It's that time of year: PanelPicker for SXSWedu!

[nikkiayana]

You'll see us talking quite a bit about SXSWedu in the coming weeks. For those unfamiliar with SXSWedu: it's an awesome education conference held in Austin, TX each year. SXSWedu brings together a community of educators, entrepreneurs, and business folks to discuss the future of learning. The neat thing about SXSWedu is that the education community plays a significant role in the programming for the meeting. Voters (people like YOU!) can visit the PanelPicker page, peruse sessions and vote for the best sessions.

Check out our proposed sessions below! If you like what you see, click the thumbs up button on the session page! Voting is open through September 2, 2016. Vote today and tell a friend!

The Science of Decision-Making: Justin Wolfers, Betsey Stevenson and Nathan DeWall

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/68102

What critical decision-making skills should students learn? How do we teach students to make good decisions about important questions, such as education spending, employment, or home ownership? How will their abilities to make decisions impact their education & our future workforce? To teach good decision-making, educators should teach students how to avoid mistakes & why we have psychological vulnerabilities that lead us astray. In this session, speakers will discuss the rules of thumb that often lead people to make irrational decisions, guides to good decision-making, & the behavioral biases that psychologists and economists have shown lead people to make mistakes & how to overcome them.

Science, Society and Life-Long Learning: Rob Lue, Jason Osborne, Susan Winslow

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/68182

Are we promoting science as a finite learning experience? How are we communicating the significant scientific shifts & breakthrough research to students & to communities? Educators play a significant part in helping students understand the ongoing role of science in our lives, but leveraging our collective intelligence to build learning communities around societal changes provides a path for life-long learning & inquiry. Speakers will discuss ways to develop students' ownership in their education through creating collaborative cultures between K-12 schools, higher Ed institutions, & industry. Panelists will offer ideas on how to encourage students to create authentic, real-world connections.

Student Success: Concept to Scalable Solutions: Paul Gore, A.J Metz

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/67609

Questions about student success & retention are the buzz in education, but what do we really know about why students succeed or fail? As it turns out - quite a bit! Entry characteristics like past academic performance, exam scores, & demographics are important predictors of success. But recent research suggests that motivational factors are also important. These factors can increase the predictive accuracy of existing models & identify student needs over time. Using the presenters’ collective years of teaching, research, & consulting experience, this session will review recent data on retention strategies, levels of influence in a student’s career & provide scalable strategies for success.

Kindergarten's Lessons on Teaching & Learning: Jim Morris & Melissa Michael

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/61900

Kindergarten has some surprising lessons for teaching and learning at all levels. Kindergarten classrooms often allow students to ask questions, play and explore, struggle and at times even fail, direct their own learning, and practice skills over time. They foster a child’s curiosity about science and the natural world. Project-based learning is common, where the class works together to build something or solve a problem. But does that continue in K12 and higher education? Or do some of our practices stifle the very curiosity and autonomy we want to encourage? In this session, we explore best kindergarten practices and how to incorporate them at different educational levels and settings.