MEET THE SPEAKERS

Weston Kieschnick

The Educator’s ATLAS: Your roadmap to engagement

Keynote Description:
Based on the critically acclaimed book The Educator’s ATLAS, this session offers a groundbreaking roadmap for capturing student engagement in the first moments of class, and sustaining it all the way to the last. In keeping with Weston Kieschnick’s mission and vision for education, ATLAS holds both learner needs and teacher wisdom in equal importance. Central to this is alignment and clarification of student engagement that—once and for all—offers teachers an actionable role. Educators will leave this session joyfully inspired, motivated, and with a plan in hand for cultivating curiosity, creating participatory classrooms, and nurturing a desire to persevere in all students. And as is always the case with Kieschnick’s keynotes, participants will laugh and have a lot of fun along the way.

Weston’s Bio:
Weston Kieschnick is an award-winning educator, best-selling author, TEDx speaker, coach, husband, and father. He is the author of The Educator’s ATLAS, Bold School, Breaking Bold, co-author of The Learning Transformation: A Guide to Blended Learning for Administrators and the creator and host of Teaching Keating, one of the most downloaded podcasts for educators and parents on iTunes. 

Johnathon Hines

Relationship Matters

Keynote Description:
Finding ways to connect is essential to building a relationship in the classroom, but human connection must often be paired with establishing trust.  Trust is hard to develop and very easily broken.  It requires a delicate balance of setting and meeting each other’s expectations.  With over a decade of experience in education, Johnathon has learned how to establish trust, not only with students, but also with parents and guardians, school leaders, and other members of the education community.  Through scenes from his classroom, learn practical ways you can establish trust over time by being consistent, establishing clear lines of communication, and listening to the thoughts and concerns of all parties, including the youngest learners.

Johnathon’s Bio:
In honor of his extraordinary work and impact in the field of education, Johnathon Hines recently made history as the first African-American male to be named Public School Pre-K Teacher of the Year for the entire State of Georgia. He was honored to be chosen for this recognition and is using his platform to inspire other men to work in early education. Hear his everyday hero story and how you can change the world one child at a time!

Angela C. French

Math, and Reading, and Social-Emotional Learning! Oh my! Cross-Curricular Crafts for the Classroom

Session Description (Make & Take):
Follow your yellow brick road and let this session take you across the curriculum with items and ideas that will help you get the most out of every lesson or learning activity. Make the ordinary, extraordinary! Take everyday craft supplies and transform them into magical classroom tools. There will be no place like your classroom when your munchkins interact with these engaging, educational hands-on activities.

This session is co-presented with Carrie Aitkenhead.

Angela’s Bio:
Angela French is the Senior Product Development and Content Manager at Excelligence Learning Corporation for the brands Discount School Supply, Really Good Stuff, and Steve Spangler Science. She plays a vital role in bringing hundreds of proprietary new products to the marketplace each year. Angela leads a team of teacher product developers that create products in several categories including curriculum, classroom management, social-emotional learning, storage, and furniture; to name a few. She is an award-winning product developer, children’s book author, and national speaker.

Prior to joining the Excelligence family, Angela was a classroom teacher for 14 years and has taught regular education, inclusion, literacy intervention, and gifted and talented classes. She holds an AS in Education, a BS in Interdisciplinary Studies, and a MS in Early Childhood Education from Old Dominion University in Virginia.

Angela loves to travel and spend time with her husband and daughter. She is a US Navy Veteran and former professional photographer.

Axinia Zepeda

Creating a Safe and Caring Environment from the Administration Level

Session Description:
Join Axinia in learning ways to create a safe and caring environment that fosters mental health and academic success at the school level, even during the school year. Participants will have a chance to see visuals and examples of how they can help create a safe environment school-wide to help support Systems and Routines at school as well as learn how to incorporate a Brain Smart Start with their staff.

Axinia’s Bio:
Ms. Axinia Zepeda is a product of public education in Houston ISD, having attended River Oaks Elementary, Clifton Middle School and The High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. Axinia received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston- Downtown in Interdisciplinary Studies of Education, with a Minor in Psychology. She also completed her Master of Education in Educational Administration at Houston Baptist University. Currently, she is pursuing a doctoral degree of Education in Executive Educational Leadership with Houston Baptist University.

