In Building Thinking Classrooms, what students think about is as important as how they think. This workshop illustrates how Justice-Centered Ambitious Science Teaching (JuST) can serve as a powerful companion to BTC by anchoring learning in intellectually demanding, justice-centered phenomena that cultivates deep reasoning, collaboration, and equitable participation. Drawing from the work of Morales-Doyle (2017), Philip & Acevedo (2017), and Luehmann et al. (2024) we frame justice-centered science instruction as a means of expanding whose knowledge counts, whose experiences matter, and whose questions shape the investigation. These scholars emphasize that equitable science learning must position students, especially those historically marginalized in STEM, as sensemakers navigating problems in their communities. This workshop will demonstrate how such justice-centered phenomena fuel the cognitive demand central to BTC and create inclusive spaces for students’ ideas to drive instruction. We will share the journey of our high school science department that partnered with university faculty, administrators, and community organizations to transform instruction by incorporating local, justice-centered data into inquiry-driven lessons over the past 5 years. Our work honors key BTC principles, such as visibly random groups, thinking tasks, and teacher moves that support student autonomy. We use iterative modeling, where students generate, revise, and revisit scientific models over time. These models allow students to externalize their thinking, track changes in understanding, and engage in public reasoning while still maintaining flexibility and intellectual risk-taking.Participants will engage in a justice-centered science task: interpret local data, construct initial models, revise thinking collaboratively, and examine authentic classroom artifacts. Through this, they will experience firsthand how justice-centered phenomena create the need for disciplinary knowledge and how BTC structures amplify student voice and participation within that work.This workshop highlights how instructional practices and partnership systems intersect to create an approach to building more equitable, intellectually challenging science classrooms. Participants will leave with concrete tools to adapt JuST and BTC principles to their own context.Participants will leave this session with a clear understanding of the following:How integrating justice-centered phenomena serves as a powerful catalyst for creating intellectually challenging tasks that demand thinking from every student.How thoughtfully adapted BTC structures can support justice-centered ambitious teaching in science and other disciplines.Practical strategies for cultivating meaningful, multi-level collaborations (educator, administrator, university, community) to build the systemic capacity for sustained, equity-focused instructional improvement.
How do we build a sustainable learning community that truly supports teacher collaboration and the implementation of BTC practices across grade levels and content areas? In this interactive session, participants will experience our approach to facilitating a collaborative learning community designed to move BTC from initiative to sustained practice. We will share key structures, facilitation strategies, and lessons learned from our implementation journey. Participants will engage in team-based planning to identify actionable next steps for building or refining a learning community in their own districts that promotes meaningful collaboration and long-term professional growth for all teachers.
Participants will learn about the low-lift high-leverage BTC practices that were implemented in Biology and Chemistry classrooms over the course of one school year. Science classrooms naturally lend themselves to sparking curiosities, experimentation, and shared ideas. It seemed only natural to leverage an existing learning structure and work towards building true thinking classrooms.
Session Abstract: We tell students that learning happens when we think, yet we force teachers into sit-and-get PD that evaporates within 48 hours. It’s time to de-front the faculty meeting/professional learning sessions. In this active session, Instructional Coaches and Leaders will experience the Vertical Menu. A framework that combines Vertical Non-Permanent Surfaces (VNPS) with the science of Spaced Retrieval. You will learn to replace slide decks with Vertical Choice Menus that allow staff to self-select their learning pathway (differentiation) while engaging in active recall protocols that guarantee the learning sticks long after the session ends. By the end of this session, participants will:Experience the Vertical Menu: Participate in a differentiated professional learning simulation using VNPS to solve problems relevant to their specific professional mindset.Master 3 Retrieval Protocols: Learn three distinct, low-prep routines (Flashback 2, Brain Dump, Trojan Horse) to ensure previous PD content is constantly reactivated and retained.Design for Adult Retention: Walk away with a digital coaching starter pack that converts passive presentations into active, vertical retention tasks.
