August 5-7, 2024
The Steward School, Richmond 

 

 

This institute for new and experienced educators provides an opportunity to build your research-driven teaching toolkit and collaborate with VAIS peers as you prepare for the year ahead. We will engage in interactive sessions designed to build and update your pedagogical skills. All participants will join Dr. Ranjini JohnBull for a interactive workshop on inclusive and equitable teaching practices. New teachers will be oriented and equipped with the practices for thriving in the Virginia independent school context. Experienced teachers will update and hone their skills in authentic assessment, explore evolving constituent expectations, and contribute to thriving teacher collaboration. Quarterly virtual and in-person MeetUPs will follow, including the opportunity to reconnect at the VAIS Annual Conference on November 4, 2024. We encourage schools to send teams to this institute.

Join us to explore how to:

  • Elevate your expertise within the Virginia Independent School context
  • Cultivate a culture of belonging in your classroom 
  • Design and assess engaging mission-focused instruction
  • Navigate competing priorities effectively

WHO SHOULD ATTEND? 
New Teachers - New to Independent School Teachers - Experienced Teachers 

KEYNOTE: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy + NeuroEducation Practices = Equitable Classroom Environments
Dr. Ranjini M. JohnBull, Johns Hopkins University

How can we facilitate academic growth using culturally relevant neuroeducation strategies, engage students, provide inclusive spaces, and integrate 21st-century skills? These tasks can feel insurmountable. But you can do it! During this interactive session, you’ll learn how even small modifications to your current practices each day through culturally relevant neuroeducation strategies can help you feel more effective, create a warm and equitable learning environment, and boost students’ cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. 

 

SCHEDULE:

FOR VAIS MEMBERS ONLY

 

SPEAKER BIOS:

Dr. Ranjini Mahinda JohnBull serves as the faculty lead for the Mind, Brain, and Teaching program. Her work centers on improving the educational and life outcomes of traditionally disadvantaged students and children living in poverty through research on teacher beliefs and teacher practice. To that end, she focuses on teacher efficacy, the social contexts in which these beliefs change, and interventions that improve teaching efficacy and teacher practice. This work builds on the body of literature demonstrating that teacher efficacy influences student outcomes. Her research encompasses cultural competence and teacher efficacy studies, an IES-funded, arts-integration and memory study in Baltimore City, and professional development investigations of the Brain-Targeted Teaching model’s effects on teaching efficacy.

Prior to joining Mariale Hardiman’s research lab for a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship, she served as a music teacher in two St. Louis City charter schools, provided teacher training and microbusiness strategic development in Uganda with the U.S. Peace Corps, and coordinated the graduate-student assessment data collection for accreditation of the Education Leadership program at the University of Virginia.