Join educators from all levels in K-12 as we explore and develop strategies for you to re-create school culture that best fits your community. Opportunities to attend morning breakout sessions and focus groups will be combined with the overall goal of taking home tools and ideas you can apply right away to continue your school’s journey toward a positive student-centered culture.
Culture What? Begin the quest to unlock the secrets of school culture, explore and define your personal and school impression of culture, and how to move it in a positive direction. We will begin the day with a large group interactive session focusing on the perceptions and realities of school culture.
Have you ever wondered if your students would show up at school, in your classroom, if they didn’t have to be there? What is it that makes people feel like they belong, like they matter and are part of something bigger than themselves?
While we know the adult in a classroom plays a critical role, culture will remain a buzzword unless teachers take a step back and allow students to take collective ownership of their space and the people in it.
Join us to grow your practice in the, “Why, What, and How” of culture. Additionally, we will identify key criteria that indicates a strong classroom (school) culture is being built.
In the 2011-2012 school year, the Healthy Classrooms Foundation provided funds to allow the Food for Learning Project to expand the Food for Learning school gardening programs by establishing indoor gardening using hydroponics and aquaponics to allow year-round growing seasons and to teach elementary students at the Kenosha School of Technology-Enhanced Curriculum (KTEC) about indoor sustainable gardening practices. This project was very successful with the establishment of multiple hydroponic and aquaponic systems at KTEC. This session will focus on how to establish a STEM indoor garden program through aquaponics and hydroponics.
More than 100 Carthage students from the Teacher Education Program have worked with teachers and students at KTEC developing their own knowledge of the science and sustainable gardening practices involved in establishing and maintaining hydroponic and aquaponic systems. This has been an invaluable learning experience for these future teachers. Carthage students have taught lessons and collaborated on designing poster displays with the students at KTEC to teach visitors and other students about the hydroponic systems and aquaponic systems. Additionally, these systems created beautiful green spaces in the school buildings that were located so that all students in the school could see the plants being grown and harvested. Staff, students, and parents at each school were interested and supportive in maintaining and learning about these indoor gardening systems. Initially, we used commercial systems that were purchased with the HCF funds but we also begin building “home-made” systems with the support of staff at the Hydro Your Own, a newly established Kenosha store that sells hydroponic and aquaponic systems and supplies.
We will detail step-by-step our process in establishing partnerships and share materials and lessons from several on-going collaborative projects including aquaponics, hydroponics, vermicomposting, and outdoor gardening. The elementary and middle schools students are integrally involved in developing creative problem-solving skills, environmental and social literacy, ethical awareness and sensitivity for the relationship between humans and the environment and acting on their commitment to engage in individual and cooperative action. Our goal is to have this model-demonstration school demonstrating sustainable practices and environmental stewardship to the community. These projects have been aligned with the NGSS and focus on how engineering and technology can support school gardening.
This program represents a new and powerful model for colleges and local agencies to collaborate with schools focusing on student-lead initiatives, whole-school commitment to creating a sustainable community by developing habits of conservation and practicing stewardship for the school and larger community. We have invited other schools and community groups to each school campus to learn about their practices and see how to adapt them to their own sites and situations. Our goal is that the College students will continue working with KTEC elementary and middle school students each year to not only develop their STEM knowledge base through the Food for Learning Project but also to develop their environmental literacy and their sense of stewardship to their community.
Have you ever wondered if your students would show up at school, in your classroom, if they didn’t have to be there? What is it that makes people feel like they belong, like they matter and are part of something bigger than themselves?
While we know the adult in a classroom plays a critical role, culture will remain a buzzword unless teachers take a step back and allow students to take collective ownership of their space and the people in it.
Join us to grow your practice in the, “Why, What, and How” of culture. Additionally, we will identify key criteria that indicates a strong classroom (school) culture is being built.
Join educators from all levels in K-12 as we explore and develop strategies for you to re-create school culture that best fits your community. Opportunities to attend morning breakout sessions and focus groups will be combined with the overall goal of taking home tools and ideas you can apply right away to continue your school’s journey toward a positive student-centered culture.
Culture What? Begin the quest to unlock the secrets of school culture, explore and define your personal and school impression of culture, and how to move it in a positive direction. We will begin the day with a large group interactive session focusing on the perceptions and realities of school culture.
During this panel-style discussion, attendees will learn about the growing movement of Learning Relationship Management (LRM) and why it is a crucial piece to every learner’s long-term success. Join the discussion by live tweeting your questions for our expert panelists to answer. Attendees will learn about the connection between authentic relationships and purposeful learning and how technology like Epiphany Learning can be used to foster these relationships. Attendees will also receive a free white paper about LRM.
Imagine if your teachers had the ability to view not only the data available for each of their students, but the trend analysis and projection of their performance in the future. Beyond the projection, transformational technology can provide curricular recommendations to a teacher to facilitate personalized learning for every student. This technology puts time back in the hands of teachers by providing them with the information needed to provide students with data-driven, personalized instruction.
This will be an interactive session. Please bring your device.
Groups of teachers around the country are gaining autonomy to collaboratively design and run schools. This session will demonstrate how this movement is growing around the country, increasing student-centered learning, and showcase a few examples of what schools look like when teachers are in charge. Liz Seubert, a teacher at Wildlands School in Augusta, Wisconsin, has worked in a teacher-powered school for 11 years. Liz will provide a glimpse into what it's like to co-found and work in a collaboratively-led school and help participants realize the possibilities in creating or strengthening their own Teacher-Powered School.
