This keynote, delivered in a storytelling, interactive style, will explore the concept of leading from "above the line"- encouraging a mindset shift toward conscious leadership.

Rich mathematical activity is often associated with open problems, and we rarely pair the limits on student actions with an increase in mathematical possibility. However, in this session we consider how playing with what is forbidden in a mathematical task can help us design and use problems that open doors to deep mathematical understanding.

In today’s breakneck publishing model, books go out of print almost as fast as they are published. That not only creates a glut of often poor-quality material for educators to wade through, it promotes an environment in which quality books are often overlooked and forgotten. In this year’s keynote, Montana author Sneed B. Collard III discusses the value of older books, and surveys both his older and newer “greatest hits”—including his 2024 Orbis Pictus Award winner, Border Crossings and his newest picture book, Like No Other: Earth’s Coolest One-of-a-Kind Creatures.

Join us to explore how artistic practice can enhance educators' personal and professional well-being. Learn strategies for self-care and creative engagement that enrich teaching and the fundamental benefits of the neuroscience of art and the brain. This presentation will discuss the importance of self-care and artistic engagement for educators, offering strategies to balance teaching demands with personal creative pursuits. Participants will gain insights into cultivating a sustainable teaching career that prioritizes personal well-being and professional effectiveness.

2024 Montana Teacher of the Year Kevin KickingWoman will share his experience teaching Indian Education and why all teachers need to integrate it into their curriculum.

Brock LaMeres, Professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, author, Boeing Professor, NASA Engineer, whose designs have been to the moon, will talk share his experiences in teaching the next generation of scientists. Brock is not only an accomplished professor, he is a respected teacher and does significant outreach to K-12 schools across the nation and the state.

The Hunt for Red Pedagogy is a quest to seek out those scholars and educators committed to understanding and practicing the structural institutional impedances to attaining a society of race and ethnic pluralism. This talk is a primer to help faculty think more consciously about the meaning of colonization and decolonization in higher education; offer strategies for individuals and groups as they seek to combat this pervasive social problem; to introduce tribal sovereignty nomenclature, and assist in developing tangible strategies for decolonizing one’s life and praxis through a conceptual framework called “wave-jumping.” The Transformational Indigenous Praxis Model will guide how educators can decolonize research methodologies and emerge from Indigenous epistemology frameworks, so they are always people- and place-specific.