Conversations on Connection

Inspired Teaching’s Continued Exploration of School Connectedness

At the start of the 2023-2024 school year, Inspired Teaching held live-streamed conversations with expert guests, who shared invaluable insights on well-being, education, and community. Learn more about our acclaimed guests below and watch the conversations in full. Each offered a unique perspective on School Connectedness and insight into resources, tools, and strategies for educators and parents to use in building connection in their own school communities.

Trabian Shorters: Tuesday, August 15, 2:30pm EST

Trabian Shorters is one of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs and the catalyst of a national movement to first define black people by their aspirations and contributions, then to secure their fundamental freedoms to Live, Own, Vote and Excel. He is a retired tech entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author, and former vice president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation where he was responsible for $300M in active grants and endowments in 26 US cities.

His nonprofit social impact network, BMe Community, is award-winning for innovation, impact, and storytelling and boasts more than 400 black leaders plus institutional allies committed to building “equity without stigma.”

Shorters is the international authority on an award-winning cognitive framework called “Asset-Framing” which is in high demand by heads of influential philanthropic, journalism, and social impact networks. Asset-Framing equips its practitioners to have far greater social impact, raise more money, engage broader populations, and make fundamentally stronger cases for equity and systems-change.

Ann B. Friedman: Tuesday, August 22, 12:30pm EST

Ann B. Friedman is the Founder and CEO of Planet Word Museum and the developer behind the restoration of the Franklin School, the museum’s home. She was a beginning reading and writing teacher in Montgomery County, MD, for 9 years until her retirement in 2011. From 2010-2016, she served as the Chair of the Board of the SEED Foundation, the parent body of the only U.S. public, inner-city, college-prep boarding schools, where she remains a board member. Ms. Friedman is a director of the American Alliance of Museums and the Downtown DC Foundation. She serves on the board of the Aspen Music Festival and School. Friedman is a graduate of Stanford University and earned master’s degrees from the London School of Economics and American University. She is married to New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas L. Friedman.

Dana Mortenson: Tuesday, August 29, 12:30pm EST

Dana is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of World Savvy, a national education nonprofit working to educate and engage youth as responsible global citizens. World Savvy supports change agents in K-12 education to create more inclusive, adaptive schools that ensure all young people can develop the skills and dispositions needed to thrive in a more diverse, interconnected world. World Savvy programs provide support at three critical levels to deeply integrate global competence into teaching, learning, and culture: student engagement, teacher capacity, and school and district leadership support. Since 2002 she has led the organization through significant national expansion, reaching more than 800,000 students and nearly 7,000 teachers across 45 US states and 32 countries, from offices based in Minneapolis, San Francisco, and New York.

Dana is an Ashoka Fellow and was named one of The New Leaders Council’s 40 under 40 Progressive American Leaders, and Women We Admire’s Top 50 Women Leaders of Minnesota for 2022. She was also a winner of the Tides Foundation’s Jane Bagley Lehman Award for excellence in public advocacy in 2014. She is a frequent speaker on global education and social entrepreneurship at high-profile convenings nationally and internationally, and World Savvy’s work has been featured on PBS, The New York Times, Edutopia, and a range of local and national media outlets covering education and innovation.

What is School Connectedness?

In early 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data and Summary Report, offering a close look at the mental health crisis affecting our country’s young people.

The report also provided insight into solutions for mitigating harmful outcomes and behaviors, including increasing school connectedness. Defined in the report as “feeling close to people at school, [school connectedness] has a long-lasting, protective impact for adolescents well into adulthood on almost all the behaviors and experiences included in this report.”

Following the release of the report, Inspired Teaching has focused our attention on bringing strategies, tools, and expert advice on building school connectedness to the forefront. Learn more in our Hooray For Monday newsletter and podcast.

Check out conversations we had on School Connectedness in May!

