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South by Southwest Edu returns next week to Austin, Texas, running March 6鈥�9. As always, the event offers hundreds of panels, discussions, film screenings and workshops on education policy, politics, innovation, and of course, this being 2023, the rise of artificial intelligence.

One keynote session will feature the renowned architect Frank Gehry chatting with his younger sister, educator Doreen Gehry Nelson, about creativity, critical thinking and collaboration in education. In another, pollster John Della Volpe will share new data from the November 2022 midterm elections and discuss how to engage with rising Gen Z leaders. 

In yet another, filmmakers will screen a new documentary featuring Oakland-based activist Kareem Weaver, who, fed up with bleak reading scores in his home city, filed a petition with the NAACP demanding change in early reading instruction. 

There鈥檚 actually too much to see and hear in the span of just four days, so The 74 has streamlined the selection process. We鈥檝e scoured the schedule to highlight a few of the most significant presenters, topics and panels that might be worth your time. 

Here鈥檚 a highly subjective list of 23 sessions you shouldn鈥檛 miss in 2023:

Monday, March 6:

: In this session by two educators and a psychologist who treats addiction, panelists will share the neuroscience behind teen brains鈥� unique susceptibility to tech 鈥� and how adults can help students fight it via a science-based digital media curriculum and resources designed to empower teens to develop healthy relationships with their devices. .

: The LEGO Foundation鈥檚 Bo Stjerne Thomsen joins experts in early childhood education, critical thinking, and game-based learning to discuss how educators can chart student progress in hard-to-measure areas while kids play. This discussion will explore new ways to engage kids in creative play in a way that develops essential skills and new methods for assessing growth. .

: The lab director of Community & Implementation at Stanford d.school joins two leading philanthropic leaders to explore opportunities for change that happen when we treat our schools as 鈥渧ital pieces of community infrastructure.鈥� Panelists will discuss what we unlock when educators draw on what students are capable of across physical space, tech innovation and social connection. .

: The pandemic exposed millions of students to the opportunities and limitations of virtual learning. Three years after the most significant disruption to schooling in recent memory, a panel of educators and advocates ask how virtual learning can reshape how we recruit, train, hire, and deploy teachers and how a virtual education workforce could provide new solutions to ongoing staffing problems. This session is moderated by The 74鈥檚 Greg Toppo. .

: The pandemic accelerated a looming teacher shortage, with a twist: Just 20% of teachers are people of color, even as non-white students comprise the majority of U.S students, according to the Education Trust. Yet 40% of public schools do not have a single non-white teacher on record. How can we rethink teacher recruitment and training to ensure that teachers represent the students they serve? This panel explores a national initiative to recruit 1 million teachers of color over the next decade. .

: Polarization in education policy threatens to erode the broad support that schools have long enjoyed. The Aspen Institute and a bipartisan group of state policymakers developed Opportunity to Learn principles to undergird a new, positive bipartisan agenda for improving public education. The panel features Aspen鈥檚 Ross Wiener as well as two state lawmakers (one Democrat and one Republican) to explore how this approach can help rebuild support for public education. .

: Mesa Public Schools, Arizona鈥檚 largest school district, has committed to building team-based staffing models in half of its schools. It now has 30 schools with innovative staffing models, and early results are promising. This panel features a representative of Mesa schools as well as two scholars from Arizona State University, which is partnering with the district on new ways to address teacher shortages and workforce design. .

Tuesday, March 7:

(keynote, livestreamed): In this keynote session, renowned architect Frank Gehry chats with his younger sister, Doreen Gehry Nelson, about their respective careers, sharing their perspectives on the roles that 鈥渃reativity, critical thinking, and collaboration鈥� play in education. Gehry Nelson created a well-known method of design-based learning, a teaching methodology that has been applied in K-12 classrooms worldwide since 1969. .

: In this session, the National Association for Media Literacy Education will discuss implementing 鈥渢rain-the-trainer鈥� models for scaling media literacy education and instruction in schools, districts and communities. This session is led by Donnell Probst, a NAMLE associate director and former college reference librarian. .

: Adequate school funding is a key to educational attainment, but the benefits don鈥檛 stop there. It affects earnings, crime and poverty, research shows. Join a panel of experts from the Learning Policy Institute, the Public Policy Institute of California and the Tennessee Department of Education to hear how funding becomes more equitable to ensure better outcomes, especially as schools tap federal pandemic relief funds. This session is led by The Dallas Morning News鈥� Eva-Marie Ayala. .

