STLinATL

This workshop is designed to assist Woodward Upper School Faculty in the design and proposal process of their Maymester course for 2024. Faculty members will engage in activities designed to critically examine and reflect on their ideas surrounding a potential Maymester offering. We will discuss the basics of experiential learning and how it applies to the context of our program as well as see examples of proposed courses. At the end of the session, teachers will be better equipped to write and submit their Maymester proposal. (NOTE: attendance at one of these workshops is required for all Upper School Faculty at Woodward Academy)

We'll explore what STEAM is- it may not be what you think, and how you can implement valuable STEAM principles into your classroom. You should leave with a demystified understanding of STEAM, an understanding of the value of STEAM at every level, and a format for including STEAM principles in your classroom and planning.

This workshop is designed to assist Woodward Upper School Faculty in the design and proposal process of their Maymester course for 2024. Faculty members will engage in activities designed to critically examine and reflect on their ideas surrounding a potential Maymester offering. We will discuss the basics of experiential learning and how it applies to the context of our program as well as see examples of proposed courses. At the end of the session, teachers will be better equipped to write and submit their Maymester proposal. (NOTE: attendance at one of these workshops is required for all Upper School Faculty at Woodward Academy)

Professional writers use various techniques to make their writing evocative, clear, and powerful. Unless students are taught how to answer the question, “What makes this writing so good?” they are missing out on key learning that can ultimately improve their own approach to written expression. In this session, we will explore how to create a mini-unit (2-3 weeks) on writer’s craft where students will study specific “craft moves” by authors with the goal of emulating those moves in their own writing. Imagine it’s similar to the work of a baseball pitcher – watch the mechanics of throwing a curve ball, view experts doing so, then practice those mechanics and get feedback along the way. That’ll be the work of the session – by studying some of the greats such as Mem Fox, Gary Paulsen, Jane Yolen, and Cynthia Rylant – and the goal of this session will be to introduce you to the power of a mini-unit on writer’s craft so you can start to develop your own…using some pre-created resources and even finding inspiration from your own favorite stories and authors.

Talking about social justice is not the same as doing it. No one can simply negotiate stressful diversity encounters by reading a lot. Navigating the stress of racial conflict or conversation is not easy. This workshop will demonstrate ways administrators, teachers, parents and students can manage racial stress in conversations through racial socialization and literacy. We will practice mindfulness approaches to identify and notice reactions to stressful racial and other diversity encounters that may interfere with learning and teaching.
Participants will:
1. Learn the research support and health benefits for engaging racial encounters directly.
2. Increase engagement rather than avoidant-racial coping thoughts, emotions, and behaviors during racially stressful moments within schooling relationships.
3. Improve participant understanding of in-the-moment racial stress reduction strategies.
4. Practice (in pairs) racial literacy strategies of storytelling and emotional regulation as introduction to how it is possible to increase skill usage and competency by mimicking real life encounters.
5. Increase awareness of how thoughts, body reactions, and feelings influence racial decision-making.
6. Observe and practice the CLCBE (calculate, locate, communicate, breath, and exhale) racial literacy mindfulness strategy for use in stressful schooling relationships.
7. Ignite discussion in how racial literacy strategies taught can be applied to other identity and intersectional diversity encounters that are proximal and systemic.