Deep Dive Workshops
Design a Better World: Need-finding and Problem Solving as Curricular Catalysts
Meg Cureton | Head of Learning and Innovation | Mount Vernon Presbyterian School
Empathy has the potential to inspire deeper learning, drive clearer and more critical thinking, and ultimately inspire engagement with the greater world--why wouldn't we want to make room for that as content? Join me in this session that promises to leave you with actionable ways to help your students grow immeasurably in their ability to act as resilient problem seekers and solvers committed to leaving the world better than they found it, not just for a class credit but because they care enough to engage in work that matters.
Meg Cureton | Head of Learning and Innovation | Mount Vernon Presbyterian School
Empathy has the potential to inspire deeper learning, drive clearer and more critical thinking, and ultimately inspire engagement with the greater world--why wouldn't we want to make room for that as content? Join me in this session that promises to leave you with actionable ways to help your students grow immeasurably in their ability to act as resilient problem seekers and solvers committed to leaving the world better than they found it, not just for a class credit but because they care enough to engage in work that matters.
Using the Advisory (Pod Model) to Educate the Whole Child
Cheyanne Zahrt | Principal | City Neighbors High School
What would it take for every high school student to be known, loved and inspired academically? This was the design question for City Neighbors High School, a non-criteria Baltimore City Public Charter School, that will soon complete its first decade with extraordinary attendance rates, graduation rates and college acceptance rates. A core answer to this question, is the Pod Model – a school structure that explicitly creates opportunities for social-emotional learning, peer support, academic intervention, executive functioning support, and the building of a high school “family away from home”. Come deep dive with us as we examine why it’s every school’s (and every high school’s) obligation to create meaningful communities, supports, and peer families and the structures, approaches, and pedagogies schools can use to do that.
Cheyanne Zahrt | Principal | City Neighbors High School
What would it take for every high school student to be known, loved and inspired academically? This was the design question for City Neighbors High School, a non-criteria Baltimore City Public Charter School, that will soon complete its first decade with extraordinary attendance rates, graduation rates and college acceptance rates. A core answer to this question, is the Pod Model – a school structure that explicitly creates opportunities for social-emotional learning, peer support, academic intervention, executive functioning support, and the building of a high school “family away from home”. Come deep dive with us as we examine why it’s every school’s (and every high school’s) obligation to create meaningful communities, supports, and peer families and the structures, approaches, and pedagogies schools can use to do that.
Meaningful Making
Erik Nauman | Technology Integrator | The Hewitt School
Participants will experience two hands-on projects, one of which involves making something that facilitates learning in a subject area and one that has personal significance. We will discuss ways that Making can bring purpose to learning through experiences. This session will encourage participants to see making and learning about materials as more than ends in themselves or simply skill development, but as experiences that can foster self-awareness and deeper engagement with academic topics.
Erik Nauman | Technology Integrator | The Hewitt School
Participants will experience two hands-on projects, one of which involves making something that facilitates learning in a subject area and one that has personal significance. We will discuss ways that Making can bring purpose to learning through experiences. This session will encourage participants to see making and learning about materials as more than ends in themselves or simply skill development, but as experiences that can foster self-awareness and deeper engagement with academic topics.
Explore Sessions
Purposeful Inquiry: How Do We Provide Meaningful Inquiry For Students?
Sandra Marr | Upper School Biology and Ecology Teacher | The Collegiate School
How can we provide authentic opportunities for students to find purpose through their own inquiry-driven experiences? Across content areas and developmental stages, students find tremendous motivation when answering their own questions about the world. We will explore how to facilitate their curiosity, mentor their journey and set the stage for success in this hands-on session. Appropriate for all disciplines and age levels, together we will model hands-on strategies and will develop a tool kit to put into practice.
Sandra Marr | Upper School Biology and Ecology Teacher | The Collegiate School
How can we provide authentic opportunities for students to find purpose through their own inquiry-driven experiences? Across content areas and developmental stages, students find tremendous motivation when answering their own questions about the world. We will explore how to facilitate their curiosity, mentor their journey and set the stage for success in this hands-on session. Appropriate for all disciplines and age levels, together we will model hands-on strategies and will develop a tool kit to put into practice.
