Erik M. Francis Speaking Topics

• Let's Be Clear: Enhancing Teacher Clarity to Empower Student Learning

  What does learning look, sound, and feel like? How can you ensure your students are learning at the level demanded by academic standards, activities, and assessments? Explore how to make the expectations and purpose for learning visible with Depth of Knowledge (DOK).

  Discover how Depth of Knowledge establishes a clear and common language for learning in any subject and grade level. Evaluate how the four DOK Levels define four distinct ways students can think about and transfer their learning. Most importantly, realize how DOK empowers students to become their own teachers and enables teachers to look at learning through the lens of the learner.

  It’s time to rethink Depth of Knowledge. DOK is not about the level teachers must teach and students must learn. It’s all about how students can engage in, experience, and express their learning.

  Takeaways

  • Shift the Focus from Teaching to Learning: Shift from a performance-based to learner-focused culture that enables teachers to look at learning through the lens of the learner and empowers students to become their own teachers as they learn.

  • Establish a Common Language for Rigor: Utilize Depth of Knowledge (DOK) descriptors to clarify cognitive expectations and seamlessly align daily learning experiences with academic standards.

  • Analyze Cognitive Demand and Transfer: Evaluate how the four DOK levels define distinct ways students process, apply, and transfer their thinking across subjects and grade levels.

  • Teach Through the Lens of the Learner: Make high-level thinking visible by defining what learning looks, sounds, and feels like when students take ownership of their own cognitive process.

• Inquiring Minds Want to Learn: Posing Good Questions to Promote Student Inquiry

  Inquiring Minds Want to Learn: Posing Good Questions to Promote Student Inquiry What does teaching and learning with an inquiring mind involve? How can you phrase and pose questions that genuinely engage and encourage students to learn? Explore how to plan and provide inquiry-based learning experiences driven by good questions that spark curiosity, stimulate thinking, and strengthen learning.

  Rephrase academic standards and learning targets into good questions that set instructional focus, serve as assessments, and personalize learning. Pose good questions that pique student curiosity and spark authentic inquiry. Use the Inquiring Minds Framework to plan and provide learning experiences that are standards-driven and student-centered. Most importantly, discover how teaching and learning with an inquiring mind engages and encourages students to express the depth and extent of their learning.

  Are you ready to transform how you and your students use questions in your classroom to teach and learn? Discover how teaching and learning with an inquiring mind leverages good questions to address, advance, and assess student understanding and expertise.

  Takeaways:

  • Rephrase Learning Expectations into Good Questions: Convert academic standards and learning targets into good essential questions that establish clear instructional focus, serve as dynamic assessments, and personalize learning for students.

  • Plan Standards-Driven, Student-Centered Inquiry: Utilize the Inquiring Minds Framework to design learning experiences that seamlessly balance rigorous academic expectations with authentic student agency.

  • Spark Curiosity and Stimulate Thinking: Phrase and pose good questions that spark genuine inquiry, elevate classroom discourse, and encourage students to actively drive their own learning.

  • Ask Good Questions to Address, Advance, and Assess Student Learning: Leverage questions throughout instruction to evaluate student progress, deepen cognitive engagement, and empower learners to express and extend their expertise.

• From Distraction to Depth: Creating Cognitive C.A.L.M.™ in Every Classroom

  Modern schools are overwhelmed with competing initiatives, digital distractions, pressures to perform, and endless instructional noise. But what happens when we cut through the clutter that impedes teaching and learning? Explore how to quiet the chaos and create a culture of Cognitive C.A.L.M. focused and founded on the following:

  • Clarity: Establish what exactly and how deeply students must comprehend and communicate their learning successfully. • Alignment: Ensure curriculum, instruction, and assessment address the cognitive demand of academic standards. • Learning: Engage and encourage students to demonstrate and discuss their learning in different contexts and deeper ways. • Mindset: Empower students and teachers to achieve and exceed the rigorous expectations for teaching and learning.

  Discover how clearing “the noise” and concentrating on “the signals” that strengthen and support teaching and learning enables both teachers and students to shift away from frantic curriculum coverage and ensure learning lasts beyond the lesson.

  Takeaways:

  • Identify and Eliminate Instructional Static: Pinpoint the digital distractions, working-memory clutter, and compliance-driven tasks that impede deep conceptual thinking.

  • Apply the C.A.L.M. Framework: Leverage Clarity, Alignment, Learning, and Mindset to structure lessons that prioritize signal over noise and elevate cognitive demand.

  • Shift from Coverage to Coherence: Implement practical design strategies that move classroom culture away from frantic curriculum pacing to ensure learning lasts beyond a single lesson taught or specific.

  • Cultivate Intellectual Agency and Ownership: Create a classroom culture where both educators and learners approach complex tasks with confidence, purpose, and deep cognitive focus.

