Conference to Classroom: NIET 2025 National Conference Recap

Nearly 1,400 educators and leaders joined the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching in Washington, DC for the 2025 National Conference: 25 Years of Impact. From our first Fellows cohort, now deeply familiar with NIET practices and structures, to second-career teachers with merely a month under their belt in their classroom, the signature event offered something for every level of educator. Highlights included insightful sessions on everything from early career support to leveraging partnerships, panels on how state policy drives district innovation and live-action bubble sessions to demonstrate best practices in real time. 

But the most important part of NIET’s work with educators nationwide - and what adds to conference success - is what happens next: How can we transfer best practices into the classroom so that all the content shared in these two impactful days can be implemented to support student achievement? Teachers and leaders are empowered by the elements of NIET conference that support the transfer of the information so that it doesn’t dissipate before it drives change. Throughout the conference, attendees highlighted a handful of these elements that set them up for success after they returned to their school systems. 

Building Confidence With Bubble Sessions

Bubble Sessions are one of NIET’s most attended events at the conference for a reason - they offer educators of varying levels an opportunity to see how professional instructional leadership meetings (ILTs) happen in real time. Bubble Sessions this year included District Instructional Leadership Teams (DILTs), Instructional Leadership Teams, and Cluster Meetings/ PLC, providing examples of every level of effective leadership from NIET partners. 

Bubble Sessions shed light on effective meeting agendas, focuses, and conversations that build educator capacity to improve instructional practice and accelerate impact in the classroom. Much like athletes watching game tape, it allows the audience to evaluate what is successful and what actions they can adopt to elevate their own ILT meetings. The most impactful moments in these sessions, however, are the ‘Step Outs.’ 

Each bubble has about 2-3 ‘Step Out’ moments, where NIET senior specialists pause the live meeting and explain the strategies and practices that are making it effective. By ‘pausing the tape’ and coaching participants through each moment, highlighting why it is intentional and how it leads to action among different levels of school systems, these bubble sessions are crafted with the perfect marriage of ‘showing’ and ‘telling’ to help educators understand how to best transfer these practices to their systems.

Connecting to the Classroom

As University View Academy (LA) Superintendent Dr. Quentina Timoll said in the Morning Panel on Day 2, the classroom serves as a unit of change to elevate, engage and inspire educators. NIET knows this, which is why the practices we share with educators involve frequent and intentional reflections to connect learning to lived experiences in the classroom. When our partners and attendees see themselves in the examples shared by connecting to their roles and responsibilities, it makes the information easier to digest and transfer into their work. Many participants saw this occurring through three core questions in many of the sessions: 

• Can you identify areas where the presented content, structures or actions are taking place in your roles? 
• How could you implement the shared content, structures or actions in your roles to help drive improved student outcomes? 
• Based on the content, structures or actions discussed today, have you identified any current approaches you would like to change in your role?

These connections sprout at every table during breakout sessions, where tables are often peppered with educators of different levels from different states. At table 8 in Session Learning Environments Where Teachers Thrive, one educator from South Carolina was just starting Cluster. Another attendee was an NIET Fellow and Master Teacher from Arizona. Two more were from a rural area in South Carolina, including a Master Teacher who was sharing her interest in student work and how she established trust with her teachers and students. 

The session, which focused on how teachers and education leaders can elevate learning environments through trust, credibility, and knowledge, helped table 8 find a common link among how they connected with teachers through connecting with their students - and led to conversations about their own experiences in doing so.

“Once we helped our students set their own goals, it changed their outlook on everything,” one Master Teacher said. “It showed them where they can go.” 

An assistant principal from South Carolina, who was relatively new to the practices and structures presented, listened intently to the other’s experiences - including those shared by NIET Senior Specialists leading the session, Angela Kendall and Laura Tew.

“I’ve heard so much about trust, knowledge and credibility here, and now I see that it shows up in different ways than I would have thought about it before - and now I have actual ways to bring it back,” the assistant principal said.

NIET senior specialists also implement a different variation of ‘game tape’ into the presentations by having attendees evaluate interactions between career, mentor, and master teachers that demonstrate effective coaching and support. The recordings used to elevate sessions and encourage attendee reflection are a microcosm of NIET’s EE Pass, which provides partners with more than 10,000 hours of recorded lessons, instructional resources, and observation tools.

The Time and Space for Effective Transfer 

The smallest sliver on the NIET National Conference program represents another key valuable factor at the NIET National Conference: The several hours that close out the event for school and district teams to sit down and plan how to effectively implement what they have learned back home. 

A big challenge in learning new information is creating the space to absorb, reflect and grow (hence, the need for homework!) Instead of immediately filtering out the doors, NIET participants are given scheduled time to simply process the content in a way that applies to their specific roles. Moments for reflection happen incrementally throughout the two days, and eventually culminate in the Team Planning Session that is scheduled as the last activity of every conference. By intentionally pausing while the learning is still fresh in participants' minds, educators can visualize what their next steps will look like so they are ready to implement and act the moment they return from the conference. 

“Every session gives you time to reflect and outline your next steps,” Avondale Master Teacher and NIET Fellow Laura Hershberger said, with her tablemates echoing agreement. “The time during the conference that we have to summarize our learning really holds us accountable and sets us up for success in transferring our learning back to our schools and districts.”

Though the transfer of knowledge and learning is the final step in a successful NIET conference, it is always top of mind for NIET - ensuring each session is crafted for sustained impact, far after the event concludes.