The Power of Belief: How High Expectations Change Student Outcomes
Research consistently shows that students rise—or fall—to the expectations placed upon them. Drawing from the principles of The Opportunity Myth, this session explores how our beliefs, expectations, and daily instructional decisions either create or limit opportunities for students. Participants will reflect on their own practices, examine real classroom scenarios, and leave with practical strategies for ensuring every student is challenged, supported, and believed in.
This session reduces teacher workload by transforming classrooms into active, student-driven learning environments through simple, ready-to-use engagement strategies that build student accountability, increase participation, and deepen academic discussion—workable in any grade level or content area—while activating every learner and making student thinking the focal point of every lesson.
This interactive professional learning session focused on practical, research-based engagement strategies that teachers can implement with little preparation and immediate impact. Participants explored how movement, visible thinking routines, and retrieval practices increase student engagement, attention, and retention. Through hands-on activities such as Four Corners, Hexagonal Thinking, Think-Pair-Share, and Would You Rather, teachers experienced strategies from a student perspective and collaborated on ways to adapt them to their own content areas. The session concluded with opportunities to select and plan for implementing at least one new engagement strategy, with optional technology tools to enhance classroom learning.
Harris will be joining me to provide insight and examples as to how this can be applied to BB curriculum.
This year, due to the BB tie, this session will be more geared towards Elementary.