: Emerging approaches to demonstrating mastery, as well as advanced computational methods, hold the power to improve assessment while reducing time and administrative costs. Hear leaders across research, government and philanthropy talk about how innovation is creating the assessments of the future. .

: This new documentary film features Oakland-based NAACP activist Kareem Weaver, who was fed up with bleak reading scores in his own community and filed a petition with the NAACP demanding change in early reading instruction. The session also features American Public Media鈥檚 Emily Hanford, whose breakout podcast 鈥淪old a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong鈥� is shining a light on the Science of Reading. .

: For the first time, Arizona State University is offering its courses for credit through YouTube. The partnership, called Study Hall, aims to help potential college-goers navigate higher education by earning credit for their first year of college online. The session features Study Hall鈥檚 Hank Green, a popular YouTuber who has been called “one of America’s most popular science teachers.” His videos have been viewed more than two billion times on YouTube. .

: About 15 million students in the U.S. live with unstable internet access 鈥� or no access at all. A $65 billion broadband-for-all plan is in place, but the effort isn鈥檛 expected to reach the last mile for all students until 2030. In the meantime, what are low-barrier options for students without internet access to access carefully curated resources of digital content on their devices? Hear Endless OS Foundation鈥檚 talk about alternatives. .

Wednesday, March 8:

: John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, has been called one of the world鈥檚 leading authorities on global sentiment, opinion, and influence, especially among youth in the age of digital and social media. In this discussion hosted by the Walton Family Foundation, he鈥檒l share new data from the November 2022 midterm elections and the panel will explore how to engage with rising Gen Z leaders to bring their unique vision for unity and collaboration to fruition. . 

: In this 90-minute interactive workshop led by Stanford d.school educators, participants will engage in the fundamental concepts underpinning Artificial Intelligence through symbolic play and hands-on design work. Participants will learn how AI can be used to address societal challenges, explore classroom applications, identify ethical implications and prototype different outcomes for social justice and the education system. .

: Experts say K-12 schools must increasingly offer education that鈥檚 personalized, skill-based, and interdisciplinary. But traditional school transcripts are ill-suited to capture the richness of these approaches. This panel discussion by representatives of the Mastery Transcript Consortium, the XQ Institute, the Aurora Institute and Big Picture Learning will explore insights and lessons learned from their credential design efforts. .

: Pandemic learning loss has engendered countless tutoring initiatives nationwide. Could tutoring be not just a short-term fix but an enduring feature of the U.S. education system? And what does research show about the benefits of online and hybrid models? This session, featuring former Tennessee Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman and current Tennessee Chief Academic Officer Lisa Coons, will look at new research and on-the-ground implementation of evidence-based tutoring programs that improve outcomes for all students, particularly those historically excluded from such services. .

: As the pandemic recedes across the U.S., K-12 superintendents are retiring in droves. Top executive-search firms say business is brisk, with departures as high as any in recent memory. The American Association of School Administrators last fall found that about one in four superintendents had left their jobs in the past year, a marked increase from previous years. In their wake they leave a shallower recruiting pool. So is it time to rethink the superintendent pipeline? Should districts be more engaged in succession planning and growing future superintendents from within? This panel explores Texas school districts that were intentional about developing leaders and whose boards picked high-performing successors from within, allowing the district to keep raising the bar without losing momentum. .

: Educators should be intentionally designing the learning experience, say two experiential learning experts from the Minerva Project, an innovative college program that has made waves in higher education. This workshop will show how they design integrated online and offline immersive experiences that connect the curriculum to the real world 鈥渦sing awe and wonder as pedagogically useful tools.鈥� .

: As drag queen story hours come under fire from conservatives nationwide, advocates say it鈥檚 more important than ever to understand their aim: Using drag as a traditional art form to promote literacy, teach about LGBTQ lives and activate children’s imaginations. This session, featuring three drag queens, will discuss the importance of LGBTQ family programming. .

Thursday, March 9

: This session features of Sandy Hook Promise, who will discuss the group鈥檚 鈥淜now the Signs鈥� school shooting and violence prevention programs. The session will bring together leaders who are equipping students with social and emotional skills to spot warning signs in their peers and intervene safely.

: In this session, two educators from the Groundswell Project UK will talk about young people and extremism, and how we can best challenge hate narratives in our schools and communities. Groundswell has been working in schools to counter hate narratives from the far-right to Islamism to misogynist extremism and other forms of violence. This session will offer best practices to educate youth on these issues. The session will also include personal testimony and examples of how young people can be misguided into extremist thinking 鈥� and how to help support vulnerable young people. .

Disclosure: The Walton Family Foundation and XQ Institute provide financial support to The 74.

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