Dr. Scott
Simpson
Learning Specialist
Before joining the TIE team as a Learning Specialist in 2008, Scott spent 6 years as a high school English, drama and speech teacher in Texas, Nebraska and Colorado, and taught 10 years as a full time English, theatre and language arts Education professor at York College (Nebraska), Black Hills State University, and Abilene Christian University. He holds an M.A. in English Curriculum and Instruction and a Ph.D. in English Creative Writing, both from the University of Nebraska– Lincoln. He also spent about 3 years as the Executive Director of a youth and family camp in the Rockies of Northern New Mexico. Scott is a published poet, writer, songwriter and indie music producer and does most of his best creating and thinking while hiking Black Hills trails with his wife Sheryl and their dogs Gandi, Ellie and Oscar.
Music website: www.ScottSimpsonMusic.com
Songwriting & Poetry podcast: Dancin' Moon Songcast
Direct Line: (605) 721-4296
Current Projects
Humanity: Human Shaped Learning (video podcast, see embed below)
Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings (South Dakota)
Candidate Support Provider, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (SD, ND, MT, WY)
Expertise
Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) Administrator
Culturally Responsive Teaching
Civil Discourse / South Dakota Humanities Scholar
Essential Understandings Development
Circle of Trust Facilitation
Video Interviewing
Videography / Documentary Film Development
Website Building & Maintenance
Language Arts / Writing Instruction
Music Composition / Production
Songwriting / Creative Writing
Relational Trust Building
Intrinsic Motivation
Character Education
Calendar of Work
2022
May 19-21: Turtle Mountain Team of Champions Seminar Day #5 - Belcourt, ND
May 16: Timberlake School District Cultural Awareness Presentation, Zoom
May 1-3: Lakota & Dakota Elder video interviews, Placerville Camp
April 29: IDM Lesson Planning training, McIntosh, SD
April 25-28: Classroom Coaching, Turtle Mountain Schools- Belcourt, ND
April 22: Wolakota Project Zoom Presentation for Oglala Lakota College
April 8: Turtle Mountain Team of Champions Seminar Day #4 - Belcourt, ND
April 6-7: NDSU, NDNAEU Faculty Training- Fargo, ND
April 4-5: TIE Conference Presentations - Sioux Falls, SD
March 30: Douglas Middle School OSEU Presentations - Box Elder, SD
March 22: Spring Creek Elementary Staff Retreat - Laramie, WY
March 18: Lone Man School Culture Teachers OSEU Support - Oglala, SD
March 11: Turtle Mountain Team of Champions Seminar Day #3 - Belcourt, ND
March 4: Lone Man School Culture Teachers OSEU Support - Oglala, SD
February 25: Turtle Mountain Team of Champions Seminar Day #2 - Belcourt, ND
February 18: Spearfish School District Professional Development Day Presentation - Spearfish, SD
February 9-11: JAG Retreat at Broom Tree Retreat Center, Irene, SD
January 21: Turtle Mountain Team of Champions Kick-off Seminar Day - Belcourt, ND
January 14: Timberlake School District Cultural Awareness Presentation, Zoom
January 3-6: Presenting The Champion Pathway at Hawaii International Conference on Education, Kona, HI
2021
December 12-17: Video Work with Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) Education Department, Laredo, TX
December 7-8: Work with Lone Man School Culture Teachers
November 13: Work with Lone Man School Culture Teachers
November 10: Virtual Imagi-Nation TV Alliance partner CEO episode
November 9: TIE Staff Intercultural Agility Presentation
October 29- NDSU Meetings
October 24-26: Retreat for SD JAG Teachers
October 6-8: Team of Champions initial meeting at Turtle Mountain
September 29: ND Learning Principles Presentation for Engineering Teachers in North Dakota
September 26-27: 2021 Wookiye Retreat & Training
September 20-22: ND Cognia Conference Presentation
September 18: Lindsay Unified School District Culturally Responsive Pathway Seminar Four
September 9: OSEU Training, CFS Division
September 3: Timberlake School District Cultural Awareness Presentation, Zoom
August 23- September 1: IDI Debriefs, Bismarck Team of Champions & CFS Division
August 15-16: McIntosh OSEU & Culturally Responsive Practices Training
August 11-13: Todd County District, OSEU & Culturally Responsive Practices Training
August 6: SD Joint Convention Breakout Champion Pathway Presentation, Sioux Falls, SD
August 5: Lindsay Unified School District Certificated Staff Keynote (virtual) Finding Our Fire
