Al-Maseira: The Journey Cairo
Workshop Descriptions
AI In Education
Build the judgment and structures to make AI decisions that actually reflect what your school stands for.
Irreplaceable: The AI-Ready School Leader
Anju Shivaram, AI Project Manager, Middle States Association
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Your school is already making AI decisions. Some were intentional. Others took root informally, in classrooms and corridors, before there was a structure to make sense of them. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, a question keeps surfacing: are these decisions actually advancing what your school stands for?
Most leaders are not short on information about AI. What they are short on is a starting point that is honest, specific, and theirs.
The leaders shaping what AI means for their schools are the ones willing to ask a harder question first: what is irreplaceable about learning here, and are our AI decisions strengthening it? That question is a compass. When leaders have that clarity, they stop managing AI's presence in their school and start directing what it means there.
This workshop is that structure.
You will map where your school's AI decisions have actually landed. You will articulate what you personally believe about learning and name the gap between that belief and what your school's AI decisions actually reflect. You will choose one high-leverage priority, grounded in your school's mission, and commit to it. You will write three concrete actions for the first 30 days after you leave this room.
Each session adds one layer to what you are building. On the final day, you will present your completed Brief to peers from across the summit: a first draft made visible, shaped by three days of real work.
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You leave with a School AI Readiness Brief: a four-part document containing an honest map of your school's current AI landscape, a personal beliefs statement, a focused priority, and a first move you can act on the week you return. The judgment and the values that shaped every part of it are yours. So is what you do with it next.
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This workshop is for Heads of School, Principals, Directors, Superintendents, and senior educators who carry real influence over how their school navigates AI. No prior experience with AI is required, and you do not need to arrive with a team. You do need to be willing to think honestly about where your school actually is and where you want to take it.
Rooted & Reimagined: Building a School AI Culture from Mission to Practice
Morgan Mifflin, AI Project Manager, Middle States Association
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The AI decisions shaping your school rarely start with you. They get handed down, rolled out, or quietly assumed. And yet you are the one in the classroom, expected to act on them, whether or not they reflect what you actually believe about learning.
Most AI professional development treats teachers as implementers. This workshop treats you as the expert on your students and your context, and starts there: with what you believe about powerful learning, and builds from there. Teachers who are grounded in their own values do not just use AI more thoughtfully. They use it to reimagine what learning can look like for their specific students, in their specific classroom.
Across six sessions, you will move from articulating what powerful learning means in your context, to mapping where AI fits in your school, to building a classroom inquiry plan you can test immediately. Every session produces something. By the final session, you will refine your work and present it in a Public Demonstration of Learning.
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You will leave with a Plan-Do-Study-Act Action Research Plan: a first cycle of classroom inquiry rooted in your own Declaration of Powerful Learning. It includes a specific question to test, a method for studying impact, and AI literacy and ethics considerations relevant to your context. Peer-reviewed and presentation-ready.
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This workshop is for teachers at any level who want to meet AI with clarity and intention, whether you come alone or with colleagues. No prior AI experience required. No team required.
Change Leadership
From self-study to strategic redesign, workshops for leaders who know change has to be worth it.
Wise Change Leadership through the Self-Study Process
Dr. Lina Lewis, Associate Vice President of Accreditation, Middle States Association
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Too often, accreditation becomes a compliance exercise – a race toward reports, timelines, and hosting a successful visit. Schools complete the process, but the deeper opportunity for reflection, coherence, and transformation gets lost beneath logistics.
At the same time, many schools are navigating profound questions about identity, wellbeing, learning, leadership, and future readiness. Leaders know they need meaningful change, but it can feel difficult to create the conditions for honest dialogue, shared ownership, and purposeful action while also managing the demands of the accreditation process.
What if the self-study was not simply something to get through, but a rare opportunity to slow down, see the system more clearly, and strengthen a school’s capacity for ongoing evolution?
