Student Engagement

Liz Davis is currently the superintendent in York Region District School Board in Ontario. She is passionate about school improvement with a particular interest in resilience and working to improve outcomes for students in underperforming/underserved schools.

With over 30 years experience in education, Jennifer Watt has worked with both new and experienced classroom teachers, supporting them to think about how they can share their knowledge, experience, and practices to establish professional communities and improve student learning.

Joan Reimer is a retired educator and former education officer at the Ontario Ministry of Education. With experience from K–12 classrooms to teacher education, most of her career was spent in Ontario, but she also taught in Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, and Malawi, Africa.

Dr. Amy Gaumer Erickson is an associate research professor at the University of Kansas whose practice-based research focuses on guiding educators to embed competency instruction within coursework and evaluate students’ social-emotional growth.

Dr. Ripley is currently teaching in the departments of elementary and secondary education at the University of Alberta and has over 35 years of experience at the elementary, junior high/middle school, high school, college, and university levels.

Brad Sever is an assistant principal at Carmel High School in Indiana. There, he has helped to create and sustain a successful instructional coaching program and grow the school’s International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.

Dr. Pattie Noonan is an associate research professor at the University of Kansas, where she centers her work on providing and evaluating professional development related to social-emotional learning.

Jennifer McCarty Plucker, EdD, is the director of learning and development and a literacy consultant at Mackin Educational Resources in Burnsville, Minnesota. Her current work with educators is grounded in an inquiry approach that puts students in the driver’s seat for learning.

Attendees will learn practical ways to involve multiple stakeholders in developing a productive and celebratory reading culture in schools and classrooms.

Teresa Cariglia-Bull is a former vice principal for York Region District school board, having served as an elementary school teacher and a psychometrist at both the York Region Separate School Board and with the Learning Disabilities Research Program.