The Trailhead Keynotes

Access to the three keynote sessions and the association luncheons are included in the Trailhead registration package!

June 1, 3:30–5 p.m. | Opening Session


Dr. John Hattie

Collaborative Impact
What if you could triple the speed of student learning? According to findings by Professor John Hattie, a strong sense of Collective Teacher Efficacy can yield over three years of student growth over one school year. One of the most powerful influences on student learning and achievement, Collective Teacher Efficacy is the belief that, together, educators can positively impact learning. When efficacy is high, teachers show greater persistence and are more likely to try new teaching approaches—especially in virtual learning environments!

Bio
John Hattie, Ph.D., is an award-winning education researcher and best-selling author with nearly 30 years of experience examining what works best in student learning and achievement. His research, better known as Visible Learning, is a culmination of nearly 30 years synthesizing more than 1,500 meta-analyses comprising more than 90,000 studies involving over 300 million students around the world. He has presented and keynoted in over 350 international conferences and has received numerous recognitions for his contributions to education. His notable publications include Visible Learning, Visible Learning for Teachers, Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn, Visible Learning for Mathematics, Grades K–12, and, most recently, 10 Mindframes for Visible Learning.

June 28, 10–11:30 a.m.

Jeffrey James Binney

Smart Enough to Start, Dumb Enough not to Quit
Jeffrey will share the lessons of ultrarunning from his experiences to persevere and finish hard things. Leave inspired to stop procrastinating, "do the thing," and most importantly...cross the finish line.

Bio
After losing his mother to obesity caused heart disease, a thirty-two-year-old chubby ginger comedian and vegan son-of-a-pig-farmer sets out to avoid the same fate by running one of the world's most difficult 100-mile ultramarathons...and lives to tell jokes about it.

June 29, 8:30–10 a.m. | Closing Session

D.J. challenges the audience to see the good and not bad in others. He shares how his teacher, Donna Porter, could have looked at him as defiant, but instead, she viewed his situation as an opportunity for them both to learn and grow.

Determined, passionate, motivational! Dewayne “D.J.” Batiste has a story that touches millions of people on a scale from students, teachers, parents and more. D.J. has a passion for reaching out to kids on a level no one can reach them. He gives teachers a different outlook on how to interact and connect with students. D.J. states that he liked going to school because that was where everyone was during the day, and he could hang out with his friends and make trouble for teachers. D.J. barely had enough credits to be called a senior for the 2009-10 school year. By this time, D.J. was heavily into gang activities and minor drugs. He says he fully expected to attend graduation at the end of his senior year, but was sure it would be from the stands watching his class graduate. In early August – on the first day of school – D.J. was excited to be with his friends and see how he could rile up some teachers. When third period rolled around, D.J. saw he was going to class with a teacher he didn’t know, Oral Communication I with Ms. Donna Porter, so he decided that he was going to get a little attention. As he tells it now, the first 90 seconds of this class literally changed his life because of the way the teacher handled him when he entered class late.

Ms. Porter used the concepts of Conscious Discipline in her classroom, and D.J. became an integral part of that lesson. Over the year, D.J. learned new skills and strategies to handle conflict in life at home and in the classroom. About 6 months into the 2009-10 school year, Ms. Porter felt D.J. had turned a corner, and he graduated from Picayune Memorial High School in May 2010. D.J. asked Ms. Porter to walk him, arm-in-arm, into the graduation ceremony to receive his diploma.

D.J. and other students now accompany Ms. Porter and her colleague, Dr. Penny Wallin, to training activities in teaching positive classroom management. All who meet D.J. envision a future teacher, coach and principal who will use his life experiences – coupled with new knowledge and heart – to “pay it forward.” With all the encounters he has faced, he conquered all odds. He uses his life experiences to connect with kids around the world, giving them the chance to excel in life instead of throwing their lives away as he almost did.