High-quality, small group professional development for teachers and school leaders.

Building on Authentic Education’s legacy of delivering engaging, consequential, and enriching professional development that equips educators to bring meaningful change to their classrooms, we are excited to announce our Summer 2025 Professional Development series. Guided by our “PD the way PD should be” philosophy, each of our summer offerings leverages the Understanding by Design framework to design high-quality curriculum grounded in deep understanding and real-world application. 

Understanding by Design Retreats

Our signature small-group UbD retreats return with both East Coast and West Coast sessions this summer. Capped at just 14 participants, these highly collaborative sessions help educators transform an idea for a unit into ready-to-teach curriculum. Attendees leave equipped and ready to deliver their unit, and receive ongoing support to ensure their success.

Leading Curricular Change

New for this summer, we’re offering a “Leading Curricular Change: Advanced UbD for Curriculum Leaders” workshop. This 3-day program builds upon and reimagines the “train-the-trainer” workshops offered by the late Grant Wiggins nearly 20 years ago. This application-based offering will equip academic leaders to lead UbD work in their schools and districts. 

Inclusive Curriculum Design

Lastly, we’re excited to partner with Humanizing History to offer another new workshop entitled “Inclusive Curriculum Design: Backwards Planning for Equity & Belonging.” Monique Vogelsang, the founder of Humanizing History, and AE President, Mike Matthews, will be co-leading this 3-day session in Boston. Check out our workshop website for examples of tried-and-true curriculum from across a range of subject areas and grade levels reimagined as UbD units with inclusivity in front of mind.

Extensive info about each of the offerings can be found on the Authentic Education website.

“I left feeling inspired to do the work I love with valuable insights that I will implement into my teaching and planning. Mike is amazing at what he does! Thank you for a fabulous two days that were so impactful.”

Katelyn, Grade 1 Teacher @ The Hamlin School Summer 2024 Retreat Attendee