The self-study process holds the potential to become one of the most powerful learning and improvement experiences a school community can undertake.
When designed intentionally, the process can surface meaningful dialogue, deepen alignment around mission and purpose, strengthen collective leadership, and create actionable pathways for growth grounded in the school’s unique context and aspirations. Rather than asking, “How do we complete the process successfully?” schools can begin asking, “How do we use this process to become more reflective, coherent, and future-ready as a community?”
This workshop invites schools to reimagine the self-study as a journey of wise change leadership that supports both institutional growth and flourishing.
This workshop provides internal coordinators and school leaders with a practical and strategic overview of the full MSA self-study journey as an opportunity for meaningful school improvement and transformation.
Participants will move through the arc of the accreditation experience from launch to hosting the team visit, exploring how to:
Design and facilitate a reflective, mission-centered self-study process
Build structures that encourage authentic participation and shared ownership
Use evidence, dialogue, and inquiry to uncover strengths and opportunities for growth
Develop meaningful and actionable plans for growth
Prepare for and host a successful visit experience grounded in openness, learning, and partnership
Throughout the workshop, participants will reflect on how the coordinator role can move beyond project management toward guiding a purposeful process of collective learning, alignment, and wise change.
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A practical roadmap for leading the MSA self-study process from start to finish
A customized planning framework to support timelines, communication, and team facilitation
Reflection and facilitation strategies that foster authentic engagement and meaningful dialogue
A clearer vision for using accreditation as a catalyst for growth, coherence, and flourishing within their school community
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New or aspiring MSA Internal Coordinators
School leaders overseeing or supporting the self-study process
Accreditation team leaders seeking to deepen the improvement-centered focus of their work
Schools interested in approaching accreditation as a meaningful process of reflection, growth, and purposeful action rather than compliance alone
The Phoenix Project: A Workshop on Doing Less, Better
Dr. Tara Waudby, Vice President of Evolution Academy, Middle States Association
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In February 2025, Middle States convened a small group of school leaders over dinner to discuss Forbidden Questions about K12 schools–the sorts of things that, if you were to bring them up at a typical school gathering, people would change the topic or find another conversation partner.
Out of that dinner emerged a powerful desire to talk about—and to do something about—a forbidden topic in schools:
What do we need to stop doing so that we can focus on what matters most? And how can we address that forbidden question with thoughtful, mission-driven change strategy and planning?
Schools are extraordinary at addition and nearly incapable of subtraction. Over time, the accumulation of programs, initiatives, and commitments diffuses a school's energy across too many things — until nothing has the concentration it needs to truly work. The opportunity in front of you is not just to cut; it is to hospice: to bring something to a graceful, intentional conclusion, honor what it built, and redirect that released energy toward what your school most needs to become.
The workshop unfolds in three acts. In the first, participants identify what their school needs to release and map how their community will experience that transition. In the second, they design the story and ceremony that will help stakeholders make meaning of the change. In the third, they build the strategy — redirecting freed resources, designing early wins, and drafting the communications plan that answers hard questions before they are asked. Every tool is applied directly to their own school context, with a finished Phoenix Plan ready to implement.
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Participants leave with a complete Phoenix Plan — a hospicing diagnosis, a SCARF stakeholder impact assessment, a celebration of what was, and a strategy for what comes next, using the Strategy Cascade — plus a reverse press release and FAQ ready to share with their community, a new alliance with at least one fellow leader committed to co-learning, and a curated resource bundle to sustain the work. Everything needed to lead the next conversation on Monday morning.
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This workshop is for heads of school, division directors, department chairs, and any school leader who has ever thought we need to stop doing X before we can do Y — and watched X persist anyway. If you are ready to lead wise change through purposeful subtraction, this is for you.
Flourishing Schools
Design schools where students and adults aren't just succeeding — they're thriving.