August 5: ND Administrators Conference Presentation, Bismarck, ND
August 2-3: Lindsay Unified School District Culturally Responsive Pathway Seminars Two & Three
July 27-29: Cultural Heritage Center Summer Institute
July 19-22: Lindsay Unified School District Leadership Summit, Oxnard, CA
July 15-16: ND Indian Education Summit Keynote Panel & Breakout on NEW ND Learning Principles
June 23 - July 9: IDI debriefs for Lindsay Unified School District & Bismarck Team of Champions
June 21-22: Team of Champions in Bismarck
June 18: Lindsay Unified School District Culturally Responsive Pathway Training Seminar One
June 16: NESC / UND Culturally Responsive Teaching Training for Engineering Teachers
June 15: Deadwood Principals Conference, Culturally Responsive Practices
June 4: ND Learning Principles Workgroup Meeting, Bismarck, ND
May 26: Todd County High School OSEU Training
May 25: Virtual NDNAEU FCW Spring Development with NDSU
May 20: In-person video interviews for ND Learning Principles
May 18: Virtual ND Learning Principles Workgroup Meeting
May 7: NDNAEU Overview with NDSU Faculty
May 7: Culturally Responsive Practices CFS Division of BHSSC
May 3: Virtual NDNAEU training, Minot, ND
April 23: Virtual Wolakota Project Overview, Oglala Lakota College
April 18: TIE Conference, Green Siblings Project Documentary Screening & Panel Discussion
April 14: In-person NDNAEU North Dakota Learning Principles Writing Gathering with Elders, Bismarck, ND
April 8: Culturally Responsive Practices & Lesson Development at St. Francis School
April 1: Culturally Responsive Practices with Rosebud Elementary
March 1: Virtual NDNAEU North Dakota Learning Principles Writing Gathering with Elders
March 1 through 26: IDI individual debriefs with TIE & EWD staff members
February 24: Virtual Green Siblings Project Film Screening & Panel, Arkansas Peace & Justice Memorial Movement (APJMM)
February 23: Virtual Organizational Intercultural Development Inventory debrief with Education & Workforce Development Division of BHSSC
February 20: Virtual Culturally Responsive Practice Studio with Lindsay Unified School District
February 18th: Virtual Organizational Intercultural Development Inventory debrief with Education & Workforce Development Division of BHSSC
February 12: Virtual OSEU Overview, St. Francis School
February 1: SDPB Interview about Green Siblings Project
2020
December 11: Virtual NDNAEU Training, Bismarck Public Schools
November 24: Virtual Presentation on OSEU for Tribal Education Directors
November 23: Rosebud Elementary OSEU Overview
October 26: Bismarck Team of Champions Meeting in Bismarck, ND
September 28: South Central HS NDNAEU Training in Bismarck, ND
September 21: ND Conference Presentation
September 8: NDCEL Presentation
August 24: Leading Together In-Service in Wall, SD
August 10: Virtual Presentation on ND NDNAEU Work at the South Dakota Indian Education Virtual Summit
August 6-7: Virtual Woókiye Teacher Mentor Training
August 6: Virtual Presentation for the ASBSD Joint Convention on Culturally Responsive Practices and Being Human
August 5: Virtual Presentation for the NDDPI School Administrators Conference
August 3: Virtual OSEU and Culturally Responsive Practices Presentation for the Summit School District
July 13-17: Virtual Work Week for the ND Team of Champions Striving Readers Grant
July 6: Virtual SDCTE Presentation on the OSEU and English Language Arts
June 30: Woókiye Teacher OSEU Course - Meeting 3
June 23: Woókiye Teacher OSEU Course - Meeting 2
June 16: Woókiye Teacher OSEU Course - Meeting 1
June 1: Bush Virtual Conference Presentation on North Dakota NDNAEU Work and Community Conversations
May 26: Team of Champions Virtual Gathering - Meeting 3
May 19: Team of Champions Virtual Gathering - Meeting 2
May 6: Team of Champions Virtual Gathering - Meeting 1
April 20: "Being Human" Keynote at the 2020 Virtual TIE Conference
March 2: National Board for Professional Teaching Standards webinar on Circles of Trust
Feb 29-Mar 2: BranchED AACTE Conference and Brain Trust gathering in Atlanta, GA
Feb 18: Culturally Responsive Practice & the NDNAEU Part 1, South Central HS, Bismarck, ND
Feb 14: Being Culturally Responsive ND State XCL Training, Bismarck, ND
Jan 17: Pine Ridge Schools, Leading Together, Handout Pine Ridge, SD
2019
Nov 1: Dunseith High School Presentation Handouts, Dunseith, ND
Oct 18: NDCEL Presentation Handouts, Bismarck, SD
Oct 17: North Dakota Studies Presentation Handouts, Bismarck, ND
Oct 11: NDNAEU Community Conversations on Teachings of Our Elders, Bismarck, SD