Ms. Zepeda has had experience working with children in all facets from the YMCA after school program, YMCA Day Camp, with the Even Start Program at Houston ISD’s Crawford Elementary to her current position with Houston ISD. She truly loves working with children of all ages and has a strong passion for working with Early Childhood students. Ms. Zepeda was a Prekindergarten teacher at Farias Early Childhood Center with Houston ISD as well as a Teacher Specialist for PK-2nd Grade at James Berry Elementary and Fonwood Early Childhood Center and currently serves as an Assistant Principal at Durham Elementary. Another passion of Ms. Zepeda’s is to be able to help transform a school culture and climate through the use of Conscious Discipline. She feels that we encounter many students who need to be taught not just academic skills but social and emotional skills as well. She also feels it is VITAL for a child to get a GOOD foundation in their education in order to be successful in the rest of their educational experiences. She has high expectations of all children, teachers and leaders. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, small arts and crafts and enjoying the outdoors. As she works to complete her doctoral work at Houston Baptist University, she looks forward to working with educators to improve instruction for all children. If you would like more information on Ms. Zepeda, visit her website at www.axiniazepedaportfolio.weebly.com

Christi Gonzales

There's No Place Like Home When Using H.O.T.S !

Session Description:
Do you have the H.O.T.S. for Nursery Rhymes? Let’s fill our students’ minds with great Higher Order Thinking questions that can measure learning and actively engage our students while learning Nursery Rhymes and stories. In Early Childhood, many teachers utilize yes/no questions; however, answers to those questions cannot be measured to observe if learning is taking place. Let’s raise the standards for our students by engaging them in effective communication by increasing their vocabulary and creativity and to nurture and foster their environment that’s conducive for comprehension and retention.

Christi’s Bio:
Christi Gonzales is an accomplished Early Interventionist and Title -1 Pre-K / SPED & High School Sped Teacher with 28 years of experience and a Louisiana Pathways Approved Trainer. In 2016-2017, Christi received the Louisiana Council for Exceptional Children’s Special Education Teacher of the Year Award. Presently she serves on the La. Governor’s Developmental Disabilities Council and the La. Dept. of Education’s Special Advisory Panel as an advocate for children. Christi served as Louisiana’s Early Childhood Association State Board District 4 representative for the past 15 years and during that time authored various articles for the LAECA Collaborations Journal. She is active in Delta Kappa Gamma Teacher’s Society as the 1st Vice President. Currently, she is the Sponsor of Interact, Octagon, and Key Clubs (Community Service Clubs), Sponsor of the Class of 2023, and started the 1st Student Organ Donor Advocates Club (SODA) in the state of Louisiana at New Iberia Senior High School. She is also the founder of a new non-profit organization, “New Iberia Autism Crew.” The organization advocates, fundraises, and spreads awareness of Autism in Iberia Parish to assist students, families, and educators.

Debbie Clement

The ARTS Turn STEM into STEAM!

Session Description:
Use the ARTS to put the STEAM into your STEM explorations. Join nationally award-winning Author/Illustrator Debbie Clement as she shares her uniquely STEM-driven songs and dances and then takes them one step further by infusing them with an Art-rich response! Sing your way into Science and use Technology to expand your classroom. Sticky notes are turned into an exercise in Engineering while Math will be explored through the inherent patterns within Music! Weave a STEAM approach into every day. “See the world through STEAM-colored glasses.” “Mighty Wings” (Monarch butterflies) makes its Frog Street DEBUT!

Debbie’s Bio:
Debbie Clement has over 25 years of experience as a “music-lady,” having written and recorded over 100 original songs for children. She is the author/illustrator of four traditional picture books based on her songs. She’s given three national keynotes. Debbie is changing the world one song at a time.

Esmeralda Aguirre

Pre-Coding: Computational Thinking in the Early Childhood Classroom

Session Description:
In the same way there are pre-reading and pre-writing skills, there are foundational skills that help students develop coding abilities before they program a robot or even code on a screen. We will go through a series of short Computational Thinking activities in which students as young as Pre-Kindergarten age develop a truer sense of what coding is about, broadening their perspective as they become not only technology users but technology innovators.

