Educators Learn, Lead and Innovate at WIDA Annual Conference

By Hannah Haynes

The 2025 WIDA Annual Conference — held October 27-30 — was a celebration of innovation, learning and connection among educators dedicated to multilingual learners. This year’s theme, “Igniting Innovation for Multilingual Learners,” came to life across keynotes, sessions and conversations that reaffirmed a shared commitment to collaboration, learning and imagination in education.  

A Week of Learning, Leading and Connection

The conference, which featured sessions by teachers, for teachers, brought together educators from across the country to connect and learn. It kicked off with a virtual day on Monday, which included sessions like “Game On!,” a lively session exploring how games can be powerful tools for language development. Another standout was “Teaching Smarter, Not Harder: Streamlining Language Instruction for Busy Educators,” which offered practical strategies and materials to help educators streamline language instruction using WIDA’s Key Language Uses.

The in-person conference, which was attended by more than 1,600 people, started on Tuesday morning, and the energy in the room was undeniable — an energy fueled by teachers, for teachers.

The first morning opened with an important moment in WIDA’s journey as founder Dr. Tim Boals passed the baton to WIDA’s new Executive Director, Dr. Jenni Torres. In her first WIDA Annual Conference appearance, Torres greeted attendees with enthusiasm and gratitude, emphasizing the importance of the conference’s theme and WIDA’s bright future within the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education, where WIDA recently became its own department.  

“WIDA has always been about collaboration — between educators, researchers and learners,” Torres said. “Now, as a more integrated part of the School of Education, that collaboration deepens in exciting new ways.”  

Stories, Language and the Power of Education

The conference’s opening keynote set the tone for an inspiring week. Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer and advocate for the immigrant and refugee experience, spoke about the intersections of language, identity and storytelling.  

Sharing his story as a Vietnamese refugee who came to the United States at age 4, Viet explored the power and complexity of these intersections.

“I’m a bad multilingual learner,” Nguyen joked, explaining that his Vietnamese fluency halted when he arrived in America. But, he explained, this complicated relationship with Vietnamese led English to become both his refuge and his struggle, and storytelling helped him reconcile the two.  

“Language is inseparable from storytelling,” he said. “We cannot back away from protecting the multiplicity of languages.”

Nguyen’s words echoed WIDA’s mission and resonated deeply with educators in attendance who dedicate their careers to helping multilingual learners see their language as a strength, not a limitation.

Igniting Innovation Through Collaboration and Research

Throughout the conference, sessions showcased WIDA’s strong ties to the UW–Madison School of Education and the collaborative innovation that partnership inspires.  

One standout session, “Blurring Language Boundaries: How Can AI Support Translanguaging?,” was led by Mariana Castro, Research Director for UW–Madison’s Multilingual Learning Research Center (MLRC), and Diego Román, Assistant Professor in bilingual/bicultural education. Their research explored teachers’ perspectives on using AI in classrooms — revealing both excitement and caution.  

“Our research found that teachers see the potential of AI to enhance engagement and provide real-time language support,” Castro noted, “but they’re also thinking critically about issues like bias and overreliance.”  

Another session, “Empowering Multilingual Learners: Goal Setting for Growth and Ownership,” brought the conference’s teacher-led spirit to life. Diane Fowler, Stephanie Cagle and Chelsea Myers from Tulsa Public Schools shared how collaborative goal setting with students and families led to measurable growth on WIDA ACCESS. 

In “Sparking Innovation: Collaborative Implementation of the WIDA 2020 Standards Framework,” presenters Christy Osborne, Kelsey Witt and Tina Kozlowski from Oakland Schools in Michigan emphasized an asset-based approach and made practical use of a WIDA Focus Bulletin on collaboration, offering educators tools to strengthen partnerships in their own schools.

Dean Haddix’s Call to Creativity and Representation

The connection between WIDA and UW–Madison’s School of Education was on full display in the session led by Dean Marcelle Haddix, titled “Creative Visioning for Language & Literacy Teaching and Teacher Education.”  

Dean Haddix grounded her talk in three key takeaways: representation matters, teachers matter and leadership matters.  

Dean Haddix encouraged attendees to reflect on their own love of reading and writing as a foundation for creative and inclusive teaching.

“We can’t lose our ability to imagine,” she said, inviting educators to view students’ languages as assets to learning, not barriers. Her message echoed WIDA’s Can Do Philosophy, reinforcing the shared mission between WIDA and the School of Education.  

Closing With Inspiration and Gratitude

The conference concluded on Thursday with an uplifting keynote from 2024 National Teacher of the Year, Missy Testerman, who reminded attendees why they do this work. With humor, heart and honesty, she celebrated the power of educators to transform lives.  

“Our job as educators is to be talent scouts, not deficit detectives,” she said. “Language is not a barrier, it’s a bridge, but only if we invest in it.”  

Her words captured the week’s collective spirit: belief in multilingual learners, belief in educators and education, and belief in innovation as a path forward.  

Save the Date for #WIDA2026

Whether you were able to join us this year or not, we hope to see you next year for the 2026 WIDA Annual Conference. It will be held September 15-18, 2026, in St. Louis, Missouri, under the theme “Building Gateways to Colabóracion.” We will have a curated virtual track again. Watch your email and social media for more details in the coming months.  

Submit Your #WIDA2026 Session Proposal

Become a #WIDA2026 presenter and share your expertise with other educators! The window to submit concurrent sessions and workshop proposals is open November 17, 2025, to January 20, 2026. Visit the 2026 WIDA Annual Conference website for more information about submitting a proposal.