Brilliance is distributed equally. But too often, opportunity is not. The COVID-19 pandemic has given us the strongest possible case for prioritizing critical thinking instruction, but we still treat critical thinking as a luxury good. Equity requires educators to remove the systemic barriers far too many students face to unleashing their critical thinking potential. This workshop outlines powerful, but practical tools educators can apply immediately to close the critical thinking gap using easy-to-integrate, curriculum-agnostic “Thinking Like a Lawyer” strategies that help students transition from asking “what” and “how to” to asking “why” and “what if.

Families are inherently qualified to unleash and nurture critical thinking in their children. This is not a skill that families often recognize or think about intentionally, and it is a skill families have regardless of their education level or home language. In this session, Colin Seale, Founder and CEO of thinkLaw and author of Thinking Like a Lawyer: A Framework to Teach Critical Thinking to All Students will share powerful, but practical tips to support families - our children's first and most important teachers - in their crucial role in equipping our young people to lead, innovate, and break the things that must be broken through critical thinking activities and practices they can seamlessly integrate into their home life

School systems have formed their equity workshops, written their equity plans, trained educators in implicit bias workshops and conducted lots of book studies. But what does educational equity look like on Tuesday morning for a 4th grade general education teacher? How can educators prioritize the need to think with an equity lens with the pressures of ensuring academic success? Why do some educators who deeply believe in the promise of educational equity still struggle with inequitable academic and disciplinary outcomes in their own classrooms? Colin Seale, Founder and CEO of thinkLaw and author of Thinking Like a Lawyer: A Framework for Teaching Critical Thinking for All Students, will discuss powerful, but practical strategies to make equity real at the classroom level.

Brilliance is distributed equally, but opportunity is not. The dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racial injustice present a strong case for critical thinking instruction, but we still treat critical thinking as a luxury good. Equity requires educators to remove barriers to unleashing students' critical thinking potential, particularly in digital learning. This session breaks down the "why," "how," and "what" for helping students lead, innovate, and break the things that must be broken.

With the COVID-19 pandemic placing a spotlight on existing inequities in education, issues of racial justice rising to the top of public consciousness at level unseen in generations, and massive budget cuts likely in K-12 education, there are serious questions about the will to support the needs of gifted and talented learners. At the same time, our society’s need for critical thinking has never been stronger. Colin Seale, education advocate Founder and CEO of thinkLaw, and author of Thinking Like a Lawyer: A Practical Framework for Teaching Critical Thinking to All Students, will share powerful, but practical arguments for prioritizing and expanding the benefits of gifted and accelerated programs as a key pathway for achieving educational equity.

There are few things more frustrating than children who have unlimited potential, but struggle with underachievement and a lack of motivation. This session helps parents win the motivation battle by learning about intrinsic motivation and explore ways of preventing and defeating "I Don't Care" Syndrome with a concrete plan for helping children fulfill their true promise. This workshop gives parents the tools to beat back apathy hindering their child’s development.

Ensuring that students learn is always the most important goal, but sometimes it is difficult to know out if students really get it.  By leveraging key feedback strategies and engaging students beyond typical test prep with rigorous activities that promote critical thinking, students can take ownership of their success on assessments and articulate the steps they need to take to reach their goals.

Every educator has “that” student. That brilliant student who is a born leader, innovator, and amazing problem solver that also happens to be a frequent flier in disciplinary referrals, detentions, and the principal’s office. But when we think about the type of teacher-driven, content-heavy instruction students are typically getting (especially during testing season), it should be no surprise that bright and high-energy students sometimes struggle with behavioral issues and pose challenges to effective classroom management. Deeper learning activities that involve engaging and rigorous critical thinking should be the first tool educators grab from their educational toolbox to improve classroom management. We will discuss powerful, but practical strategies that leverage critical thinking instruction as a proactive classroom management tool for some of the most common disruptive student behaviors.

Denying access to rigorous learning opportunities because students are “too low” is unacceptable. Open the door to increased gifted identification rates in underrepresented populations with practical strategies in this interactive workshop. Participants will leave equipped with content and grade-agnostic tools to raise the bar for students with sustainable differentiation strategies.

This practical workshop covers practical instructional responses that can be seamlessly integrated into instruction to address one of the most common questions educators of children ask: why don't students that know better, do better? This interactive workshop will give educators the tools to leverage critical thinking as an overarching social emotional strategy to help learners manage emotions, conflict resolution, perfectionism, executive functioning and learning how to disagree without being disagreeable. Participants attending this workshop will leave with an explicit understanding of why choosing academic rigor or social emotional learning is a false choice and the practical tools to embed SEL into rigorous academic content.

All parents want their children to be successful. But parents of gifted children often feel an added pressure to unleash their child’s “full potential.” This webinar will give parents of gifted children powerful, but practical tools to understand the harms of the “full potential” myth and practical tools to move towards a more healthy, hopeful, and happy path to set children up to excel.

Parents are uniquely qualified to teach their children essential critical thinking skills, mindsets, and habits children need for 21st century success. But too often, families undervalue the tremendous critical thinking assets they bring to the table in managing a household and performing basic "adulting." This session equips parents with concrete tools they can use on a regular basis to build support their child's critical thinking development and understand the limitations of the phrase “full potential” when it comes to their children.