WISIT Summer Institute 2026: Full Schedule

WISIT Summer Institute 2026

August 3 to 7, 2026
Washington International School, Tregaron Campus

9:00am EDT

Plenary Session: Ron Ritchhart - Who are our students becoming as thinkers and learners as a result of their time with us?

Monday August 3, 2026 9:00am - 10:30am EDT

Black Box Theater - Middle School Building

Since the very beginning of the Cultures of Thinking Project at Harvard, one question has energized our work: Who are our students becoming as thinkers and learners as a result of their time with us? We’ve long believed that a high-quality education is about far more than short-term retention or success on low-level assessments. It’s about nurturing young people who are curious, capable, and ready to engage meaningfully with the world—successful not just in our seats, but beyond our doors. Helping students become independent, empowered learners requires a shift for all of us—a rethinking of both the teacher’s role and the learner’s role. It also asks us to interrupt the familiar “grammar of school” that too often prizes compliance over agency. In our opening plenary session, we’ll come together to explore what we are noticing in our learners this year—early signs, small moments, and powerful indicators of their growth as independent thinkers. From there, we’ll get practical by examining the key practices, mental shifts, and instructional moves that strengthen students’ learning and thinking muscles and develop both their resilience and independence.

Speakers

Dr. Ron Ritchhart

Cultures of Thinking

Monday August 3, 2026 9:00am - 10:30am EDT
Black Box Theater - Middle School Building 3100 Macomb St NW

Plenary Session

9:00am EDT

Plenary Session: A WISIT Film Festival, led by Ron Ritchhart

Tuesday August 4, 2026 9:00am - 10:00am EDT

Black Box Theater - Middle School Building

Join us for a special WISIT Film Festival featuring classroom stories from across the DC area that bring a culture of thinking to life. In partnership with Ron Ritchhart, these short films capture real teachers and students engaged in deep thinking, inquiry, and meaningful learning.

Filmed in a range of classrooms across public, private, and parochial schools, the series offers a window into how educators are making thinking visible and creating environments where student ideas, questions, and perspectives are at the center. Together, we’ll watch, reflect, and consider what it looks like to build cultures of thinking in our own contexts.

Speakers

Dr. Ron Ritchhart

Cultures of Thinking

Tuesday August 4, 2026 9:00am - 10:00am EDT
Black Box Theater - Middle School Building 3100 Macomb St NW

Plenary Session

9:00am EDT

Plenary Session: National Gallery of Art - Honoring the Past, Designing the Future: Stories, Inquiry, and Possibility

Wednesday August 5, 2026 9:00am - 10:15am EDT

National Gallery of Art - East Building

This plenary brings together Meghan Lally Keaton, Gerald D. Smith Jr., and Angels Natal Ascencio to explore how classrooms and museums are marking the 250th anniversary as spaces for reflection, inquiry, and possibility. Drawing on powerful examples from across the DC community, they will highlight how educators are using thinking routines to slow down, look closely, and engage learners in deep, meaningful encounters with objects, stories, and histories.

Together, they will consider what it means to approach the past with a critical and curious eye while holding an optimistic vision for the future. How can museum resources help us uncover layered narratives and expand whose stories are told? And how can our classrooms become places that not only honor the complexity of our shared history, but also reflect our highest ideals and hopes for what comes next? This conversation invites educators to see themselves as designers of learning experiences that bridge past and future—grounded in reflection, fueled by inquiry, and oriented toward a more thoughtful and just world.

Speakers

Gerald D Smith Jr.

Smithsonian

Gerald D. Smith Jr. is the former Principal of St. Thomas More Catholic Academy in Washington, DC, where he led with a focus on equity, innovation, and community partnerships. Currently he is the Lead Education Specialist for Youth Development Programs at the Smithsonian Institution... Read More →

Àngels Natal-Asensio

Oakton High School

Àngels Natal-Asensio is a Spanish instructor and World Languages Department Chair at Oakton High School. Previously she taught English and German in her native Barcelona, where she started integrating Project Zero thinking routines along with art in the teaching of world languages... Read More →

Wednesday August 5, 2026 9:00am - 10:15am EDT
National Gallery of Art - East Building

Plenary Session

9:00am EDT

Plenary Session led by the Center for Digital Thriving - The AI to Z Workshop: Finding the Words Schools Need Now

