Sam Houston, President and CEO
NC Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education Center