Purpose Through Partnerships
Suzanne Fogarty | Head of School | Lincoln School
Suzanne Fogarty, Head of Lincoln School, an all girls Quaker school in Providence, Rhode Island, will share Lincoln’s partnerships with local institutions, including Brown School of Engineering, Brown’s Institute for Environment and Society, RISD’s School of Architecture and the Providence Steel Yard. Lincoln students across the divisions, have the opportunity to participate in real-world problem solving, from designing a prototype for a prosthetic arm, to envisioning architectural structures that align with local space and place, to examining rising water levels using GIS, a climate change software. The best teaching and learning happens when students and faculty collaborate on projects that have a purpose and come to solutions that make a difference.
Suzanne Fogarty | Head of School | Lincoln School
Suzanne Fogarty, Head of Lincoln School, an all girls Quaker school in Providence, Rhode Island, will share Lincoln’s partnerships with local institutions, including Brown School of Engineering, Brown’s Institute for Environment and Society, RISD’s School of Architecture and the Providence Steel Yard. Lincoln students across the divisions, have the opportunity to participate in real-world problem solving, from designing a prototype for a prosthetic arm, to envisioning architectural structures that align with local space and place, to examining rising water levels using GIS, a climate change software. The best teaching and learning happens when students and faculty collaborate on projects that have a purpose and come to solutions that make a difference.
Naming Humanity in Our Curriculum
Amanda Kingston | Provost | Odyssey Leadership Academy
How do we shape curriculum toward the care and naming of students beyond numbering them? How do we create classes where our students are not just doing math, science, poetry, history, or social studies, but they are named mathematicians, scientists, poets, historians, or peacemakers? Often times in schooling, we shape curriculum around numbers, test scores, achievement, or even the “relevancy” of a subject. In this session, we will discuss what it means to shape our courses with an ethic of care in mind as content not only informs, but “in-forms” the students’ identity and place in our world.
Amanda Kingston | Provost | Odyssey Leadership Academy
How do we shape curriculum toward the care and naming of students beyond numbering them? How do we create classes where our students are not just doing math, science, poetry, history, or social studies, but they are named mathematicians, scientists, poets, historians, or peacemakers? Often times in schooling, we shape curriculum around numbers, test scores, achievement, or even the “relevancy” of a subject. In this session, we will discuss what it means to shape our courses with an ethic of care in mind as content not only informs, but “in-forms” the students’ identity and place in our world.
Olympics, Myths, and Clepsydrae: A Humanities Approach to Ancient Greece
Phoebe Search | 6th and 8th Grade History Teacher | Elisabeth Morrow School
Nicole Siegel | 6th and 7th Grade English Teacher | Elisabeth Morrow School
What does meaningful integration look like? What is the residue students take away that sticks with them? We will talk you through the successful integration and presentation of our sixth grade humanities unit on ancient Greece in a small group discussion.
Phoebe Search | 6th and 8th Grade History Teacher | Elisabeth Morrow School
Nicole Siegel | 6th and 7th Grade English Teacher | Elisabeth Morrow School
What does meaningful integration look like? What is the residue students take away that sticks with them? We will talk you through the successful integration and presentation of our sixth grade humanities unit on ancient Greece in a small group discussion.
Fostering an Ecosystem of Community in Schools
Dr. Scott Martin | Executive Director | Odyssey Leadership Academy
Everything at Odyssey Leadership Academy flows through the lens of relationship with an intentional emphasis on building community. From mentoring, creation of courses, school-wide trips, and partnerships in our city, the fostering of community is at the heart of everything we do. This session will look at why creating a culture of community matters in schooling, and proffer practical advice on how to nurture community within a given school site.
Dr. Scott Martin | Executive Director | Odyssey Leadership Academy
Everything at Odyssey Leadership Academy flows through the lens of relationship with an intentional emphasis on building community. From mentoring, creation of courses, school-wide trips, and partnerships in our city, the fostering of community is at the heart of everything we do. This session will look at why creating a culture of community matters in schooling, and proffer practical advice on how to nurture community within a given school site.
Fieldwork: How to Structure Independent Student Activism
Sara-Momii Roberts | Middle School Humanities Teacher | LREI School
Sarah Barlow | Middle School Humanities Teacher | LREI School
Eighth graders at LREI enter humanities class anticipating the social justice project -- a project where students study, work on behalf of, and reflect on civil rights issues outside of the school building. This project provides students the opportunity to make a small difference on behalf of a cause and be the architects of their activism. This workshop will describe the logistics and support systems in place to make leaving the school building and working with outside organizations possible. Participants will leave knowing what to do to set up similar actions in their school and will explore pitfalls and new ideas with group.
