NIET National Conference Session Preview: Nurturing Student Ownership

The NIET National Conference provides an annual opportunity for educators from across the country to come together to strengthen their instructional skills and share strategies to advance student achievement. This year’s conference, with the theme of Unleashing Teacher Leadership, will focus on strategies at the classroom, school, district, and state levels that foster strong classroom teaching and learning. One of our conference strands of learning will explore high-impact strategies for creating a positive learning environment, including how to increase student engagement and students’ ownership of their learning.

Helping students to feel greater ownership of their learning journey is an important goal for teachers, but many teachers report that they lack clear strategies to strengthen student ownership. In the conference session, “Nurturing Student Ownership: Teacher Leader Strategies,” NIET experts Bobbie Jo Bright, Trey Forrester, and Carrie Pullins will guide participants through how teacher leaders can help teachers increase student ownership by analyzing instructional standards and content from the student’s point of view.

This session will provide teacher leaders with practical strategies for coaching and supporting teachers to understand content standards, curriculum, and student mastery through the lens of student ownership. During the session, participants will discuss what “student ownership” looks and sounds like using NIET’s new book, Unleashing Teacher Leadership: A Toolkit for Ensuring Effective Instruction in Every Classroom, and the NIET Teaching and Learning Standards Rubric.

Participants will spend time creating personal plans of action for using content standards and high-quality instructional materials in ways that nurture student ownership on their campuses. Along with their action plan, participants will leave the session with a systematic approach to increasing student ownership grounded in strategies that address both teacher support and student needs. This approach will help teacher leaders support all teachers to elevate student ownership, ultimately leading to student achievement gains.

We are excited about the learning that will take place at the 2024 NIET National Conference, and we look forward to seeing our partners in Dallas from February 29th through March 1st! Click here for an overview of the five conference strands and look for takeaways on social media using the hashtag #NIET2024.