Friday Sessions Fall Forum 2012

Here is the lineup for Friday November 9 which culminates in a panel discussion among James P. Comer, Judith Browne-Dianis, Pedro Antonio Noguera, Warren Simmons and George H. Wood on “What’s Next?  Responses to the 2012 Election”.


Building Student Motivation: A Lesson Study Approach
What Kids Can Do
Kathleen Cushman, kathleencushman@mac.com

Using the “motivation equation” described in Cushman’s recent book “Fires in the Mind,” we will analyze actual learning units presented by master teachers in schools aligned with CES principles.This multi-media interactive workshop introduces a lesson planning protocol to help classroom teachers investigate and orchestrate the factors that combine to produce student motivation.  Our close lesson study will include commentary from the teacher and students involved, as well as from learning scientists at the NSF Science of Learning Center at the University of California - San Diego. Participants will gain deeper understanding of the fundamental learning conditions that constitute the building blocks of motivation and mastery.

Protesting with Poetry, Painting for Peace:
Using the Arts to Teach Constructivist Curriculum  
Atlanta Neighborhood Charter Middle School
Nathan Bubes, Darnell Fine, Fahima Ife

From poets to painters, satirists to graffitists, people rally against oppression through the arts.  As teachers and practitioners of spoken word, visual arts, and creative writing, we will provide a toolkit of constructivist strategies for artistically representing human rights and social change throughout history.  Whether it’s resistance movements in Ireland or nonviolent protests in India, we will demonstrate how to engage students by making transdisciplinary connections anchored in their lived experiences.  While this workshop integrates skills from English/Language Arts, Social Studies, and Visual Arts curricula, we will also demonstrate how the arts can be made applicable to all content areas.


The Common Principles: Gateway to Extraordinary 21st Century Schools
Tiffany Tresler & Leslie Robison, Maugansville Elementary School; Josalyn Moscowitz, Tracy Kloos, & Laura Barnes, Lincolnshire Elementary School; Eric Meredith, Elizabeth Henry, & Tamsyn Wilson, Pangborn Elementary School; Jackie Chaney & Carly Pumphrey, Fountaindale Elementary School; Mary Helen Spiri & Pamela Ayres, Chesapeake CES

In a district that brings together urban, suburban and rural families, the Common Principles provide a framework through which schools are thoughtfully confronting the demands of the Common Core standards and 21st Century education. Supported by Chesapeake CES, schools have embarked on their own “change journeys,” idiosyncratic yet guided explorations of the power of the Common Principles to create responsive, decent, equitable, potent places of learning. This session invites participants to share the stories of four very different schools engaged in principled “21st Century” renewal and offers tools, planning documents, and the opportunity to form relationships with CES educators eager to network.

Teaching Students To Ask Their Own Questions:
An Introduction to The Question Formulation Technique
Right Question Institute
Dan Rothstein, Luz Santana and Steven Flythe

Over the past 20 years, the Right Question Institute has carefully developed a process for helping all people learn to produce their own questions, improve their questions and strategize on how to use them. Our Question Formulation Technique™ (QFT™) is a simple step-by-step process that can be quickly implemented by all teachers. The QFT consistently leads to students who are more engaged, take greater ownership of their own learning, and learn more.  This participatory session will introduce teachers to the QFT and specific facilitation methods to help integrate the teaching of question formulation skills into their classroom practice.

Creating Schoolwide Initiatives for Social Justice
Wildwood School, Los Angeles, CA
Deb Christenson, Director of Curriculum, Middle and Upper School
Steve Barrett, Director of Outreach, Teaching and Learning
Wildwood School faculty and students

Strengthen your commitment to the Common Principle of democracy and equity with help from Wildwood School, where social justice is emphasized in both student and teacher work.  This session for students and educators features interactive presentations by Wildwood School teachers, administrators and students highlighting the school’s social justice work. Participants will choose a focus—either student leadership or curriculum development—and work alongside Wildwood experts to develop social justice initiatives for their own schools and communities.  


Design It!  Create It!  Perform It!:  Reimagining Literacy Across the Curriculum:
Eileen Landay, Clinical Professor of English Education (ret.), Brown University, Faculty Director, ArtsLiteracy Project
Kurt Wootton, Director, The ArtsLiteracy Project and Habla: The Center for Language and Culture

Experience the ArtsLiteracy Performance Cycle in a workshop that will expand our ways of thinking about exhibitions and performances of understanding.  Building on ArtsLiteracy’s work in settings in the United States, Mexico and Brazil, presenters will take you through an “out of your seat” experience that will introduce a range of performance activities as well as other ways of incorporating multiliteracies into the daily life of schools across the curriculum.  We will explore ways of crossing disciplines, art forms, technologies and languages in this workshop led by the founders and directors of the ArtsLiteracy Project in the Education Department at Brown University.  In addition to an energetic workshop experience, workshop leaders will “pull back the curtain”  to reveal the theory and research behind the experience and share concrete, detailed examples of ways this approach has been applied in schools and after-school programs.

Re-Defining the Student-Centered Classroom: Authentic Achievement, Choice and Connectivity
Dr. Larry Myatt, Education Resources Consortium, CES National Faculty
Katrina S. Kennett, Plymouth (MA) South HS, Consulting Practitioner, Education Resources Consortium

This workshop will provide a rationale, framework, and sample methodology which can inform a school-wide approach to integrating three critical classroom elements:  a challenging, research-based approach to lesson-planning, student work and assessment; expansive opportunities for student-driven research and construction of new knowledge; and the seamless infusion of vital technology tools. The presenters will make the case that it is critical to respond to current student engagement data by reframing the roles of “teacher” and “learner”, and that doing so within the rubric of authentic achievement and with smart, disciplined technology usage, provides a unique opportunity for deep school-wide capacity and culture-building and community engagement.