2025 ISTE+ASCD conference wrap-up

by Scott McLeod | Jul 19, 2025 | News and Events | 0 comments

This year’s ISTE+ASCD conference was a busy one for me. I had five sessions, which was a little much. I need to be less busy next year…

Transforming Learning Environments: Implementing Portrait of a Graduate for 21st-Century Success

Lori McEwen and I had a great time during our Turbo Talk. 30 minutes. Great conversations with attendees. Lori and I are wrapping up our study of school districts and the work that they’re doing to get their Portrait of a Graduate down into classroom practice. We are about to submit that article to a journal. If you’re interested in the pre-print, fill out this form and we will send it along when we’re ready.

Principal and Superintendent Leadership in the AI Era

For this session, I shifted from talking at participants sitting in rows to small group discussions based on AI leadership scenarios (3 opportunities, 3 challenges). I thought it was interesting that about 20% of the room left immediately after I announced the shift. I guess they just wanted sit-and-get (or felt I did a bait-and-switch)? The session went extremely well, and the remaining 80% of folks had some phenomenal conversations as they learned with and from each other’s experiences. This was a super fun one.

Designing for Deeper, Personalized Learning

This was another super fun session. ISTE was kind enough to give me a giant room for this deep dive forum. 357 people pre-registered to redesign lessons with me for two hours using the free 4 Shifts Protocol. And… 150 people showed up. Which was GREAT – no complaints about the attendance! – except that the room felt really empty because of all of the vacant chairs in the gigantic ballroom. It would have been nice if either more people showed up or if the room was smaller. Regardless, we had a fun time together and were very productive, and numerous attendees said that they were excited about what they learned and were eager to apply the protocol when they got back home. I heard from other session facilitators that many of the sessions that weren’t in the main conference center were under-attended, so maybe it wasn’t just me!

Blazing New Trails: Innovations in Edtech Coaching from the Heart of Texas

Nicole Zumpano was kind enough to not only allow me to talk about instructional coaching with the 4 Shifts Protocol but also give me one of the two little ‘stages’ at this playground. I quickly introduced the protocol to folks and also shared a number of coaching resources. I think I gave the same 5-minute talk seven times in 45 minutes!

Higher-Order Thinking Playground: Engage in Critical Creative Thinking Integrations and Resources!

Julie Jaeger and Gwynn Moore are nice enough to invite me back every year to their Higher Order Thinking Playground. They haven’t gotten tired of me yet! I had multiple awesome one-to-one or small group discussions about how to use the 4 Shifts Protocol for deeper, more cognitively complex thinking. 

Final thoughts

As always, I ran into a number of longtime friends and met some new ones. I especially appreciated the opportunity to have some lengthy chats with Lori, Erin Olson, Jamie Gilchrist Israel, Mandy Froehlich, Jennifer Orr, Ben Johnson, Jeff Bradbury, my new friend Leon Darden (an amazing principal!), Eric Curts, and Miguel Guhlin. And there are a number of others whom I either missed completely or wished I had more time with… That’s the way of conferences, right?

I always do a volunteer shift at the conference, usually at the bookstore. Over the years I have gotten to know the publications team at ISTE fairly well. They’re wonderful people and I really like being in the book area and talking with conference attendees as they stop by. This year I met Jennifer Ciok for the first time, was able to hang out with Carlos Moreno for a few minutes, and got to witness all of Shannon Miller’s groupies as they bought books and took photos with her!

I greatly appreciated having ASCD as a presence this year along with the usual ISTE activities. Unless you find the right pockets of the conference, ISTE often can feel a little flash and dash, bells and whistles, heavy on tools and apps and vendors and hype. I get it. The tools are fun, there’s always something new and cool, and we’re excited to play around with stuff. It was nice to have the curriculum and instruction focus and heft of ASCD at the conference too. Every session block had numerous opportunities to lean into the important work of learning, teaching, curriculum, and instructional design. I really hope this ISTE+ASCD partnership finds a way to bring together the best of both organizations.

On other fronts, I was invited to participate in a discussion about ASCD Educational Leadership magazine, attended the Board Game Meetup (1,200+ registrants?), hung out with the other ISTE+ASCD Community Leaders, and had short chats with lots of other fun folks. It was a fantastic conference. Always a circus, but always fantastic!