Insights Alberta – Presentation Overview

In 2018 Dr. Willms developed ‘Educational Prosperity’, a framework focused on the evaluation, monitoring, and action that can be taken by schools and school districts to ensure all children have an opportunity to thrive. The framework embraces a life-course approach to child development that sets out a core set of metrics relevant to children’s growth, literacy development, achievement, and well-being at six stages of development. During this session, Dr. Willms will summarize some of the research findings over the past five years in using the framework in Canadian schools. He will share lessons learned and present  the impact of leadership development on educator capacity, student achievement, and staff and student well-being.

Join an interactive session exploring considerations of leadership of data use across a complex system. Identify key structures and processes needed as we consider the assumptions we make about the data to create possibility and drive action focused on student success.

In this session, participants will explore the value of intentionally focusing time and attention on instructional leadership. The struggle is real… finding time to do everything as a division or school leader is challenging; however, leaders who create the necessary focus on instruction positively impact student learning.  Learn and reflect on strategies to support the shift from management to instructional leadership as part of your personal leadership journey. Gain insight in how to create opportunities to use evidence to inform next steps as you lead school improvement.

Using data to drive school improvement and inform practice is a key focus for Jonathan Kaiswatum (Piapot First Nation). As the Director of Education for Tsuut’ina Nation, he has experienced some unique opportunities while utilizing data-driven approaches to support the needs of students, educators, staff, and families. Hear Jonathan discuss how he, and the leadership team are now using data to create educational sustainability within Tsuut’ina Nation schools.

Join Andrea as she discusses the leadership practices that she put in place in a K-9 school to support the use of local school measures to improve student success. She will share how the focused work of using student and teacher voice, alongside leader perception data helped to break old habits in data collection and invite a more collaborative approach to telling a school’s improvement story. This session will focus on the leadership actions taken to identify and improve specific targeted areas by using a more equitable structure.

Neil is a former principal of Lakeview School in M’Chigeeng First Nation and award-winner of the Meritorious Service Medal by the Governor General of Canada. Hear how he bridged the gap in early literacy and opened up the world of possibility for his students by putting data back into the hands of educators, empowering them with the knowledge, skills, assessment tools, and resources to reach more children effectively.