NC BOLD West 2026 Day 1 McDowell High School

Ready to hit the instructional sweet spot? In this hands-on, high-energy session, we will dive into the power trio. Differentiation, formative assessment, and feedback. You will experience simple, classroom-ready strategies that help you respond to student needs in real time, not after the lesson is over. Better yet, you will build your own tools during the session, including quick-check assessments, feedback routines, and differentiation moves you can use immediately. Come ready to think, create, and leave with resources you will actually use.

Get ready to revolutionize how you design learning experiences! This session introduces a custom-built GPT designed to help North Carolina educators create engaging Project-Based Learning (PBL) experiences for their students. We'll show you how this AI tool can swiftly generate mini PBL units that are not only tightly aligned to the NC Standard Course of Study but also connect students to authentic, real-world problems and projects right in their local communities. We believe this is how we prepare students for the future: by making their learning relevant, immediate, and meaningful. Explore examples generated by teachers in a statewide pilot, and discover how this technology can transform your approach to instruction.

Step into the Innovation Garden and work with the NC AI Standards Coaches to grow aligned, classroom-ready instructional materials. These AI assistants are trained on curated resources from the NC Office of Teaching and Learning, ISTE, and more, and support standards unpacking, instructional planning, and literacy-rich practices across content areas. This is a hands-on session with task cards and guided exploration. Bring your learning goals and leave with literacy-rich, high-leverage learning resources you can use right away.