Thursday August 6, 2026 9:00am - 10:00am EDT

Black Box Theater - Middle School Building

The AI to Z Workshop: Finding the Words Schools Need Now - Generative AI is changing how we teach, learn, and relate to one another in schools. These changes are happening so fast it feels nearly impossible to see, name, or talk about them. What if we had words for them? In this participatory plenary, the Center for Digital Thriving will invite you into the AI to Z Workshop, a practice that brings people together to name the often-invisible ways AI is reshaping school life. Together, we'll surface the phenomena educators and students are living through but don't yet have language for. You'll leave with both a shared vocabulary and a workshop process you can take back to your classrooms, colleagues, and communities. Most importantly, you’ll leave with a greater sense of agency, because at CDT, we've found that having the words to see these changes is what lets us decide how we want to relate to them — as individuals, communities, and institutions.

Speakers

Dr. Carrie James

Co-Director of Project Zero, Center for Digital Thriving

Dr. Carrie James (she/her) is a sociologist, researcher, and the current Co-Director of Project Zero. Emphasizing qualitative methods, her work focuses on young people’s digital experiences, including opportunities and challenges for their well-being, social connections, and civic... Read More →

Dr. Beck Tench

Center for Digital Thriving

Dr. Beck Tench (she/her) has deep and abiding curiosities about how to live well in a radically connected world. She is a Principal Investigator at Project Zero, where she serves as a senior researcher, designer, and co-leader of the IMAGINE AI portfolio of work at the Center for Digital Thriving. Her research explores how people find hope and digital agency, individually and collectively. Beck also teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.Beck earned her Ph.D. in Information Science at the University of Washington, where... Read More →

Dan Be Kim

Center for Digital Thriving

Dan Be Kim is a startup founder turned educational technologist, committed to reimagining how we teach and learn in the age of AI. Her current work centers on designing human-centered AI literacy programming for educators and learners. As a third culture kid with a multicultural upbringing... Read More →

Thursday August 6, 2026 9:00am - 10:00am EDT
Black Box Theater - Middle School Building 3100 Macomb St NW

Plenary Session

11:15am EDT

Closing Plenary Session: Co-Creating the Future Together: AI, Agency, and Cultures of Thinking

Friday August 7, 2026 11:15am - 12:45pm EDT

Black Box Theater - Middle School Building

Featuring Aaryn Drapiza, Jaime Chao Migano, and Georgina Ardalan.

This session highlights three classroom stories from across the DMV, offering a vivid and grounded look at how educators are integrating AI into their practice, not as a replacement for thinking, but as a tool to deepen it. From kindergarten through high school, teachers share how they are using AI to support cultures of thinking, making, creativity, and student agency in ways that feel authentic and responsive to their learners. These are not polished case studies, but real moments of practice, filled with experimentation, reflection, and discovery. Together, they paint a hopeful and honest picture of what it looks like to teach and learn alongside AI in real time, inviting participants to consider how these emerging tools can amplify, rather than diminish, the richness of classroom thinking.

Speakers

Jaime Chao Mignano

Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart

Jaime Chao Mignano is the Director of Technology and Innovation at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, MD. She has been a technology and maker educator in Washington, DC for over a decade, serving schools and nonprofit organizations in developing and delivering curriculum... Read More →

Georgina Ardalan

Janney Elementary School

Georgina Ardalan is an early childhood educator in DC Public Schools. She draws on her first career in architecture to create a nurturing, collaborative environment that encourages a culture of thinking, where both teachers and children question, reflect, and listen. Georgina serves... Read More →

Aaryn Drapiza

The Village School

Aaryn Drapiza (she/her) is devoted to learner-centered and community-oriented education. Her education journey began with elementary learners, and the insights she gained from those foundational years inspire and inform her approach to middle school, a stage she's deeply passionate... Read More →

Friday August 7, 2026 11:15am - 12:45pm EDT
Black Box Theater - Middle School Building 3100 Macomb St NW

Plenary Session

WISIT Summer Institute 2026

From $500.00

Tickets

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WISIT Summer Institute 2026

9:00am EDT

Dr. Ron Ritchhart

9:00am EDT

Dr. Ron Ritchhart

9:00am EDT

Gerald D Smith Jr.

Àngels Natal-Asensio

9:00am EDT

Dr. Carrie James

Dr. Beck Tench

Dan Be Kim

11:15am EDT

Jaime Chao Mignano

Georgina Ardalan

Aaryn Drapiza

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