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District and School Facilitation

Education Experienced with Tim Clue

Social · Tools · Engaged · Minds

The New STEM Checklist

Students can share a classroom and still be disconnected. This checklist fixes that — 24 research-backed truths distilled into their simplest, most usable form. The living resource remains free to every educator.

A facilitation guide for district professional learning: flexible formats, Bloom's-aligned objectives, purposeful improvisation, minute-by-minute agendas, and a follow-up plan.

90-Minute Session

3–4 Hour Institute

Facilitated by Tim Clue

Speaker, humorist, and creator of the New STEM Checklist

A dyslexic thinker building the classrooms he needed but never had — his neurodiversity shapes a facilitation style grounded in clarity, connection, improvisation, and practical action.

The live checklist:
newstem.timclue.com
tim@timclue.com

For the district catalog

Session at a glance

Formats

90-minute interactive breakout or a flexible 3–4 hour institute, with final timing set alongside the district. Both reconnect the room through the same 24-truth checklist; the institute adds design time and a peer-teaching clinic.

Audience

Classroom teachers (K–12), instructional coaches, PLC leads, and school & district administrators.

Group size

20–500 participants. All rounds run on table groups of 5–7, so the facilitation scales without losing dialogue.

Materials

Screen and sound for short video clips; the printed or digital checklist (QR provided); a pen or device per participant; one commitment card per person (template supplied).

Experience

Selected Connected Classroom clips and discretionary improv exercises reinforce key concepts throughout. Tim chooses each exercise to fit the room, the available time, and the learning purpose.

Room setup

Round tables of 5–7. The session is built on table talk — rows are workable, but rounds are better.

Catalog description — short (56 words)

Students can share a classroom and still be disconnected. The New STEM Checklist turns 24 classroom truths — Social, Tools, Engaged, Minds — into a fast, funny, practical experience. Educators choose what fits their rooms, name the gap they most want to fill, and leave with one tool they can use the next morning.

Catalog description — full (137 words)

Students can share a classroom and still be disconnected. Attention is fractured, belonging is uneven, and the talent already in the room can go untapped. The New STEM Checklist offers a clear remedy: 24 simple, usable truths across Social, Tools, Engaged, and Minds. The rigor is already built into each card, reducing cognitive load instead of handing educators another pile of research.

But the checklist is the prompt, not the lecture. Facilitated by educator and humorist Tim Clue, the session runs on structured rounds of choice: educators mark the truths they already believe in, name the void they most want filled, and select the one practice they can share and repeat with a colleague tomorrow. Deep-dive moments let the room examine why its own choices work. Connected Classroom video examples and discretionary improv exercises make those ideas visible, participatory, and memorable. Every participant walks out with one tool in their pocket — powered by the talent already in the room.

newstem.timclue.com tim@timclue.com 773.230.3989

Pedagogical frame

Learning objectives & alignment

Objectives use Bloom's taxonomy verbs (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) and are written to be observable within the session.

90-minute session — two objectives

Participants will be able to prioritize the classroom truths (Social, Tools, Engaged, Minds) that address the greatest current need in their own setting and explain why that need matters now.Analyze · Evaluate

Participants will be able to apply one selected practice by describing exactly how, when, and with which students they will use it within the first week of implementation.Apply

Half-day institute — adds two objectives

Participants will be able to evaluate the conditions — routines, rituals, cognitive load, belonging — under which each chosen practice succeeds, connecting it to the research on attention, memory, and motivation.Analyze · Evaluate

Participants will be able to create a peer-sharing plan: a short "teach-one" walkthrough they can deliver to a colleague or their PLC.Create

Alignment

Danielson Framework

Domain 2 — Learning Environments; Domain 3 — Learning Experiences.

CASEL competencies

Relationship skills, self-management, responsible decision-making.

Adult learning

Choice, relevance, and immediate application — the conditions research says make PD stick.

How the room works — the facilitation design

1. The checklist is the prompt, not the lecture — 24 truths, each one simple enough to act on Monday morning.

2. Round 1 — mark your favorites — Educators choose the truths they already believe in; the room discovers its shared convictions.

3. Round 2 — name the void — Each table names the one thing missing from their rooms this year. The void becomes the agenda.

4. Round 3 — your one tool — Each person picks the practice they can share and repeat, and commits to it out loud with a partner.

5. The rigor is baked in, not bolted on — When the room goes deeper, the science behind their own choices is already on the card — seamlessly integrated, never another handout.

6. Purposeful play makes the ideas stick — Tim uses discretionary improv exercises and Connected Classroom clips throughout, choosing only what reinforces the concept, suits the room, and serves the outcome.

Everyone walks out with one tool in their pocket — powered by the talent already in the room.

newstem.timclue.com tim@timclue.com 773.230.3989

Facilitation in motion

The Connected Classroom

The videos are not decoration. They show Tim's facilitation approach in practice: useful ideas carried by humor, participation, and a room that is actively making meaning together.

Improv exercises — used with discretion throughout

Short improvisational exercises may be placed between discussion, research, and design rounds to reinforce listening, trust, quick thinking, shared attention, and collaborative risk-taking. They are never filler and never mandatory performance. Tim selects, adapts, shortens, or omits them according to the group, timing, accessibility needs, and the concept the room is working on.

