Lincoln educators lead and learn at AMISA EdCon 2026 

Nine of our educators traveled to Brazil to grow as lifelong learners and present on co-teaching, inclusivity in schools, and service learning.

“Presenting reminded me how passionate I am about belonging and inclusiveness. This gave me renewed energy when I came back to school,” middle school counselor Jessica Lawrence shared during an interview. This sums up the experience our group of educators had during the AMISA EdCon 2026 (American International Schools in the Americas), hosted in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Our Lincoln presenters shared expertise and knowledge on co-teaching, service learning, neurodiversity, inclusion, and other key topics that support the development of meaningful learners. “It was a proud moment for Lincoln as we continue to lead on the international stage, both inspiring and being inspired by educators from across the region,” elementary school principal Derek Dalasta shared during an interview. 

Our educators in the spotlight

While collaborating with educators from other international schools, our team also had the chance to present their work at Lincoln. Rebecca Overbagh and Jessica O'Mahoney, two of our elementary school teachers, talked about co-teaching and how Lincoln balances integration, intervention, and diverse student needs. “Taking a step back to reflect and look at the big picture of how teachers feel this shift is going is so important,” Overbagh explained.

Redefining Inclusion Through Co-Teaching

It’s an ongoing area of growth for our school and for many other international institutions. “Effective co-teaching directly impacts access, equity, and student success,” Jessica O'Mahoney highlighted. She then added, “One of the most important things I realized during my presentation was how far Lincoln has come in its co-teaching journey.” Rebecca Overbagh’s experience was also affirming: “At Lincoln, we are doing well in our goal of being more inclusive to students with learning needs. Many educators from other schools were impressed with our approach.” 

One particularly meaningful moment came during a session on neurodiversity, where a group of educators collaborated to explore how they might bring Lincoln’s philosophy and approaches to brain-based learning into their own schools. “The conversation centered on building more understanding, inclusive environments, an exchange that reflected the spirit of shared learning and collective growth that defined the conference,” Dalasta detailed. 

Co-Teaching as a Laboratory for Community

Elementary school teachers Hanne Grol and Shannon Wilker explored a parallel theme, talking about belonging in action and how co-teaching can function as a laboratory for community. Now in their second year of co-teaching, they view the practice as a learning process. “Belonging is so important,” Hanne noted. “If students feel that they belong, they take more risks, persist longer, and connect more deeply with peers. This all increases their motivation and joy for learning.”

Grol and Wilker presented several initiatives that they implemented in their co-taught classrooms to help students notice each other, to improve how teachers consider each other, and to include families in their learning space. The ‘one small thing board’ is a great example. By creating a space where students feel proud of being noticed, they shifted the job of recognizing “acts of belonging” from the teachers to the students. Another example is the  ‘family voice audio wall’, an experience in which they displayed QR codes on a bulletin board for students and families to scan and listen to the audio files of parents finishing the sentence “my child feels proud when.” 

Mapping the dynamics is another initiative Grol and Wilker exhibited. By registering the classroom conversations using the app Equity Maps, created by our high school principal, Dr. Dave Nelson, patterns of communication become more visible. “The results allowed us to come up with ideas to engage all learners and manage more equal participation in our class discussions,” Grol concluded.

Cultivating Safe Spaces

Middle school counselor Jessica Lawrence and teacher Daniela Hidalgo turned the focus toward student well-being, presenting on Belonging and Inclusiveness. “I see from research that our LGBTQ+ community is one of the most vulnerable groups in terms of mental health,” she commented. “When we can take small steps or big ones to help them feel that they belong, we make school a safer place for all students. Only when students feel connected and that they belong can they learn and grow.”

Service Learning in action

PE teachers Gabriela Bruno and Ignacio Lapenta demonstrated how Lincoln integrates service learning into curriculum content and expedition trips. They highlighted a recent project in La Cumbre, Córdoba, where 9th and 10th-grade students taught CPR to staff and students at a local public school. They also facilitated cooperative games and painted playground games on the schoolyard floor to support ongoing play during recess and physical education classes. “This experience exemplified how curriculum-based learning can be transferred into authentic contexts, promoting both deep understanding and a strong sense of student agency,” Bruno detailed. 