Esmeralda’s Bio:
Born in Mexico, Esmeralda Aguirre grew up between her mother’s bakery/convenience store and her father’s art studio/workshop, where applied learning was always present. In her mother’s convenience store she gained a passion for mathematics through real-life experiences such as weighing produce, memorizing prices (as there were no scanners back then), knowing how much to charge and how much change to give—activities that were always games to her.

In 2006 Esmeralda and her husband Omar, who is a software developer, moved to Dallas, where she started working for DISD as a Pre-K teacher. Through the years, she has taught PK-2nd grade and Gifted and Talented. She was later invited to present summer trainings for the Early Childhood Department and a few months later interviewed for a position as a Pre-K Instructional Specialist. In this position, she had the opportunity to gain a plateau of knowledge from teachers, students, co-workers, workshops, and conferences.

For one of her husband’s master’s classes from the Georgia Institute of Technology, they developed a program to teach pre-coding skills to 4-year-olds in urban classrooms. These activities were tested in some Pre-K and SPED classrooms in DISD with great results.

A year ago, Esmeralda and Omar made the decision to move to Tucson, AZ so they could be closer to their family in Mexico as well as their goddaughter Rebecca who is four and in her first year of school. Esmeralda is always on the lookout for new information that can be applied in the Pre-K classroom and has now turned her sights to computer science where she believes students can excel academically if they are taught Computational Thinking Skills.

Ginger Galban

Every Interaction Counts in Early Childhood Education: A New Window into the Daylong Language Experience of Young Children

Session Description:
The link between educator-child interactions and quality care is well-established. In this session, we will explore an unprecedented dataset of more than 24,000 daylong audio recordings to answer two very important questions about quality in early childhood education: What is the current state of teacher-child interaction in early childhood education, and why does it matter?

Participants will be able to:
(1) explain what a conversational turn is and how it impacts brain development and later life outcomes.
(2) build awareness about the state of educator-child interactions in early childhood settings.
(3) further conceptual knowledge on conversational turns and how they relate to quality early learning experiences and children’s later life outcomes.
(4) reflect on how this research and data apply to their own communities and their own practices and identify concrete ways that they can increase interaction in early care settings.

Ginger’s Bio:
Ginger Galban is LENA’s Regional Partnership Director for the central region. She is passionate about supporting educators, children, families, and communities to help promote positive outcomes. She has worked in early childhood education and the publishing industry during her more than ten years of expertise in early childhood studies. Ginger has worked with community leaders, school district leaders, non-profits, head starts, and teachers to close opportunity gaps one community at a time.

Ginger received her B.S. in psychology at Tarleton State University. She also has her master’s degree in communications. She was born and raised in the Lone Star State, and you can find her at home in Cleburne, Texas, right now. In her leisure time, she enjoys assisting young people in caring for their goats and lambs, spending time with family, and traveling.

Kassi Kincaid

Love of Literacy

Session Description:
This training will inspire a love of literacy in children by equipping early childhood educators and parents with the tools to bring classic children’s books to life through an event called Book Days: an event combining a theatrical experience with themed activities. The characters and plots are lifted off the pages and create physical elements that the children experience through multiple senses.

Kassi’s Bio:
Kassi Kincaid is the founder and program director of Book Days—a children’s literacy program focused on bringing books to life to encourage a love of reading in children. Fueled by her love of children’s literature, she brings books to life through theatrical performances and a variety of multisensory activities to encourage repetition and enlargement. In March 2019, Book Days got published in the peer-reviewed educational journal Early Years, the first of several publications to follow. In July 2020, Kassi launched a new sector of Book Days through a YouTube channel that pairs children’s books with real-world experiences. Over the years, the program has received recognition from corporations such as Whole Foods, Flex, and SeaWorld. In addition, as a Texas Registered Trainer, Kassi speaks at conferences all over the country, teaching early childhood educators how to do Book Days in their own classrooms.

Leslie Coleman

Investing in New Employees: Building Quality Teams through Quality Time

Session Description:
Effective employee orientation is essential to any program’s success. Discover creative ways to enhance your program’s new employee orientation and onboarding procedures by focusing on the quality of the time spent with newly hired employees. This working session will allow participants time to reflect on current practices, network with colleagues, and redesign elements of their orientation plans.

