GETCA 2025

Across Alberta, more and more students of African descent (hailing from Somali, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Jamaica, Trinidad, other Canadian provinces, and elsewhere) are in our classrooms. In Edmonton Public Schools, they’re 11 percent of all students. And, unfortunately, extensive research demonstrates they face a three-pronged crisis of under-achievement, down-streaming, and dropping out. But what if schools had a simple approach that had the power to improve the lives not only of African students, but to give educational, career, and business opportunities that are—literally—worth billions of dollars, and which massively contribute to quality of life and community for all? The standard approach of “anti-racism” isn’t designed to do any of that. But aspirational Africentric education is. Join award-winning author and journalist Malcolm Azania of the aspirational Africentric education company Project Saqqara for an innovative, data-drive discussion and strategy to increase belonging and boost achievement for students of all backgrounds. Emerge energized and empowered with practical tools you can use your very next class!

Whether you teach ELA, Social Studies, Science, Art, or anything else, have you always been yearning to write a novel, or maybe even publish just one short story? So why aren’t you? Trust me--it’s not about brains. If you have the ability to teach dozens or even hundreds of kids per year, create and mark their assignments, and handle their individual and group dynamics, you not only have proven you’re smart, but you’ve also got nearly unlimited material! All those personalities, minds, dreams, and drama are perfect for characterisation and plotting. So why aren’t you writing that book? Join Malcolm Azania, who under the pen-name Minister Faust is an award-winning novelist and journalist, who’s taught creative writing across North America, and was writer in residence at the University of Alberta, to learn the twelve ways you’re short-circuiting your own writing … and how to overcome each one so you can write and publish your work like a pro! And because he taught junior high and high school English for a decade, you can use all his strategies with your own students!

Understanding the WHY behind student behavior is essential for effective intervention. This session will explore the four functions of behavior: connection, access, sensory, and escape. You'll learn to identify key motivations and utilize data collection methods to assess the effectiveness of interventions. Discover how to transform behavior challenges into opportunities for growth and deeper connections in the classroom!

Is there a behavioral problem in your classroom that you feel like you can't solve? Or maybe multiple behaviors that you have "tried everything" but you're stuck? Join me to explore effective deescalation strategies for challenging behaviors. You’ll learn practical techniques that you can use right away to help bring calm back to your classroom. We’ll discuss how to assess specific situations and tailor your approach to meet each student’s needs. Let’s turn those tough moments into opportunities for growth!

Finding Nemo. How to Train Your Dragon. Apollo 13. There are big ideas and big moments in big movies: ideas that can pinpoint key instances of learning and transfer. We’ll examine these moments (and more) and bridge them into classroom learning. Teachers will learn about transfer theory and ways to use movies to explicitly teach for transfer of understanding. This session includes a support package of takeaways, teaching tips, and graphic organizers teachers can use in their classrooms.

This session outlines how students combined skateboard art with a history lesson on Indigenous culture and colonialism in an effort to raise awareness about reconciliation. Students worked with a number of Indigenous creatives and leaders to explore Indigenous history and strengthen their understanding of the effects of government policies, legislation and practices on Indigenous cultures and peoples. Participants will learn about the inspiration behind this project, how it was implemented and what it would take to do it in their own classroom. They will also hear about how skateboarding can be a form of activism to inspire social change and used as a call to action to forge the path to decolonization.

This session will give participants a synopsis of four engaging school based projects that students completed through various grant initiatives with a social justice focus. Project one details include having students create an art piece using skateboard decks as a canvas to engage and invoke a conversation around poverty and homelessness in youth. Project two included the writing, recording and performance of a protest song; “Scream For Change”. Project three included students using various “street art” techniques to raise awareness of a chosen social justice issue and the fourth project learn how students formed a band and put out a 7” record. Participants will walk away with resources and ideas to implement their own social justice themed projects in their school, social studies or art classroom.

Are you looking for new ways to engage difficult students? Are you seeking strategies for curbing challenging behaviours? Do you ever just want to hear from others about what helps them steer their challenging students back on track? Then come to this session and learn all about consequence focused classroom strategies used in mainstream and BLA classrooms. We will review specific techniques used to clearly communicate with students what they are doing correctly, what they aren’t, and what they can do to be empowered to focus on their studies and stop being disruptive(!).

Are you looking for new ways to engage difficult students? Are you seeking novel strategies for teaching Numeracy and Life Skills curriculum? Do your students love (the idea of) money? Then come to this session and learn all about how to run a classroom economy in your classroom that will take little setup, is not demanding to maintain, and can operate within the strictest of budgets. (Seriously, I run mine spending NO money, and my students love it.) Classroom economies, in the context of this presentation, describe methods of classroom management that feature a points/currency based reward system that gives students choice in how they want to be celebrated for showing positive behaviour at school. This session will describe the speaker’s successes and experiences running classroom e economies in mainstream classroom and Behaviour and Learning Assistance (BLA)/Connections program settings. Why is this session relevant to Teachers?: - Teachers will develop their classroom management skills by expanding their knowledge of classroom economies. - Teachers with experience running classroom economies will learn beneficial tips and strategies for running efficient and effective classroom economies. - The use of Class Dojo and Classcraft app will be reviewed. Participants will have a chance to earn points themselves, and it will be fun!

Welcome to Sal'S Skate Shop - the CTS classroom that has a goal of melding entrepreneurial and business skills with skateboard culture to engage students through project-based learning. Participants will be introduced to project and program ideas on how to start your own skateboard business course in your school. Participants will be introduced to how the skateboard business model can be incorporated to many facets of the CTS modular stream such as ENT, MAM, COMM, FAS and many more. Participants interested in learning how to start a skateboard focused CTS class will be provided with many different ideas and projects on how to get this started.