ENGAGE 2026 Professional Learning Conference

Do you want your students to get more comfortable with the state’s online testing platform before STAAR? In this session, you’ll learn how to use the Texas Formative Assessment Resource (TFAR) in Cambium to build and deliver STAAR-aligned assessments using released items, item banks, or your own questions. We’ll cover how to create, share, publish, administer, and score assessments—all within the same platform students use for STAAR.

Stop chasing engagement and start building a system! This session shows how interactive journals can become a self-sustaining system that supports rigorous literacy practices, ongoing formative assessment, and consistent student engagement—without increasing teacher workload.

In this session you will learn how to breakdown, interpret, and use data. Lots of people talk about using data but very few actually do it affectively. I will show you how to breakdown STAAR tests/AP Test Data to maximize your class time which leads to results. I'll show you how to use data to prioritize and highlight topics in your class which free up time for you that you never thought possible. Data is the secret key to great success and I'll help you win the championship if you come to my session!

We will show teachers how to make the basic everyday requirements of teaching more interactive with movement and opportunities to make things student led.

We will be using the book "Hands Down Speak Out" to guide this PD. We are conducting a book study this semester with a "lab" class to practice the lessons and skills within the book. We will share our journey as well as use the lessons with the attendees. Students will leave with a strong understanding of the value of Student LED discourse in learning, as well as lessons to try with their students.

Take a trip around the Short Constructed Response (SCR) game board in "Monopoly for SCR Success." This interactive, Monopoly-themed session transforms the challenge of teaching and scoring SCRs into an engaging, strategic experience. Teachers will roll the dice, buy properties of knowledge, and collect instructional strategies while learning how to guide students toward mastering SCR responses. Participants will gain insights into how responses are scored, avoid common pitfalls ("Go to Jail" moments), and learn how to help students build "Response Hotels" for high scores. By the end of this session, participants will:
1. Pass Go & Collect Knowledge – Learn the key components of an effective SCR rubric and how student responses are evaluated.
2. Buy, Trade, and Score – Engage in Monopoly-inspired activities to simulate the scoring process and highlight common student errors.
3. Build Response Hotels – Gain winning strategies to help students develop clear, complete, and high-quality responses.

Hail Mary's rarely work in football and they don't work in the classroom either. We will learn about quick low prep discourse activities that are fun, engage students and can be used to formatively assess students. YES, you can even use them for grades!

This PD session helps teachers replace traditional worksheets with meaningful formative assessments that reveal student thinking without increasing grading workload. Participants will learn and apply adaptable strategies that work across all subject areas.