Leslie’s Bio:
Leslie Coleman has been working with early childhood educators as a trainer and coach for over 20 years. She began her career in the classroom and then moved onto positions ranging from early intervention specialist, training content developer, and adjunct faculty member.

Lisa Maddox-Vinson

Leadership Lessons from Children’s Books

Session Description:
Come enjoy this journey that teaches lessons we all need to learn! Early reading ignites creativity, sparks curiosity, and stimulates the imagination of young children. This often leads to role-play as children grow, which helps develop other skills such as empathy, problem-solving, and morality.

Lisa’s Bio
Lisa Maddox-Vinson is very passionate about Early Childhood Education. For over 15 years, she was the Children’s Library Director for the LaVergne Public Library, ranked 5th in the nation for its children’s programs. Lisa was an Instructor at Austin Peay State University teaching Early Childhood. Lisa now works for Tennessee State University as the state’s Early Childhood Leadership Coordinator. Lisa presents at many national, state, and local conferences across America. Lisa has served and serves on several Early Childhood Advisory Boards. She is also the creator of the award-winning recording “Snap, Clap, Wiggle and Giggle.”

Lyndsey Jackson

Data-Driven Decisions in Early Childhood Classrooms: Support & Practice to Develop Lifelong Learners

Session Description:
Early childhood classrooms are the first step in our youngest learners’ educational journey. Developmentally appropriate practices and effective instruction determine a student’s learning trajectory. Early learning experiences also offer a plethora of data points on an individual learner’s learning style and personality and serve as the perfect intervention opportunity for our learners with diverse needs.

This session is designed to explore, examine and investigate the impact of data-driven decisions in early learning settings. We will identify collection opportunities and practices for data analysis. With foundational understanding, we will discuss current practices and the impact of utilizing student data to affect everyday instruction to impact student learning. We will share district practices that we currently employ in order to individualize student learning, provide student intervention and provide teacher development in our large district.

Lyndsey’s Bio:
Lyndsey J. Jackson, MSDE is a native of New Orleans, La. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Education of the Deaf from the University of Southern Mississippi (2007). She went on to receive her Master of Science in Deaf Education from Washington University in St. Louis, School of Medicine (2009). Educating young children with hearing loss is truly her passion and life’s work. For 12 years, Lyndsey was a preschool teacher of the deaf in the birth to 5 populations in the greater New Orleans area. Lyndsey currently serves as the Coordinator of Pre-K Instruction for Jefferson Parish Schools, where she is able to share her passion for early childhood education with over 170 Pre-K classrooms across the largest school district in Louisiana. In addition, Lyndsey is a teacher representative on the Louisiana Special Education Advisory Panel and serves on the Frog Street Press External Advisory Council. Lyndsey lives in New Orleans with her husband, Jedidiah.

Maria Zepeda

Juego Guiado - Centros de aprendizaje

Session Description:
This session will be presented in Spanish, and it will focus on how to implement guided centers and workstations. This includes a dramatic play center, which gives students an opportunity to continue learning through play based on research conducted by Frog Street and intentional teacher practices in the classroom.

Esta sesión será presentada en español y se enfocará en como implementar centros de trabajo guiados, incluyendo el juego dramático, para que los estudiantes continúen aprendiendo mediante el juego basándose en estudios llevados a cabo por FrogStreet y prácticas intencionales de docentes en el aula.

Maria’s Bio:
Mrs. Maria Axinia Zepeda was born and raised in El Salvador. Mrs. Zepeda received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston-Downtown in Science. She also completed her Master of Education from Saint Thomas University in Houston.

Mrs. Zepeda has 35 years of experience in education with 18 years as a bilingual teacher. She has served students in different classroom settings and in different grade levels, from PreK through 4th grade.

Mrs. Zepeda started her career teaching PreK. After exploring other grade levels, she went back to the “basics” where education is elementary and the “basics” are essential for success.

On a personal note, Mrs. Zepeda has been married for over 40 years and has two adult children. She also has three incredible grandchildren.

