2025 Summer Symposium

Explore the transformative role of artificial intelligence in mental health with technology leader and mental health advocate, Mandy Froehlich. This session delves into how AI can offer personalized strategies for tackling procrastination, suggest coping mechanisms, and assist in self-care and mindfulness practices. This session promises actionable insights into improving emotional well-being in educational settings.

Participants will need a personal device for this session to explore different AI tools! Together, we will create a document using AI that will be your Personalized Wellness Plan for Building Resilience using AI tools. Additionally, Mandy will be providing and activity handout and space for participants to experiment with specific AI prompts using various tools, record the outputs received, and reflect on their potential applications. This hands-on approach facilitates exploration of AI capabilities and encourages creative thinking about integrating AI into educational practices or personal wellness strategies. 

This session will equip and empower educational stakeholders with the systems and structures needed to build relational trust through social-emotional learning relational practices. Participants will learn the dynamics of relational trust relating to staff to staff, students to staff, admin to staff, and parents to school. In this session, participants will learn skills and strategies to implement relational practices to strengthen the culture of their school/classroom. Implementing relational practices can be used to shift classroom management proactively, which ultimately creates a thriving environment in which fun, effective teaching and learning can take place.  Come learn all about differentiated ways to implement relational practices within elementary education from a trauma-informed/restorative justice approach through the lens of literacy instruction! You will leave this session eager to implement relational practices within your classroom/school, along with the resources to support you in doing so!

Although this session will use literacy instruction as a model, the main focus will be how to build relational trust in any elementary classroom or school environment.

We all need time to restore and reflect on harm we may cause to others or more importantly ourselves. This presentation will allow participants to create a safe space to look at themselves through self-reflection and address their needs to be engaged in positive and healthy relationships.

Building relationships and structuring routines in the classroom can help create an environment where ALL students want to learn. Adam's ideas for creating a welcoming and community-like atmosphere will have you ready to head back to school and excited to start your year! Learn ideas for building relationships with students, learn strategies for creating positive expectations and routines, and leave with ideas you can put in place right away!

This laugh-filled master class unveils both the art and science of engagement by merging soft skills with Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) best practices.

The 'Connected Classroom' aims to transform classroom cultures from competitive to collaborative to bolster minds of all kinds. This dynamic and highly interactive experience showcases strategies for better teams and a stronger classroom dynamic. By applying improvisational techniques this session focuses on enhancing Communication, Collaboration, and Confidence. This Unlikely Teacher evolved from a challenged learner and now offers a range of team-building exercises designed for educators striving to foster deeper connections among increasingly disconnected students.

Suicide rates are at an all-time high. Clients seeking help have experienced multiple traumas in their life. It is common to become desensitized to the pain and hopelessness that our clients are experiencing. During this workshop, we will focus on the impact of counter-transference and critical benefits of empathy in providing care for the traumatized client; introduction to the complexity problem and the emotional health continuum; impact of clients' risk factors and protective factors; and definition and implementation of techniques to differentiate between a client being in a passive risk of suicide and imminent risk for suicide.

More than ever, especially in the wake of Illinois new Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards, educators need practical strategies for enacting culturally responsive pedagogy in their classrooms.This presentation by Dr. Eric Junco offers a compelling call to action for educators to embrace transformative teaching practices that address systemic inequalities and foster critical thinking. It highlights the importance of creating an inclusive curriculum that reflects the diversity of student experiences, thereby promoting equity and challenging the status quo. The presentation outlines 8 practical archetypal stances for enacting for implementing social justice pedagogy, including adopting roles like the Counselor, Curriculum Developer, and Activist to empower students and encourage active participation in creating a fair society.