Spring Leadership Conference 2026

A Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Colorado Denver, Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D., is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts on P-12 school leadership, deeper learning, technology, and innovation. He is on a mission to make students’ day-to-day learning less boring and more meaningful and relevant. Scott is the Founding Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE), the only university center in the U.S. dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators, and is the co-creator of both the wildly popular video series, Did You Know? (Shift Happens), and the 4 Shifts Protocol for lesson and unit redesign.
Scott has worked with hundreds of schools, districts, universities, and other organizations and has received numerous awards for his technology leadership work, including the 2016 Award for Outstanding Leadership from the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Scott blogs about leadership and innovation at Dangerously Irrelevant and is a frequent keynote speaker and workshop facilitator at regional, state, national, and international conferences. Scott also hosts two podcasts, LeaderTalk and Redesigning for Deeper Learning.
Scott currently serves as a Senior Fellow for Getting Smart, a Fellow for the NAESP Center for Innovative Leadership, an ISTE Community Leader, InnEdCO Ambassador, and on NAESP’s Professional Learning Advisory Council. He has written or edited 4 books and 170 articles and other publications, and is one of the most visible education professors in the United States. His most recent work focuses on what deeper learning looks like in elementary and middle schools.

Designing for meaning-making

Any system or process that ignores the vast diversity of the humans that walk through our doors each day is bound to fail. Despite our best attempts, we know that a number of our students often struggle to find meaning in the learning tasks that we put before them (even when they compliantly play 'the game of school'). As we think about our curricular, instructional, and assessment practices, where in our schools do students find (or fail to find) meaning? Are we ready to go beyond the buzz words and truly design for personalization and engagement? In this interactive keynote, we will wrestle with some deeply-held assumptions about learning, teaching, and schooling. Be prepared to engage with your neighbors!

Designing for student agency and engagement

Schools around the globe are using the FREE 4 Shifts Protocol to push their pedagogy toward ‘deeper learning.’ In this session, we will focus on (re)designing lessons and units for greater student agency and engagement. Deeper learning environments are identify-affirming environments. The more personalized a student's experience is, the more agency they have to make their learning activities 'theirs,' orienting them around their needs and interests, in ways that make sense for their personal growth, development, and self-efficacy. This highly-active session will focus both on instructional redesign and on practical tips and suggestions for how to integrate the protocol into day-to-day practice. Bring a computing device and be ready to actively engage with others!

What are we willing to give up?

Too often school is done TO children rather than WITH children. Many of us are talking about the need for schools to provide greater ‘student agency.’ But true agency doesn’t exist when we only give our students limited choices within whatever constrained parameters we decide to allow them. Many 'student voice' initiatives in schools are tokenistic, inauthentic, and relatively powerless participation opportunities. In this highly-active session we will wrestle with how much we (dis)trust children, how much control we are willing to give up as adults, and what students can say no to. Bring a computing device and be ready to actively engage with others!