Mary Jo Huff

Storytellin' Time

Session #1: Storytellin’ Time
Storytelling, story-making, story writing, props, music, and puppets create a logical connection for children. Add storyboards as visual literacy and invite children to be part of the world of words. Learn how to present on a storyboard with easy to make and use characters. Add a puppet on your hand, in your pocket, or create a puppet house, and you will challenge the imagination of all children. Mary Jo’s favorite new picture books are ready to be shared, along with activities to complement the adventure.

Session #2: The Nature Connection: Through the Eyes of a Child
Toddlers to school-age children will benefit from the connections with Stem, Steam, & Stream—introducing the attendees to the world of Mother Nature through the eyes of a child. New books, music, storyboard, and nature will be the focus of this presentation. It will develop imagination, creativity, critical thinking, and science and math skills. Technology in the world of ECE will be explored. The arts interact with children’s lives daily and reading is one of the most important gifts we can share with young children. BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS that explore the world of nature will be introduced and shared.

Mary Jo’s Bio:
Mary Jo Huff is a storyteller, author, song writer and Early Childhood educator. Her work has received a NAPPA gold, iParenting, Parent’s Choice, Dove, Teacher’s Choice, Kid’s First awards, and Mom’s Choice and “Storytelling for Kids!” was awarded CD of the year by Creative Child Magazine. Mary Jo travels nationally doing workshops with teachers and librarians. Her school visits for children Pre-K to 5th grade are always filled with language, puppets and music. She has been published by Frog Street, Gryphon House, and Monday Morning along with many magazine articles for national publications.

Prerna Richards

Somewhere over the rainbow: Raising children to be smart, confident and kind

Session #1: 5 Strategies for Shifting from Compliance to Connections
Many preschools are seeing an increase in challenging behaviors in their programs leading to disrupted academic learning and a high staff turnover. Many teachers are struggling with pushback and defiance from the students and feeling overwhelmed. In this session, I will share 5 effective, simple, and practical strategies to turn things around! We will discuss the differences between being relationship vs. supervision based, the importance of introducing social-emotional vocabulary, and providing opportunities for students to master lifelong skills such as self-control, impulse control, and self-regulation to improve focus, attention, and increased cognitive development.

Session #2: Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Raising Children to be Smart, Confident, and Kind
We all want to raise children who are confident, successful, compassionate, kind, creative, calm, imaginative, problem solvers and the list can go on, but how do we get there? Why are some children thriving and exhibiting qualities like resilience, persistence, and tenacity, and others barely surviving? Believe it or not, a lot has to do with the social-emotional foundation laid during the early years of life. In this session, we will discuss the effects of stress, brain states (survival, emotional, and executive), mindset, developing trusting relationships and the link between social-emotional and cognitive learning.

Prerna’s Bio:
Prerna Richards is the CEO and founder of Together We Grow, an organization providing consulting, coaching and professional development to childcare centers and schools. Prerna has over 30 years of experience working in the field of early childhood education. She is available for a free consultation for your center.

Steve Spangler

STEM for Little Sprouts – Connecting Science with Children’s Literature

Session Description (Make & Take):
Early childhood educators know that getting children excited about science is only part of the challenge. Today’s young learners need more than excitement and motivation – they need opportunities to actually DO more science on a daily basis.

Get ready for Steve Spangler to turbo-charge your sense of wonder and get your creative ideas flowing as he shares his best practices from classroom-tested activities that teach and motivate children to really do science.

Throughout the presentation, Steve explores a variety of techniques and presentation ideas for connecting science with popular children’s literature. Explore great science ideas that encourage children to “play with a purpose.” Learn how to use storyline elements to teach and reinforce fundamental building blocks of your science curriculum. You will uncover the secrets of developing your own unique presentation style that makes young learners want to learn more.

By the end of this session, you’ll be ready to create a collection of STEM experiences your scientists will never forget.

Steve’s Bio:
Millions of parents blame Steve Spangler for stains on their kitchen ceiling because of his famous Mentos and Diet Coke experiments. Steve is an Emmy award-winning television host and STEM educator who finds the most creative ways to make learning fun. His videos on social media have more than one billion views and his best-selling books and science kits are used around the globe to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Learn more at SteveSpangler.com or follow him on social – @stevespangler