Oct 9-11: 2019 North Dakota Educators' Conference, Handouts Bismarck, ND
October 1: National Board Presentation at Pine Ridge School - BIE NBPTS Info Form
Sept 22-24: South Dakota Indian Education Summit, Handouts Pierre, SD
Sept 19: Turtle Mountain Community College, Handouts Belcourt, ND
Sept 13-15: National Board Leadership Retreat, Placerville Camp, SD
Sept 3: UTTC Tribal Leaders Conference, Bismarck, ND
August 21: Leading Together, Todd County Schools, Mission, SD
August 20: OSEU and Culturally Responsive Practices, Timber Lake, SD
August 13: Newtown, ND Inservice
August 7-8: Wyoming Native American Education Conference, Riverton, WY
July 11-12: NDNAEU: Creating a Culturally Responsive Learning Environment through Elder Wisdom, Handouts NDIES, Bismarck, ND
June 11-12: Meetings with Wyoming Tribal Leaders, Wind River Reservation, WY
June 10, 2019: Todd County Culturally Responsive Practice & the OSEU Training, Mission, SD
May 30 -June 1: WoLakota Project Mentoring Circle Summer Retreat, Placerville Camp, SD
May 15-17: Culturally Responsive NDNAEU Classroom Modeling,1st Grade & 4th Grade, Bismarck, ND
April 24, 2019: Grades 3-5 OSEU Training & Handouts, TIE, Rapid City, SD
April 9, 2019: TIE Conference, WoLakota Project & Culturally Responsive Practice, Rapid City
April 8, 2019: TIE Conference, Green Siblings Project Presentation, Rapid City, SD
April 7, 2019: South Park UCC, Green Siblings Project Presentation, Rapid City, SD
March 19, 2019: Wyoming Indian Education Professional Development Day, Lander, WY
February 26, 2019: Culture in the Classroom: Cultivating Traditional Knowledge in Education, Pierre, SD
February 19-20, 2019: Bismarck Schools, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the NDNAEU
February 7, 2019: Wyoming Education Department Meeting on Culturally Responsive Teaching & Essential Understandings
January 29, 2019: Indigenous Cultures & Perspectives Within the 4th Grade SD Standards training & Handouts
January 18, 2019: Cultural Reconnection Through Story Presentation at the SD State Penitentiary
2018
December 12: Culturally Responsive Classroom Practices & Indigenous Essential Understandings training & Handouts
December 3 & 5: Indigenous Cultures & Perspectives Within the 4th Grade SD Standards training & Handouts
November 20: TIE Staff Meeting Equity in Learning? Presentation and Handouts
November 7-9: Wyoming Innovations in Learning Conference in Evanston, WY
October 25-26: North Dakota School Boards Association Annual Convention in Bismarck, ND
October 19: North Dakota Studies Conference in Bismarck
October 18: Systems Change in Sioux Falls, SD
October 9-13: National Indian Education Association Conference in Connecticut
September 23-25: OSEU Training at SD Indian Education Summit, Pierre, SD
September 12-13: NDNAEU Overview at Turtle Mountain Community College in ND
September 4-6: United Tribes Technical Institute Tribal Leaders Conference, Bismarck, ND
August 16 NDNAEU & Culturally Responsive Teaching Training, Parshall, ND
August 13-15 DOE OSEU & SD 4th Grade Lessons Development Team, Rapid City, SD
August 9-10 Leading Together Presentation at Joint Convention, Sioux Falls, SD
August 9-10 Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings Presentation at Joint Convention, Sioux Falls, SD
August 6-8 Standing Rock Wawokiya Mentor Training, Sitting Bull College, Fort Yates, ND
August 2 NDNAEU Presentation at ND Administrators Workshop, Bismarck, ND
August 1 Video Interviewing ND Elders Bismarck, ND
July 19 SD Department of Labor Cultural Training, Sioux Falls, SD
July 12-13 ND Indian Education Summit, Bismarck, ND
July 10-11 NDNAEU Regional Training, Bismarck, ND
June 1-3 Summer WoLakota Project Retreat, Placerville Camp in the Black Hills
Important Web Links:
Recent Presentations:
Keynote Presentation Descriptions:
Leading Together® Keynote
Dr. Scott Simpson & Sharla Steever,
TIE Learning Specialists, Courage & Renewal® Facilitators
The Leading Together program is an offering of the Center for Courage & Renewal designed to build adult community in schools. The program is grounded in research and closely aligned with Social Emotional Learning and Relational Trust constructs. Leading Together is designed to strengthen the relationships between principals and teacher leaders to facilitate positive, trusting relationships between adults in the school community. It’s about reclaiming the heart of your school community, which ultimately drives your desired results forward.