Sara-Momii Roberts | Middle School Humanities Teacher | LREI School
Sarah Barlow | Middle School Humanities Teacher | LREI School
Eighth graders at LREI enter humanities class anticipating the social justice project -- a project where students study, work on behalf of, and reflect on civil rights issues outside of the school building. This project provides students the opportunity to make a small difference on behalf of a cause and be the architects of their activism. This workshop will describe the logistics and support systems in place to make leaving the school building and working with outside organizations possible. Participants will leave knowing what to do to set up similar actions in their school and will explore pitfalls and new ideas with group.
Critical Service Learning: A Tool for Finding Purpose
Rebecca Hong | Director of Institutional Equity | Spence School
Blake Kohn | Executive Director | National Network of Schools in Partnership
What are the dangers of identity development work not tied to service learning? How does our uncritical service learning risk re-creating historical systems of oppression? In this workshop, we will show how critical service learning can bring together equity and service learning initiatives together towards a purpose-driven education. We will begin with a discussion of how we can align our thinking around equity and service, and then give details on some successful programs at the Spence school here in NYC and elsewhere. We will also talk about how to build a K-12 scope and sequence rooted in equity and service. We will then use an inquiry based approach to challenge participants to identify the strengths and opportunities in current curricular projects at their own schools.
The primary goal of our workshop is to facilitate interactive discussions about ways in which critical service learning, rooted in equity, can work in our schools. We will provide a chance for people to share both potential and actual examples of work-in-progress with the workshop participants as we together grow our understanding of how to do this work well.
Rebecca Hong | Director of Institutional Equity | Spence School
Blake Kohn | Executive Director | National Network of Schools in Partnership
What are the dangers of identity development work not tied to service learning? How does our uncritical service learning risk re-creating historical systems of oppression? In this workshop, we will show how critical service learning can bring together equity and service learning initiatives together towards a purpose-driven education. We will begin with a discussion of how we can align our thinking around equity and service, and then give details on some successful programs at the Spence school here in NYC and elsewhere. We will also talk about how to build a K-12 scope and sequence rooted in equity and service. We will then use an inquiry based approach to challenge participants to identify the strengths and opportunities in current curricular projects at their own schools.
The primary goal of our workshop is to facilitate interactive discussions about ways in which critical service learning, rooted in equity, can work in our schools. We will provide a chance for people to share both potential and actual examples of work-in-progress with the workshop participants as we together grow our understanding of how to do this work well.
Expeditionaries for an Age of Accelerations
Christian Talbot | Founder and Principal | Basecamp School
Rosalie Reyes | Coordinator of Teacher Engagement and Professional Development | Teaching for Change
School in the 20th century was about preparing learners to solve known problems in known ways. Today, in our Age of Accelerations, school needs to prepare learners to collaborate on identifying and solving problems no one has ever thought of before. But how do we make this shift? We will talk about how our Age of Accelerations is bringing us to the edge of tomorrow faster and faster; how that ought to influence school; and some practical tools for navigating the change we must embrace.
Christian Talbot | Founder and Principal | Basecamp School
Rosalie Reyes | Coordinator of Teacher Engagement and Professional Development | Teaching for Change
School in the 20th century was about preparing learners to solve known problems in known ways. Today, in our Age of Accelerations, school needs to prepare learners to collaborate on identifying and solving problems no one has ever thought of before. But how do we make this shift? We will talk about how our Age of Accelerations is bringing us to the edge of tomorrow faster and faster; how that ought to influence school; and some practical tools for navigating the change we must embrace.
Using Storytelling to Define Purpose and Broaden Community
Elizabeth Johnson | Director, Cooper Library and Co-Director, Literacy Fellows Program | Norfolk Academy
The Literacy Fellows, a service-learning and academic leadership program at Norfolk Academy in Norfolk, Virginia, engages high-achieving students to understand, communicate, and solve national and global issues inextricably linked to literacy. Through this program Literacy Fellows (select 10th, 11th, and 12th graders) have partnered with local Title 1 public schools (both elementary and high schools) and our area Boys and Girls Clubs to write and publish collections of student writing centered around citizenship and community.
Elizabeth Johnson | Director, Cooper Library and Co-Director, Literacy Fellows Program | Norfolk Academy
The Literacy Fellows, a service-learning and academic leadership program at Norfolk Academy in Norfolk, Virginia, engages high-achieving students to understand, communicate, and solve national and global issues inextricably linked to literacy. Through this program Literacy Fellows (select 10th, 11th, and 12th graders) have partnered with local Title 1 public schools (both elementary and high schools) and our area Boys and Girls Clubs to write and publish collections of student writing centered around citizenship and community.