• From Distraction to Depth: Creating Cognitive C.A.L.M.™ in Every Classroom

  Modern schools are overwhelmed with competing initiatives, digital distractions, pressures to perform, and endless instructional noise. But what happens when we cut through the clutter that impedes teaching and learning? Explore how to quiet the chaos and create a culture of Cognitive C.A.L.M. focused and founded on the following:

  • Clarity: Establish what exactly and how deeply students must comprehend and communicate their learning successfully. • Alignment: Ensure curriculum, instruction, and assessment address the cognitive demand of academic standards. • Learning: Engage and encourage students to demonstrate and discuss their learning in different contexts and deeper ways. • Mindset: Empower students and teachers to achieve and exceed the rigorous expectations for teaching and learning.

  Discover how clearing “the noise” and concentrating on “the signals” that strengthen and support teaching and learning enables both teachers and students to shift away from frantic curriculum coverage and ensure learning lasts beyond the lesson.

  Takeaways:

  • Identify and Eliminate Instructional Static: Pinpoint the digital distractions, working-memory clutter, and compliance-driven tasks that impede deep conceptual thinking.

  • Apply the C.A.L.M. Framework: Leverage Clarity, Alignment, Learning, and Mindset to structure lessons that prioritize signal over noise and elevate cognitive demand.

  • Shift from Coverage to Coherence: Implement practical design strategies that move classroom culture away from frantic curriculum pacing to ensure learning lasts beyond a single lesson taught or specific.

  • Cultivate Intellectual Agency and Ownership: Create a classroom culture where both educators and learners approach complex tasks with confidence, purpose, and deep cognitive focus.

• Kids These Days: Bridging Generational Gaps to Teach and Reach Today’s Students

  Every generation of adults looks at the generation that follows, shakes their head, and utters dismissively, "Kids these days." However, what actually distinguishes today’s students from past generations? How have the changes of childhood and the evolution of education shaped our modern classroom culture? Most importantly, how can we reach and teach today’s students by honoring our own formative experiences while respecting theirs?

  Explore how to use education and empathy to bridge the generational gap and address the needs of today's students. Delve into how childhood and classroom dynamics have evolved in response to shifts in society, culture, and technology. Evaluate how children’s relationship with screens has evolved from a casual distraction to a constant dependency. Most importantly, realize what’s truly different about kids these days is the world in which they live, how they respond to it, and how we react to them.

  Not only will you gain a deeper appreciation of how schools and students have changed over time, but you'll also realize today’s students aren't dramatically different—they are simply navigating a radically re-engineered childhood. Ultimately, you'll discover you might have more in common with "kids these days" than you thought.

  Takeaways:

  • Bridge the Generational Gap: Leverage educational insight and empathy to replace dismissive assumptions with a deeper understanding of today's learners.

  • Analyze the Changes in Childhood: Unpack how evolving societal, cultural, and technological forces have shaped classroom dynamics and children’s behavior over time.

  • Address Screen Dependency: Evaluate how children’s relationship with technology has evolved from a casual distraction to a constant dependency—and acquire strategies to rebuild classroom focus and engagement.

  • Foster Authentic Connections: Discover shared common ground between generations to build a supportive, student-centered classroom culture where all learners thrive.

• From Distraction to Depth: Creating Cognitive C.A.L.M.™ in Every Classroom

  Public perception of AI in education often splits into two extremes: unabashed enthusiasm ("Yay!") or complete resistance ("No way!"). However, is AI inherently a problem in education, or is it how AI is leveraged as a resource and tool for learning? How can we move beyond fear and fascination to establish a cognitive collaboration between human intelligence and technology?

  Explore how to prompt, contextualize, and critically evaluate AI outputs so technology strengthens rather than substitutes deep learning and cognitive work. Delve into the fundamental differences between how humans think and learn versus how AI simulates cognitive processing according to the levels of cognitive frameworks. Implement a balanced classroom model that moves from passive consumption or total avoidance toward purposeful cognitive collaboration between human intellect and artificial technology. Most importantly, realize how AI as a resource can refine, not replace, how teachers teach and how students learn.

  The true power of AI and its value in education lie not in what the technology generates, but in how humans command and contextualize it. It's time to stop fearing AI and start figuring out how to work with it responsibly and responsively.

  Takeaways

  • Differentiate Human Cognition from AI Simulation: Examine the fundamental differences between human learning and artificial information processing across cognitive frameworks to keep human intellect at the center of instruction.

  • Master Prompting and Contextualization: Implement practical strategies to prompt, guide, and contextualize AI outputs so technology strengthens deep cognitive work rather than substituting it.

  • Evaluate and Refine Generated Content: Equip educators and students with critical evaluation tools to assess, polish, and verify AI outputs for accuracy, rigor, and cognitive demand.

  • Establish Cognitive Collaboration: Build a balanced classroom model that moves from passive consumption or total avoidance toward purposeful cognitive collaboration between human intellect and artificial technology.

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