Leading Together prepares school leadership teams to build relational trust in their own adult community by:
· cultivating self-awareness
· building relationships
· fostering teamwork and shared leadership
· strengthening capacity to listen and be fully present in teaching, leading, and relationships
· sharpening ability to focus and maintain attention
· addressing conflict constructively
· reconnecting with what originally inspired us to become educators
This motivational and interactive presentation will engage participants in a sampling of the experiences that Leading Together® has to offer. It will leave participants with a deep awareness of the importance of relational trust development among adults in the school environment.
Culturally Responsive Teaching & Learning Keynote
Dr. Scott Simpson & Sharla Steever,
TIE Learning Specialists, WoLakota Project Developers & Directors
Drawing upon more than six years of WoLakota Project experience with Native American education in North and South Dakota, this presentation addresses some of the tougher issues surrounding Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) in any setting. Elements addressed include:
· Dealing with implicit bias in ourselves and structural bias in our curriculum and schools
· The elements necessary for implementing CRT
o Socio-Cultural Consciousness
o High Expectations
o Desire to Make a Difference
o Constructivist Approaches
o Deep Knowledge of Students
o Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices
This motivational and interactive presentation will engage participants in examining their own biases and teaching/learning environments. It will include activities drawn from WoLakota Project practices within schools with high Native American populations and will leave participants encouraged to explore how CRT might look within their own school environments.
The Reflective Educator Keynote
Dr. Scott Simpson & Sharla Steever,
TIE Learning Specialists, Courage & Renewal® Facilitators
“Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique but is rooted in the identity and integrity of the teacher. Good teachers are authentically present in the classroom and are able to weave a complex web of connections between themselves, their subjects, and their students, helping their students weave a world for themselves.” – Parker Palmer
In a time when stress and pressure on elementary, middle and high school teachers in public, private and charter schools continues to rise because of internal and external demands, Courage to Teach® provides educators an opportunity for rest, renewal, and re-engagement with their identity and integrity as teachers. This motivational and interactive presentation will engage participants in a sampling of the experiences that Courage to Teach® has to offer. It will leave participants with a heightened sense of personal and professional renewal, readiness to return to work refreshed and energized.
Guided by Essential Understandings Keynote
Dr. Scott Simpson & Sharla Steever,
TIE Learning Specialists, WoLakota Project Developers & Directors
“Opening yourself to another worldview will assist you in understanding what occurs both in and outside of native communities.” –Lakota Elder Dottie LeBeau
Essential Understandings are a way of expressing to the world what is “essential” to understand another’s culture, written by the people who live that culture. In South Dakota and North Dakota, the state Education Departments invited elders from the tribes living within the states to write what they felt was most important for people – Native and non-Native – to know and understand about their culture and language. The documents, “Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings” and the “North Dakota Native American Essential Understandings” offer the people of each state an anchor to the wisdom, knowledge and beauty of the people who have lived in this place the longest. Dr. Scott Simpson and Sharla Steever have lead this work in both states for the past six years, and offer a unique insight into the importance of listening to our elders and moving forward in education guided by that wisdom.
Why Focus Our Attention on the Essential Understandings?
1. So that the people of a geographical area (via their elders) will understand their definitions of themselves, something that has not been the case, historically. Non-native definitions and ways of being in regions of the world have been diminished because of a history of non-listening. Native definitions and ways of being have been stifled through the silencing of historic oppression, separation and targeted, forced assimilation.
2. To open up a deeper understanding of the natural environment of a region by listening closely to the experiences and stories of those who have been there longest, and whose traditional culture and way of life were shaped by and within this environment.
3. Essential Understandings are a beginning place to which all of us, native and non-native, can bring our full selves around the circle (placing doing in service to Being) so that the algorithm of our interacting can expand understanding rather than diminishing it.
4. The process of coming to understand my neighbor is interwoven with the process of coming to understand myself.
This informational and experiential presentation will offer participants an opportunity to reflect on the value of using Essential Understandings to guide learning as well as to consider writing them in places where they have not yet been established.