Dear Teacher,
I’m a faculty member at The Riverside School in Lyndonville and a Critical Skills Master Teacher. I’ve been working with the Center for School Renewal at Antioch New England to facilitate Critical Skills Institutes, a week-long summer professional development experience for teachers of all subjects and grade levels. I know you’re thinking about taking a chance on an institute this summer and I wanted to give you a little more information about what you’d be getting into.
In essence, the Critical Skills Classroom about reworking your lessons to intentionally teach skills and dispositions (like quality, critical thinking, self direction, organization, community, etc) in a way that is problem-based, experiential, standards-based, and collaborative. Facilitators are really expected to walk our talk, so the week is designed to be experienced by participants in the same way we want our students to experience it. This isn’t sit- and- get professional learning, you will feel engaged and challenged and part of a community as the week goes on.
This summer, I’ll be facilitating with Bill Vinton, who is a science teacher at St Johnsbury Academy during the Riverside Institute in August and there are two great teachers- Allison and Danika- running the Keene Institute in July.
Here is a little more info:
1) The website for critical skills includes all kinds of additional specific information
2. A couple of videos (you can find more of these on our YouTube channel, if you’re interested)
It really is a fun and inspiring week. No one has ever told us they were sorry they came, so I hope you’ll decide to join us!
Best-
Nelia
The Critical Skills Classroom 