Elevate Learning: A Teaching & Learning Conference

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Elevate Learning is the PAIS Teaching and Learning annual event, taking place this year in Pittsburgh and in partnership with Carlow University. The event is 2-days, October 18 & 19,  and offers a Pre-Conference Workshop (registration is separate), Schooled the Musical and Reception, and the Conference itself, featuring workshops that follow three tracks for learning - Learning Differences, AI in Education, and The Science and Design of Student Engagement. The entire event is for teachers, academic leaders, learning support staff and counselors.

REGISTRATION OPTIONS:
Elevate Learning (Oct 18 & 19): $250 member, $315 non-member (includes Schooled the Musical and the Conference)
Pre-Conference Workshop Only: $110 member, $140 non-member
Combined  2-day experience: $325 member, $405 non-member
Schooled the Musical Only: $10 member and non-member

Pre-Conference Workshop | Sunday, October 18, 2:00-5:00pm
Reframing Student Well-Being
Isaiah Noriega, Partner, Leadership + Design
Bio
In this session, you will dig into real problems your school is wrestling with around student life and well-being, not to fix them instantly, but to see them differently. We’ll explore how students develop and make meaning at different stages of their lives, why resistance in our systems often signals something worth listening to, and how shifting who owns the problem can change everything. Come ready to design, reflect, and share your wisdom on the experiences of young people and how we can best support them. Bring a real, messy, unresolved issue your school is living with right now. That’s where the good work happens. 

Audience: Middle and Upper School teachers, Division Directors/Principals, Deans of Students, Counselors, Learning Specialists

Schooled, the Musical | Sunday, October 18, 2026, 6:30- 9:00pm
A two-act staged-reading | Happy Hour one hour prior & bar open after

Hamilton meets The Sound of Music meets Good Night and Good Luck…all set in and around a contemporary high school. Schooled is a new musical in development about growing up, finding your way, and the role school plays in shaping who we become. The story follows a brother, a sister, and a friend from high school into adulthood as they navigate relationships, ambitions, setbacks, and an uncertain world. Featuring music that draws from classical, hip-hop, Latin, pop, jazz, and spiritual traditions, Schooled takes a funny, thoughtful, and sometimes challenging look at education from the student perspective. Along the way, it raises questions about what we learn in school, what we don’t, and what stays with us long after we leave.

Best of all, the very first two act reading of this musical will be performed on our stage!

Audience: Teachers and Academic Leaders

Elevate Learning Conference | Monday, October 19, 2026, 8am - 3pm
Audience: Teachers, Academic Leaders, Learning Specialists, Counselors, Deans of Students

Schedule:
8:00-8:30am | Arrival and breakfast
8:30-9:30am | AI Panel Presentation
9:45-10:45am | Keynote Speaker
11:00am-12:00pm | Workshop One
12:00-12:45pm | Lunch
12:45-1:45pm | Workshop Two
2:00-3:00pm | Workshop Three

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Leslie Laud
Bring the Science of Writing Alive in Your Classroom with Releasing Writers (formerly think SRSD)
Bio
Discover easy-to-implement, enjoyable and evidence-based ways to re-invigorate how you teach writing. Learn pre-writing strategies that help students make deeper meanings of texts. Support your writers as they can generate fresh insights when they write about these. Teach scaffolds and structures for navigating the full writing process from planning to revision, and in ways to build knowledge about the world, and student voice. Help your students become more strategic, empowered, independent and goal-oriented writers, and thinkers.
Audience: PK-Grade 12 teachers; Academic Leaders

AI Panel Presentation:
Education in the Dawning Age of AI
Drawing on their work at the intersection of AI, technology, and education, Peter Nilsson, Dr. Illah Nourbakhsh, and Dr. Jennifer Keating explore the opportunities, limitations, and larger implications of AI in schools. This conversation will move beyond the headlines to consider how educators can use this arrival technology thoughtfully and proactively while preserving the relationships, critical thinking, creativity, and human nature at the heart of learning. Together, the panelists will examine not simply what AI can do, but how educators can shape its role in the future of education. the web for the purpose of promoting innovation in education.

Panelists:

WORKSHOPS (attendees will select workshops at the event)
Track One: Learning Differences
Track Two: The Science and Design of Student Engagement
Track Three: AI in Education
CLICK HERE to see all workshop session descriptions and workshop presenter bios

WORKSHOP SESSION ONE:

• A Deeper Dive into Releasing Writers for K-2, Leslie Laud, Releasing Writers (track two)
• Developmental Language Disorder: A Practical Guide for Classroom Teachers, Julie A Klingerman, Private Contractor & Literacy consultant (track one)
• Expanding Who Thrives: Neurodiversity, Belonging, and School Excellence, Vanessa Castañeda Gill, CEO and Co-Founder, Social Cipher (track one)
• Generative AI Helps Me Teach English, Thomas McLaughlin, Co-Academic Dean for Teaching & Learning, Upper School English Teacher, Chair - Generative AI Committee, Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy (track three)
• Teaching AI to Students, Nana Massie, Middle School Humanities, Kentucky Avenue School (track three)
• The Whole Class Is Watching, Erin Thorkilsen, Founder; PreK-12, Heart in Education (track two)

WORKSHOP SESSION TWO:

• A Deeper Dive into Releasing Writers for 5-8, Leslie Laud, Releasing Writers (track two)
• All In: Engage, Experience, Transform, and Thrive, Carole Paterson, Head of Middle School, The Ellis School (track two)
• Reclaiming The Human Touch By Using AI, Jim Roche, Science Teacher, Trevor Day School - Lead Consultant, Mountainside AI Education Consultants (track three)
• Strategies to Support Autistic Students: Ways to Enable and Empower, Sheena Donovan, Project Analyst, ASERT  (track one)
• Teach Handwriting Right: Handwriting for Literacy and Learning, Michelle Trostle, Board Member, The Reading League Pennsylvania  (track one)
• Why Belonging Matters and What We Can Do to Uplift It, Stacey Joseph    Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging, Delaware Valley Friends School (track two)
  
  

WORKSHOP SESSION THREE:

• Assume Less, Teach More: Building Student Success from Day One, Madeleine Harkins, Vice Principal, Villa Maria Academy (track two)
• Executive Skills Are Everyone’s Job, Beverly DeRise    MD Instructor/PD & Collaboration Associate, The Janus School (track one)
• Fluency: Moving from Learning to Read to Reading to Learn, Sister Immaculata Marie Policare, OP, Adjunct Instructor, School of Education, Aquinas College (track two)
• Pause, Purpose, Proof - How to use AI Effectively, Jonathan Strecker, Head of School, Valley School of Ligonier (track three)
• Regulate, Connect, Learn: Mindfulness & SEL Practices for Every Classroom, Adrienne Floro, Middle School Division Director, Falk Laboratory School (track one)
• When Programs Don't Work - Rebuilding Decoding at the Sound Level, Kate Mayer, Structured Literacy Specialist, Everyone Reads PA (track one)
  

CLICK HERE to see all workshop session descriptions and workshop presenter bios