Building Student Well-Being Systems: From Discrete Programs to Schoolwide Implementation
Dr. Lorna Fairess, Associate Vice President of Accreditation, Middle States Association
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Schools are investing significant time, energy, and resources into student well-being initiatives. Yet many leaders continue to wrestle with the same challenge: despite strong intentions and meaningful effort, the work can still feel fragmented, difficult to sustain, and disconnected from long-term impact.
Leaders often find themselves managing multiple programs, frameworks, and interventions without a clear system for alignment or long-term impact. As schools work to strengthen belonging, engagement, resilience, and self-efficacy, the challenge is no longer simply identifying programs. It is building the coherence and conditions necessary for those efforts to become sustainable and meaningful across the school community.
This workshop invites participants to explore how schools can move beyond isolated initiatives toward a more intentional, system-level approach to student well-being. Through the lens of research, implementation science, and systems thinking, participants will examine how well-being efforts can support stronger decision-making, clearer alignment, and more sustainable implementation.
Grounded in the belief that student well-being is central to school culture and long-term student success, the workshop combines collaborative inquiry, structured reflection, and guided design experiences. Participants will identify a meaningful problem of practice, analyze existing initiatives, explore how systems and adult practices shape student experience, and develop more coherent approaches to implementation and impact.
Throughout the workshop, participants will actively develop, refine, and apply their thinking.
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Participants will leave with a customized, implementation-ready Student Well-Being Action Plan or policy framework tailored to their role and setting.
Each plan will include:
Clear student-centered outcomes
Aligned strategies and structures
A realistic implementation pathway
Methods for monitoring progress and impact over time
Rather than leaving with disconnected ideas, participants will leave with a practical framework designed to support purposeful action within their schools and organizations.
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This workshop is designed for school and district leaders, principals, counselors, instructional leaders, wellness coordinators, student support teams, and educators responsible for leading systems that support student well-being, belonging, engagement, and flourishing.
It is particularly relevant for leaders seeking to move beyond isolated initiatives toward a coherent and sustainable schoolwide approach to student well-being.
Creating Growth through Experiential Cycles: For Learning, For Leading, For Living
Dr. Michelle Haag, Associate Vice President of Accreditation, Middle States Association
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Educational leaders are being asked to guide schools through a profound shift—from traditional, compliance‑driven instruction to experiential learning that empowers students to take ownership of what and how they learn. Yet even leaders who believe deeply in student agency often struggle to translate that belief into coherent systems, shared language, and community‑wide practice. Schools need structures that help adults and young people partner in meaningful learning, but many lack the tools, habits, and long‑range planning required to make this shift sustainable.
Students are ready. They want to do good work, explore compelling ideas, and make a positive impact on their communities. The challenge is ensuring that the adults around them—teachers, administrators, and instructional leaders—are equipped to design environments where students can flourish not in isolation, but in community.
Students are ready to lead their learning; adults need support designing environments with coherent structures in which adults and young people partner in impactful learning. This workshop addresses the gap between just knowing that experiential learning is powerful and honing the skills to create meaningful learning experiences in classes and begin translating that vision of learning to an evolving school culture.
Together we will use Middle States Association tools including the Profile of a Learner, Portrait of an Educator, Declaration of Powerful Learning, and Action Planning—to build a shared vision and actionable roadmap for experiential learning across their school ecosystem.
Together, we will explore research‑informed shifts in instruction, response, and assessment, always grounding our work in the learner’s point of view—what captures their curiosity, what motivates them, and what supports them in producing consequential, community‑connected projects. Educators will walk away with ready‑to‑use structures for partnering with students so that adults and young people can flourish together as co‑designers of learning.
Across the six sessions, leaders will:
Use the Profile of a Learner to articulate the skills, dispositions, and competencies students need to lead their own learning.
Examine the Portrait of an Educator to define the adult mindsets and practices required to support student agency.
Craft a Declaration of Powerful Learning that captures their school’s commitments to experiential, consequential learning.
Build a long‑range Action Plan that integrates reflection, experimentation, feedback cycles, and community partnership.