Micaiah Anderson

Community Outreach Specialist

As a Community Outreach Specialist, Micaiah is responsible for program promotion and outreach support for Inspired Teaching events and workshops. Micaiah has a passion for collaborating with community members to build-power and connect. She is an educator with a heart for youth and has experience supporting students fight injustices within their schools and communities. She has a BA in Political Science from, the real HU, Hampton University & anticipates graduating in May 2024 with a Masters of Arts degree in Educational Policy Transformation from Georgetown University.

AUTONOMY

"I want to have a say in what happens to me."

Autonomy is the need for independence; the ability to make choices, to create, to explore, and to express oneself freely; to have sufficient space, to move around, and to feel unrestricted with opportunities to exercise free will.

Brady Maiden

Outreach Coordinator

As the Outreach Coordinator, Brady helps maintain Inspired Teaching’s social media presence and supports the organization’s mission to connect with DC community leaders, educators, and parents. Brady has her Master’s in Public Policy from George Mason University and her BS in Political Science from Northern Arizona University. She is passionate about community, equity, and coalition building recognizing that learning and growing with the community at large is how we continue to be impactful.

What brings you joy in life?

I find joy in spending time with my friends and family and meeting new people. I like going to concerts and festivals, and finding new books to read.

The Learner’s Cycle, Wonder-Experiment-Learn, and the Teacher’s Cycle, Observe-Plan-Instigate, comprise Inspired Teaching’s approach to engaging students in inquiry-based learning.

When they are engaged in the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, students are immersed in learning. They take the lead in designing authentic learning experiences around their own interests and their school’s standards of learning. Each discovery leads to a new question which in turn leads to more wondering and more learning. In the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, Learn is not a destination or an endpoint; it is a deeper understanding, leading to a deeper wondering and new possibilities that create new entry points to further exploration. The cycle continues because what students have learned generates more wonderings that require more experiments that foster more learning – and on and on.

The Observe-Plan-Instigate Cycle is the work of an Inspired Teacher. While a student is expected to follow the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, the teacher joins them on the learning journey while following their own cycle of Observe-Plan-Instigate. This cycle ultimately serves to ensure an inquiry-based atmosphere is at play in the classroom.

Jaqueta Abbey

Teaching and Learning Specialist

Jaqueta is the Teaching and Learning Specialist for Inspired Teaching. In addition to her current role with Inspired Teaching, Jaqueta is a first-grade teaching assistant. Her background features a variety of traditional and non-traditional experiences in the field of education, including working as an adjunct professor, teaching summer reading programs to children and adults, and tutoring children in the foster care system. Jaqueta earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.A. in Interactive Media from Elon University.

What brings you joy in life?

Creative self-expression! In addition to my passion for storytelling, I love dancing of all kinds. I've studied belly dance, bachata, and Brazilian Zouk among other styles. I also enjoy glass fusing, crocheting, photography, and cross stitching. These art forms allow me to express myself and build connections with other people at the same time. I think life would be a lot less vibrant without artists and storytellers!

Michelle Welk

Communication & Marketing Specialist

As Communications and Marketing Specialist, Michelle is responsible for finding and creating new ways to highlight Inspired Teaching and promote its programs in order to expand and deepen the organization's impact. Michelle has worked in communications in an array of settings, from creative agencies to state politics to national nonprofits. She has a BA in Journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia and is passionate about education, access, and equity.

What brings you joy in life?

My son, the beach, making a persuasive argument and good food!

Max Peterson

Real World History Assistant Teacher

Max received his Bachelor’s degree in History and African American Studies from Boston University in May 2016. He has worked in museum curation at the Museum of the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Max has worked with young people of varying ages from young children to young adults transitioning to college.

Feedback and Accountability

We grow through feedback and an understanding that the quality of our work is a reflection of what we are learning, but the shift to remote learning this spring disrupted a lot of the tools teachers were used to using to evaluate student growth. How might we do things differently this fall? Participants in this workshop will explore ways to bring meaningful assessment into the virtual and/or socially-distanced classroom and approaches to student feedback that strengthen motivation, and build relationships and achievement.