Breakout #1

 Jon Bassett 

Gary Shiffman

We often tell students that learning history helps them to understand the world today, but most of us rarely make that connection explicit in our classes. In this workshop, attendees will practice 4QM techniques for helping students to move from a specific historical story to creating more general hypotheses about how the world works, using the tools of social science to answer Question Three, explaining why things happen when and where they do. 

Renee Blackmond

Patience LeBlanc

Explore how Law-Related Education uses interactive, hands-on resources to help learners sort, categorize, and engage deeply with content. Our approach creates opportunities for students to practice the critical thinking and analytical skills emphasized in the new STAAR assessment items. With our newly designed Thinking Pages, students gain targeted, skill-building practice throughout history units, fostering deeper comprehension and retention. 

Dr. Paola Vasquez 

and 

Judith Solis

Join us for an empowering professional development session designed to equip educators with the tools to create inclusive, responsive learning environments. In this workshop, Building Inclusive Classrooms: Making the Change with UDL and TEKS RS, we will explore how Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles align with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills Resource System (TEKS RS) to enhance accessibility and student engagement across diverse learning needs.

Lillian Frazier

Discover innovative strategies for blending Reading Language Arts (RLA) with Social Studies by leveraging the science of reading to enhance comprehension and critical thinking. In this session, you'll explore how decoding historical texts, analyzing primary sources, and engaging in inquiry-based discussions can strengthen literacy skills while deepening students' understanding of historical events. Learn practical techniques and instructional tools that support reading fluency, vocabulary development, and content retention, empowering secondary students to excel across disciplines.

Dr. Brad Cartwright

Empower your Dual Credit and Advanced Placement students by developing their disciplinary literacy skills to succeed in rigorous social studies coursework. This session offers strategies to engage students in reading, writing, and thinking as historians, geographers, economists, and political scientists. Discover practical methods for teaching source analysis, contextualizing, argumentation, spatial reasoning, and evaluation of interpretations tailored to advanced learners. Access ready-to-use resources to boost student comprehension and performance. Join us to enhance your instructional practices and deepen students' grasp of social studies concepts through discipline-specific literacy.

Dr. Nick Cachanosky

This workshop presents the principles of personal financial literacy for both, short-term and long-term savings and financial health for any income level. The module also provides best practices for maintaining financial health as students transition from high school to college and start their professional careers.