Reminder...if you put a session into your schedule, this DOES NOT mean you are registered for this session and guaranteed a spot. It only means you are interested in that session during that time block and it will show up in your schedule. Please arrive with enough time before your session to find a spot, especially if you think the session will be popular. MHC does not permit us to go over capacity in classrooms and we are NOT able to move chairs/desks in from other rooms. Please respect the "This Session is Full" sign on the door if you see them displayed.
Please make sure to note if your session requires pre-registration, cash or is off campus!
We have finalized Friday 1:00pm - 2:00pm Keynote. Please watch social media for hints and clues on who it could be to WIN some FUN prizes!
Parking at the College is free to anyone, anytime. This means there is no need to register your car to park during convention. A reminder that there are limited spots so please carpool with others when possible. Also, please ensure you are parking in designated parking areas so you are not ticketed for being illegally parked! Plug in spaces will also be ticketed!
Of course the cafeteria will be open with a full menu! REMEMBER...MHC is CASHLESS!
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Message from ATA Conventions regarding inclement weather and safe travels...
“On the two school days of your assigned teachers’ convention, you have a legal and professional responsibility to attend Convention. If you are not able to make it safely to your assigned convention, however, your collective agreement may include impassable roads or inclement weather clauses that you can access. If your collective agreement does not include language specific to road conditions or weather, you may make use of the personal leave clauses of your agreement in most cases. Please be aware that using any of these types of leave may require you to pay substitute costs, forego a portion of your salary and benefits, or report to your school or another work location in your district. Refer to your collective agreement for more information. Should you require any additional information or if you need assistance interpreting your collective agreement, please contact Teacher Employment Services at 1-800-232-7208 or 780-447-9400.”
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Unlock the future of writing in your classroom with this innovative workshop. Imagine a space where AI isn't just a tool but a trusted writing partner, enhancing your students' creative processes without overshadowing their unique voices. In this session, you'll dive into cutting-edge activities that harness the power of AI resources like Chat GPT and AI imagery services. Together, we'll explore how these tools can sharpen descriptive language, generate rich literary devices, and expand our students’ knowledge and capabilities. Join in for a journey that combines technology and creativity, ensuring your students emerge as confident writers and thinkers in this technological era!
Krogstad is a spoken word poet and educator whose words have empowered students in dozens of cities across Western Canada and beyond. Outside of the classroom, she is a 2-time Canada Council for the Arts grant recipient, a Calgary Arts Development grant recipient, a 2016 national... Read More →
Thursday February 20, 2025 9:00am - 10:00am MST
S154299 College Dr SE, Medicine Hat, AB
As of late, there is a pervasive call in the English Language Arts classroom to reflect the diverse and intersectional lives of our students. As such, this session focuses on the vital role of diverse literature in approaching intersectionality, diversity, and social justice in the English Language Arts curriculum. It is crucial that we as educators create inclusive and equitable learning environments that reflect the diverse experiences and identities of our students. Integrating diverse literature can profoundly impact our students' understanding of various perspectives, foster empathy, and encourage critical thinking about social justice issues. Research shows that when provided with literature that reflects the diverse, intersectional, and critical lives of our very own students, and they are given a way to express this learning in diverse literacies, they thrive. Teaching diverse literacies is not only paramount for developing critical literacy, it gives students, teachers, and schools the tools to approach systemic marginalization, disrupting harmful histories and stereotypes. In this interactive session, we will delve into text recommendations and effective strategies for incorporating diverse literature into the English Language Arts curriculum.
Does your school library stock only the classics? Are funds unavailable to add newer titles to your class's whole-text study collection? A high school English teacher shares how she supplements the cannon with popular culture to help heighten engagement in her classroom.
Before we put pen to paper, there is so much planning and preparation. After the words are on the page, too, the creative process doesn’t have to stop. Brainstorming, outlining, character development, editing, and many other elements involved in the planning and tweaking of the work can be as important and - dare I say - enjoyable as the writing process itself. With tangible tools, tips, and activities to strengthen your students’ writing, this workshop will help them appreciate and master everything but writing.
Krogstad is a spoken word poet and educator whose words have empowered students in dozens of cities across Western Canada and beyond. Outside of the classroom, she is a 2-time Canada Council for the Arts grant recipient, a Calgary Arts Development grant recipient, a 2016 national... Read More →
Thursday February 20, 2025 10:30am - 11:30am MST
S154299 College Dr SE, Medicine Hat, AB
Join us to uncover the essential role of fluency, specifically prosody and phrasing, in developing secondary students’ reading abilities. Fluency is one academic key in developing older students’ reading and comprehension skills, and comprehension skills, and is often overlooked. This session will examine how to structure and plan for fluency practice through both ELA texts and within the content areas. We will talk about deep and wide reading and ways to structure fluency practice through the lens of differentiation to meet your classroom's wide range of needs. You will leave with strategies, tools, and practices to embed with your secondary students immediately.
While many students have the ability to create Pulitzer-worthy pieces, getting pen to paper can be somewhat of a challenge. Especially in youth, where inhibitions and insecurities are at an all-time high, putting ourselves out there creatively can be daunting. Using a series of prompts and games, however, this workshop will take some of the pressure off of the blank page. Giving students an “in” regardless of their abilities and interest, we will try some hands-on activities that will get the ink flowing from even your most reluctant writers!