By including practical examples, offering concrete tools, and breaking down the entire process of these Service Learning projects, including planning, revision, field execution, and post-reflection, their exposition highlighted the positive impact of these projects on both the communities that carry them out and those that benefit from them, creating meaningful change.

The Lifelong Learner Mindset

For the Lincoln team, stepping into the role of presenter was itself a profound learning experience. It required honest reflection on what is working in their classrooms and what can be improved. “It showed us where we still have work to do,” Grol and Wilker shared. “We reflected openly on new initiatives so we could be honest about what was working and what needed to be tweaked.”

Connecting with educators from different contexts highlighted similar challenges and successes, which helped them consider new perspectives. “Educators are agents of change, continuously refining their approaches to better support all learners,” O'Mahoney observed. She then added, “ Presenting reinforced the value of what we are doing and gave me a renewed sense of purpose and optimism.” For Grol and Wilker, change can be achieved through everyday life: “You can be an agent of change through the things you know, are passionate about, and are willing to share with others.”

Feeling supported also has an important role in teaching. “Hearing from other educators in other schools that are facing the same challenges helped me know that we are all in this together, in a way,” Rebecca Overbagh added.  

Empowering our students’ growth

So how do these experiences impact our students’ growth? To Jessica O'Mahoney, the most impactful session she attended focused on using positive self-talk to empower writers. It offered practical structures, graphic organizers, and strategies to build writing stamina and increase student output. “I especially appreciated the emphasis on self-regulation strategies and growth mindset techniques to strengthen motivation and persistence.”

Professional development indeed has a big role in a student’s growth. “I plan to incorporate more self-regulation writing strategies while also intentionally fostering autonomy, belonging, and a sense of competence,” O'Mahoney explained. On a larger scale, she ensured, there’s the goal of sharing all this with the learning support and second-grade teams so that these practices can have a broader impact across the school.

Attending these kinds of events helps rediscover deep-rooted passions. And with this rekindled spirit also come ideas for change: “In this process, we learned that our school has work that could be done to be more inclusive to LGBTQ+ students,” Jessica Lawerence reflected. “We have many ideas of how to incorporate a more inclusive curriculum, which we have already begun sharing with teachers.”

Inspiration can come from anything. To Rebecca Overbagh, the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) presentation was quite memorable. It's about a framework to teach writing in elementary classrooms that can fit in with other curricular activities. The framework includes aspects of SEL, reading, and writing, and is meant to be inclusive. “I really hope that some of us in the elementary school can investigate further and maybe even pilot the use of this in the future,” she shared. This, Overbagh observed, is connected to the Attributes of a Lincoln Learner: researching different ways to teach skills and connect to the students, writing, and promoting independence in the classroom.

There are lots of small takeaways that will impact students’ growth. One that resonated a lot with Grol and Wilker was how to make feedback really count and close the gap between a student’s current response and the desired response. Another topic was math anxiety and how it can be impactful for students at any age. “We learned some fresh ways to support students in math that could improve their perception of it,” Grol offered. 

“Our students don’t just learn from what we teach. They learn from how we work together. The way we notice each other teaches them how to notice everyone,” Grol explained. “So,” she continued, “Hopefully, in our classroom, our students will observe two adults modeling shared authority, partnership, and collaborative relationships and thus watch us create belonging. Their observation of the way we work together shapes their own sense of belonging.”

Among all these impactful sessions, one that stayed with Derek Dalasta was the growing influence of artificial intelligence and large language model chatbots on mental health trends in both young people and adults. “It prompted important reflection on how schools can respond thoughtfully to these changes,” Dalasta assured. 

New ideas, new ways of thinking

Ultimately, our team taught and learned. “It was a highly enriching experience, not only because it provides us with new ideas, but also because it allows us to reaffirm that the work carried out at Lincoln is of high quality and fully aligned with that of other international schools,” Gabriela Bruno reflected. Undoubtedly, each educator returned renewed, motivated to implement new initiatives and to propose small adjustments that can positively impact the daily practices of our school.