Selected video references

Doers & Viewers

Checklist connection: Peers

Participation, peer learning, and the shift from watching to doing.

The Hand Raising Dilemma

Checklist connection: Every Voice

Making participation safe for the kids who never raise their hands.

Who's the Leader

Checklist connection: Focus

Attention and awareness — a quick game that sharpens watching, listening, and readiness to learn.

Full reference collection: timclue.com/funny-educator/connected-classroom

Extra credit · An optional wellness warm down

For rooms running on empty — compassion fatigue, overstressed veterans, experts in need of a reboot — a shared humor engagement from Funny Polling is available on request: a light, communal laugh that sends the room out restored, not drained. Because happy, healthy teachers make for happy, healthy students.

newstem.timclue.com tim@timclue.com 773.230.3989

The headline format

The flexible institute

3–4 hours · TBD

0:00–0:20

Welcome & framing

Humor and a brief discretionary improv exercise as the on-ramp; the case for one bull's-eye per problem. The 24-truth map goes up on every table.

0:20–0:40

The 24 truths, rapid tour

Four strands with sample research and exemplar video clips; participants begin marking favorites on their own copy.

Obj 1

0:40–1:10

Round 1 — Favorites & table dialogue

Which truths do you already live by? Tables build a shared top three and defend one choice to the room.

Obj 1

1:10–1:25

Break

Checklist copies stay on the tables — the marking continues in the hallway.

1:25–2:05

Deep-dive Block A — Social & Tools

The research and Connected Classroom examples behind belonging, rituals, relationships, seating, and cognitive load — with an optional reinforcing improv exercise, guided by the room's picks.

Obj 3

2:05–2:35

Round 2 — Name the void → design time

Tables name their void, then each educator adapts one practice to their own room: how, when, with which students.

Obj 2 · 3

2:35–2:50

Break

—

2:50–3:20

Deep-dive Block B — Engaged & Minds + implementation clinic

Voice, agency, metacognition, reading. A discretionary improv prompt activates the idea; plans then get stress-tested against real schedules and real students.

Obj 3

3:20–3:45

Round 3 — Teach one

Each participant delivers their one tool back to a partner — a rehearsed 90-second walkthrough they can repeat in their PLC.

Obj 4

3:45–4:00

Commitments, follow-up & close

Cards collected for the district report; 30- and 60-day follow-up schedule confirmed; close with humor and the QR.

Obj 4

Facilitator's note: the rounds are the session. Timings and discretionary improv exercises flex to the room — when a table names a void the whole room shares, that becomes the deep dive.

newstem.timclue.com tim@timclue.com 773.230.3989

Also available

The 90-minute session

90 minutes

0:00–0:08

The classroom we need to reconnect

Humor and a brief discretionary improv exercise open the room. Students can sit together and still be disconnected; the checklist gives the room a clear place to begin.

0:08–0:18

Social · Tools · Engaged · Minds

A rapid tour of the 24 truths and selected Connected Classroom moments. The rigor is already built into every clear, usable card.

0:18–0:32

Round 1 — Mark your favorites

Table talk: which truths do you already live by? Which surprised you? Tables surface their top three.

Obj 1

0:32–0:45

Round 2 — Name the void

What's missing from your room this year? Each table names and shares one void; the facilitator maps them live.

Obj 1

0:45–1:00

The room chooses the deeper look

The group examines why its most-chosen truths work. The science is seamlessly integrated on the cards — chosen by the room, never another handout.

Obj 1

1:00–1:18

Round 3 — Your one tool

Pick, adapt, commit. Partners pressure-test each other's plan: how, when, with which students, in week one.

Obj 2

1:18–1:30

Walk-out commitments & close

Each educator leaves with one practical tool, the free living checklist, and a commitment they can repeat with a colleague. Close with humor and a clear next step.

Obj 2

Facilitator's note: the rounds are the session. Timings and discretionary improv exercises flex to the room — when a table names a void the whole room shares, that becomes the deep dive.

newstem.timclue.com tim@timclue.com 773.230.3989

After the session

Outcomes, evidence & follow-up

Evidence of impact

Commitment cards

Every participant leaves with one tool written down — collected, so impact is countable, not assumed.

The room's own data

Chosen truths and named voids, aggregated — a picture of what your staff actually wants next.

A plan that repeats

The teach-one design means the practice spreads through PLCs without buying more sessions.

Follow-up timeline

Day 0

Every participant leaves with a written commitment card: one tool, one week, one classroom. District receives the full checklist PDF and site access.

Week 1

Facilitator report to the district: the truths the room chose, the voids they named, and the commitments made (aggregate, anonymized).

Day 30

Optional 45-minute virtual check-in: staff share what stuck, what stalled, and what they taught a colleague.

Day 60

PLC prompt: each team's 'teach-one' walkthrough becomes a five-minute agenda item — the practice repeats without another session.

Bring the checklist to your district.

tim@timclue.com

773.230.3989

newstem.timclue.com

newstem.timclue.com tim@timclue.com 773.230.3989