Krogstad is a spoken word poet and educator whose words have empowered students in dozens of cities across Western Canada and beyond. Outside of the classroom, she is a 2-time Canada Council for the Arts grant recipient, a Calgary Arts Development grant recipient, a 2016 national... Read More →
Thursday February 20, 2025 1:00pm - 2:00pm MST
S154299 College Dr SE, Medicine Hat, AB
Join us for an overview of the Layers of Writing graphic! During this session, we will share the research pertaining to the layers, the principles that can guide how we structure our programs, and how the writing process can help situate writing instruction in a purposeful environment. If time permits, we will share simple, easy to implement, classroom practices that support writing instruction.
Transform your classroom into a haven for innovative writing with this hands-on workshop. Using an expanded toolkit of literary devices, your students will learn to think outside the box and produce writing that you and others will truly want to read. Dive into the world of defamiliarization, syllepsis, left turns, and twisted idioms, packed with playful activities and prompts. See for yourself how these techniques produce writing that is bright, funny, striking, and a delight to share with the whole room!
Krogstad is a spoken word poet and educator whose words have empowered students in dozens of cities across Western Canada and beyond. Outside of the classroom, she is a 2-time Canada Council for the Arts grant recipient, a Calgary Arts Development grant recipient, a 2016 national... Read More →
Thursday February 20, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm MST
S154299 College Dr SE, Medicine Hat, AB
Morphology is more present in the new Division 1 language arts curriculum. While it is easy to feel overwhelmed by adding one more thing to our existing instruction, morphology doesn’t have to be one of those things. Come and learn some short and easy ideas for weaving morphological instruction into your existing lessons with cross curricular connections.
Students require specialized skills to be able to cope with the demands of disciplinary text. As students move up in secondary grades, the language of the texts they engage with becomes more specialized and precise, and the language more academic. Academic vocabulary (often referred to as Tier 2 Academic Words) is problematic for students to master, as academic vocabulary can take on dramatically different meanings depending on the usage. As the knowledge students engage with becomes more formalized and complex, so too do the patterns of language that construct that knowledge. This session will take a look at patterns of language and some of the problems with academic vocabulary. Teachers will come away with practical and useful tools that students can use to visualize, organize and structure their thinking to improve their reading, writing and communicating across all subject areas.
Karena is a secondary literacy consultant who delivers high-level, high-energy professional learning sessions that help teachers leverage their own experiences to support student learning. Teachers attending her sessions will come away with tools and strategies that they can use immediately... Read More →
Friday February 21, 2025 9:00am - 10:00am MST
E149299 College Dr SE, Medicine Hat, AB
Simple games that can be used to develop or assess basic Language Arts and/or Math will be shared. We will be participating and learning by doing. I will share what I do in my classroom. Hopefully you will find the games useful and applicable.
Finding Nemo. How to Train Your Dragon. Apollo 13. There are big ideas and big moments in big movies: ideas that can pinpoint key instances of learning and transfer. We’ll examine these moments (and more) and bridge them into classroom learning. Teachers will learn about transfer theory and ways to use movies to explicitly teach for transfer of understanding. This session includes a support package of takeaways, teaching tips, and graphic organizers teachers can use in their classrooms.
Karena is a secondary literacy consultant who delivers high-level, high-energy professional learning sessions that help teachers leverage their own experiences to support student learning. Teachers attending her sessions will come away with tools and strategies that they can use immediately... Read More →
Friday February 21, 2025 10:30am - 11:30am MST
E149299 College Dr SE, Medicine Hat, AB
Did you know that experts like Joan Sedita (author of The Writing Rope) recommend spending 40% of writing instruction on the stage of rewriting and revision? In spite of its importance, this crucial step often gets the least amount of attention—largely because many students aren’t sure how to revise effectively or independently. In this session, we’ll dive into practical, easy-to-apply strategies to help your students approach the revision stage with more creativity and confidence. Using techniques from The Writing Revolution, such as sentence expansion, sentence combining, and adding appositives, you'll learn ways to make both drafting and revising more clear and engaging for your students. You’ll also discover strategies for fostering collaboration, helping students work together to improve each other’s writing. By the end of our session, you'll be equipped with specific feedback techniques and a toolkit of revision strategies to help your students confidently revise both their writing and the writing of their peers!
Optimal Learning Coach, Medicine Hat Public School Division
I have been teaching since 2009, with experience in elementary schools across Edmonton and Calgary, where I focused on supporting students with special needs and learning disabilities. In 2021, I joined MHPSD as an Optimal Learning Coach, where I have had the privilege of guiding... Read More →
Friday February 21, 2025 10:30am - 11:30am MST
S154299 College Dr SE, Medicine Hat, AB
How do you help enrich storytelling for beginning writers? Come and learn how to use Story Making in your classrooms. This is very specific to beginning writing.
The ability to read and summarize a text is an essential skill. A good summary needs to do more than pick out the big ideas and simplify the text. A good summary helps students to identify and analyze key points in the text and then relate those points to the overall structure of the text. Teaching summarization that is linked to text-structure improves both the quality of the written summaries and students’ overall comprehension of the text. Join Dr. Hartson to explore this powerful method of summarizing text. You’ll walk away with examples, graphic organizers, and materials you can use in your class tomorrow.
Karena is a secondary literacy consultant who delivers high-level, high-energy professional learning sessions that help teachers leverage their own experiences to support student learning. Teachers attending her sessions will come away with tools and strategies that they can use immediately... Read More →
Friday February 21, 2025 1:00pm - 2:00pm MST
E149299 College Dr SE, Medicine Hat, AB