Participants will enter the workshop with ideas for helping students grow as leaders from early childhood through adolescence. They will leave with a coherent, research‑aligned plan for cultivating learning environments where students and adults are true partners—co‑designing experiences, sharing responsibility, and building a culture of curiosity, purpose, and meaningful work.
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Participants will develop an Experiential Learning Playbook that can immediately guide conversations, planning, and implementation within their school community.
The Playbook will include:
A current-state reflection and experiential learning opportunity map
A Profile of an Experiential Learner aligned to the school’s vision for student growth
A Portrait of an Educator identifying the adult practices and mindsets needed to support experiential learning
A Declaration of Powerful Learning articulating the school’s commitments to meaningful, community-connected learning
A long-range implementation roadmap with strategies for reflection, experimentation, assessment, feedback cycles, and stakeholder involvement
Participants will leave with a practical, adaptable leadership tool they can use to guide professional learning, instructional conversations, school redesign efforts, and future planning work.
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This work is ideal for leaders of teaching, PK-12 curriculum directors, instructional coaches and educators who know that students can learn to design solutions and want to create structure for that to lead to positive change. The experience is designed for educational leaders who want to transform both their personal practice and their school community’s approach to learning.
Designed to Include: A Teacher's Toolkit for Removing Barriers to Learning
Lauren Jones, CEO, Lauren Jones Consulting
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What if inclusion wasn't another initiative — but a design choice you could make tomorrow morning?
In most classrooms, barriers to learning are invisible to the people who design around them every day. A worksheet's font size, the placement of a desk, the wording of a direction, the assumption embedded in an example — these small design choices quietly decide who can access learning and who cannot. Teachers care deeply about inclusion, but the conversation often arrives as another initiative, another framework, another binder. What teachers rarely get is permission and practice to make small, immediate, low-effort design changes that remove barriers tomorrow morning.
In Designed to Include, teachers will learn to see their classrooms as designed environments and redesign them, one small shift at a time, to remove barriers for neurodivergent learners and every student who learns alongside them. Grounded in the Landscape Model of Learning and neurodiversity-affirming practice, this hands-on workshop moves beyond frameworks into immediate, practical action.
The wise change here is not a sweeping curriculum overhaul; it is the cumulative power of dozens of small, deliberate shifts that make classrooms more accessible for neurodivergent learners and, in doing so, better for everyone.
Across six sessions, participants will audit and redesign their own lessons, classroom spaces, communication, and management approaches — building a personalized Redesign Kit they can put to work Monday morning.
Participants will engage in “Barrier Hunts,” classroom audits, redesign protocols, scenario-based redesign work, and structured peer feedback throughout the experience. They will progressively redesign different dimensions of classroom life — from lesson structures and classroom environments to communication and proactive management approaches — while continuously refining their kit from session one.
Every strategy is low-lift, classroom-tested, and designed to fit within the realities of a teacher’s day.
Come ready to look closely at your own practice, share generously with fellow teachers, and leave with something you can actually use.
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You’ll leave with:
A personalized Redesign Kit containing redesigned lessons, spaces, routines, and communication samples
A toolkit of 20+ low-lift strategies organized across lesson design, classroom space, communication, and classroom management
A 30-day implementation roadmap of small shifts you can begin Monday morning
A peer-reviewed pitch to share the work with your grade-level team, department, or school leadership
A shared resource index co-built with fellow participants throughout the workshop
The kit is designed to be a living resource — usable immediately and adaptable over time.
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Designed for K–12 classroom teachers across all subject areas who want practical, immediately implementable strategies for inclusive design. Particularly valuable for teachers who feel the gap between inclusion as a value and inclusion as a daily classroom practice.
Instructional coaches, learning support specialists, and grade-level team leaders will also find the redesign kit directly applicable to their work supporting colleagues. No prior background in UDL or neurodiversity frameworks is required.