Participants in this workshop will learn strategies for promoting adult development through reflective conferencing. At City-As-School, an experiential learning school in New York City, we have found reflective conferencing to be a powerful tool for goal setting, reflection and, ultimately, developmental growth on the part of teachers. We will examine the conferencing model used at City-As-School and the developmental theory that underpins it through a video analysis and text-based discussion. Participants will also have an opportunity to practice conferencing and generate ideas for using conferencing in their own schools.
While the design and implementation of personalized learning requires the full participation of all stakeholders and involves all educators in schools and central offices, the role of school leaders in shepherding this transition is crucial. In addition to serving as instructional leaders who must have a full understanding of how to support the growth and development of teachers, school leaders must also be able to successfully navigate the sometimes challenging waters associated with leading this work, requiring significant amounts of moral courage, communication skills, and strategic thinking. Through texts, reflection, case studies, and discussions, participants will explore leadership mindfully.
The James Baldwin School was founded on a belief that teachers and administrators would make decisions together. Scaling that up as the faculty increased in number was challenging. In this workshop, participants will learn about and practice a consensus decision-making process that can help your school increase the level of participation of your staff and increase the accountability to put decisions into action. Participants will reflect on the value and challenges that come with large group consensus based decision making, explore our artifacts and protocols, and apply some of these processes towards coming to consensus around a whole school decision.
I grew up in New York City and went to public schools my entire life. I enjoy basketball, football, and baseball. I fanatically collect records, mostly 60s and 70s jazz. I am serious about coffee and I am a home brewer. And my politics are pretty left leaning.
This session will provide an opportunity to reflect on the life and legacies of CES founder Ted Sizer. John Spencer is a graduate of the Brown teacher education program from the 1980s and an historian of education who has been doing research in Ted's papers at Brown and Andover. He will briefly share some nuggets from that research, especially from the 1970s prior to the launching of the Coalition, before opening up a conversation on Ted's work and his significance within the history of school reform from the 1960s into our own time. Whether you were a colleague of Ted's or someone who knew him through his writings or work (or not much at all, and you're curious!), please join us to share and reflect on his importance for you and for American education.
As a sophomore at Brown in 1984, I was fortunate enough to take an Education course with a newly arrived professor named Ted Sizer, who had just published *Horace's Compromise* and launched the Coalition of Essential Schools. Ted and CES quickly became my most important touchstones... Read More →
Saturday December 3, 2016 9:15am - 10:45am EST
Rotunda Room
During this session participants will have an opportunity to learn about the NYC DOE Showcase Schools initiative, a program designed to recognize, celebrate, and share innovative practices through interschool visitations. Storytelling helps frame the day, not for exhibition, but for authentic conversation around what "better" can look like in schools. The creation and sharing of school narratives helps bind schools together through collaboration to achieve a common purpose - student success. In this session participants will learn more about the importance of storytelling and the research that supports it, including how stories can anchor professional learning and provide transformational learning experiences. After hearing a powerful, emotional story from a NYC principal, participants will have the opportunity to think about how they can harness the power of storytelling for school improvement.
Using the Newmann Authentic Intellectual Work rubrics, Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School has adapted peer observation to promote collaborative professional development. We believe this form of observation allows teachers to share different strategies used in the classroom and provide valuable feedback to one another. This workshop will focus on how Peer Observations were introduced and implemented into the Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom school community, in collaboration with the Eagle Rock School Professional Development Center.
Much is known about the importance of differentiated instruction in schools, the notion that for teachers to be optimally effective in meeting the needs of all learners, they must understand and apply a range of instructional strategies in the classroom. Much less is known, however, about the importance of differentiated leadership for adult growth and development. Like children, adults also vary in their meaning making systems and serve to benefit from intentional approaches to instructional leadership that attend to their developmental diversity. In this workshop, participants will learn about, share experiences with, and begin to practice Developmentally-Oriented Instructional Leadership (DOIL), an approach to teacher development based not on the all-too-common "Gotcha!" but rather "I've got ya'!"
In an era of curriculum coverage and teaching to the test, classroom models of constructivist learning theory are becoming increasingly rare. Rather than learning to use their minds well, children are being prepared to "do" school. How, then, do we support and convince our newest teachers to develop a practice based on how people learn -- a practice they may have never encountered as students? In this workshop, participants will use structured conversations to collaboratively examine their notions of constructivist learning theory, surface assumptions, and risks associated with learning to teach for meaning-making.