Meet Your Presenters
The Lastinger Center Literacy Team features experience in education and education research.
Upcoming sessions
Learning That Lasts! Literacy Instructional Strategies for Long-Term Learning
April 20, 2026 | 12-1 p.m. EST
Intended audience: 6-12 teachers, administrators, coaches, and district leaders
- Learn how to promote deep learning and long-term retention
- Gain strategies to foster durable understanding
- Examine opportunities for spaced learning practice and retrieval
Deep learning happens when students actively engage with new concepts in ways that promote long-term retention and the ability to transfer skills to new contexts. In this session, participants will explore evidence-based literacy instructional strategies that foster durable understanding rather than temporary recall. Drawing on cognitive science research, we will examine how teachers can structure opportunities for spaced practice and retrieval over time, creating a classroom environment where students develop meaningful, lasting understanding that extends beyond the immediate lesson.
Measure Smarter, Not More: Understanding Assessment Types, Uses, and Common Misuses
May 20, 2026 | 12-1 p.m. EST
Intended audience: K-12 teachers, administrators, and district leaders
- Understand the advantages and limitations of major assessment types
- Gain a practical framework for for evaluating assessment types
- Connect assessments to decision making
Not all assessments are created equal, and most schools are over-assessed, accumulating data tools that overlap, conflict, or simply go unused because their purpose was never fully understood. This session brings clarity to the crowded assessment landscape by walking through what each major assessment type is designed to measure, what instructional decisions it supports, and what it cannot tell you. When distinctions between assessment types get blurred, the results are predictable: wasted time, misplaced resources, and frustrated teachers. Participants will leave with a practical framework for evaluating their own assessment systems, reducing redundancy, and ensuring that every measure they give is connected to a decision they actually need to make.
Unlocking Understanding: Evidence-Based Reading Comprehension Instruction
June 18, 2026 | 12-1 p.m. EST
Intended audience: K-12 teachers and instructional coaches
- Explore what reading comprehension is and why it is complex
- Gain strategies to better support students in making meaning from text
- Critically examine current practices in comprehension instruction
This webinar is designed for educators who want to deepen their understanding of how to support students’ reading comprehension effectively. Drawing on current literacy research, this session will explore what reading comprehension is, why it is complex, and the research-based strategies that can better support students in making meaning from text. Along the way, we’ll challenge some of the current practices in comprehension instruction and ask whether the way we’ve been teaching comprehension is actually working. We will explore how actively engaging students in reading, discussion, and writing about texts supports comprehension. We will also share practical strategies to use before, during, and after reading to help students build knowledge, engage deeply with texts, and consolidate their understanding.
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