The following schedule is a brief outline of the presentations that will be offered and the time at which they will be offered. Details about each presentation can be found below the schedule outlines. A detailed description and schedule will be provided both online and in print during the CIE Summer Institute.
June 26-28th, 2018
Detailed Session Descriptions
All presenters aside from keynote speakers will be acting as team coaches as well as session presenters.
Keynote Descriptions
Day One Richard Biffle Keynote: Griots, Kupunas, and Navigators: Creating and designing life experiences that cultivate and nurture a person from childhood through adulthood
A conversation about “creating a sense of community” and “platforms of learning, dialogue, understanding and knowledge” that are inclusive by design as well as diverse in construct and organization.
Day Two Mara Tieken Keynote: Towards a geography of justice: Rural sustainability and the promise of public education
Media and policymakers often overlook the important role that rural schools play in ensuring the vitality and sustainability of rural communities.Drawing upon her research and teaching in rural communities, Tieken will explore why rural schools matter—right now and in the future. The current political moment offers a critical opportunity to build upon the strengths of rural communities and schools and further educational opportunity across lines of race, class, and geography.
Day Three Explo: How to Foster Exploration through Observation and Questioning
We want our students to be curious. We want them to think critically and solve problems. We want them to take risks and gather data, work hard and persist, communicate with clarity and have empathy for others. We want them, each, to be innovators with an entrepreneurial spirit. It's a tall (seemingly impossible) order. The good news is you can start with a can of soup and a goldfish.
Day One Richard Biffle Keynote: Griots, Kupunas, and Navigators: Creating and designing life experiences that cultivate and nurture a person from childhood through adulthood
A conversation about “creating a sense of community” and “platforms of learning, dialogue, understanding and knowledge” that are inclusive by design as well as diverse in construct and organization.
Day Two Mara Tieken Keynote: Towards a geography of justice: Rural sustainability and the promise of public education
Media and policymakers often overlook the important role that rural schools play in ensuring the vitality and sustainability of rural communities.Drawing upon her research and teaching in rural communities, Tieken will explore why rural schools matter—right now and in the future. The current political moment offers a critical opportunity to build upon the strengths of rural communities and schools and further educational opportunity across lines of race, class, and geography.
Day Three Explo: How to Foster Exploration through Observation and Questioning
We want our students to be curious. We want them to think critically and solve problems. We want them to take risks and gather data, work hard and persist, communicate with clarity and have empathy for others. We want them, each, to be innovators with an entrepreneurial spirit. It's a tall (seemingly impossible) order. The good news is you can start with a can of soup and a goldfish.
Featured Session Descriptions
Richard Biffle: More Journeys, Explorations and Adventures in 360-degree teaching and learning
Featured session description: This session will engage participants is discussions addressing some of the following thoughts and ideas:
- Designing and invoking “communities of inquiry” that are open for ideas associated with engagement, curiosity, problem-solving, interactive thinking, and mindful reflection
- Constructing and organizing learning in thoughtful and thought-provoking ways that challenge conventional wisdom and thinking – examining the nexus of learning
- Creating innovative learning environments that are interdisciplinary in teaching and instruction, collaborative, inclusive, diverse, and project-based
Mike Muir: Technology, Inequity, and Learning
Featured session description: We have all heard about the Digital Divide. Maine’s schools are the first (and still only!) schools to participate in a statewide 1to1 technology initiative. Does the 15-year-old MLTI mean that we no longer have a Digital Divide in Maine? Participants will leave with a deepened understanding of the issues surrounding technology, inequity, and learning, and strategies, policies, and approaches to address these issues.
Mara Tieken Featured Session: Practices, policies, and pedagogies for rural sustainability
Featured session description: The challenges confronting today's rural schools and
educators are myriad: low college-going rates, threats of school consolidation and
closure, class- and race-based disparities in resources and opportunity. Yet strong,
responsive, equitable rural schools are essential to rural sustainability. Tieken will
examine some promising practices schools and communities are adopting to address
these challenges.
Mary Callen Featured Session: Career and College Ready: Implications for Maine Rural Schools
Featured session description: What does it mean to be Career and College Ready? Participants will learn about the current status of the readiness of Maine students for work and education beyond high school and will explore practices schools can put into action to ensure students are ready for learning beyond high school.
Jeff Bailey
Lindsay Stewart Pinchbeck
Jennifer Dorman, Maine Teacher of the Year 2015
Marielle Edgecomb, County Teacher of the Year 2018
Kasie Giallombardo, Maine Teacher of the Year 2018 Finalist
Mallory Haar
Leslie Marquis
- Getting Started with Coding for any Grade: Coding has great learning potential for all students. From collaboration to critical thinking, students of any age can be successful with coding in any class. Come and learn some simple to implement tools for teaching coding, and no, you don't have to have done it before.
- Flipping your Classroom: Learn about how you can use simple tools to flip your teaching and make the most of your face to face time with students. We will explore reasons for flipping your teaching and what that term actually entails. If you want to shake up your instructional model, this session is for you.
Lindsay Stewart Pinchbeck
- The Challenges of Creativity and Embracing Chaos in the Classroom: References: A call to action: The challenges of creative teaching and learning R. Keith Sawyer - Who do we chose to be? Margaret Wheatley
In this session we will experience some creative challenges and embrace the chaos. Supporting our experiences we will also read sections of the referenced articles and use the arts to consider the key issues and share ideas with one another. We will work to demystify the challenges when children engage in creative and collaborative learning. Participants working in pairs or small groups may choose to share out their ideas in Drama, Visual Arts, Music, Media Arts, Movement, Storytelling, Poetry a combination, or in their own inventive way.
- Storytelling: This session is an interactive storytelling session. Participants will work with a personal story inspired by the theme of "diversity" and work on storytelling skills to bring the story to life. Journaling, visual story mapping and storytelling games will be explored in the session. The opportunity to share stories with the larger group may present itself over the course of the institute and tellers are invited (if ready and willing) to share their story with the whole group.
Jennifer Dorman, Maine Teacher of the Year 2015
- Close Reading and Strategies for Engagement: Teachers will learn how to use close reading strategies, text-dependent questions, and engagement strategies to maximize active student learning in ELA and content area classes.
- Visible Learning: Research Based Strategies to Make Learning Stick: Teachers will learn about assessment for learning and John Hattie's effect size research in order to incorporate instructional strategies into their lessons that truly increase student learning.
Marielle Edgecomb, County Teacher of the Year 2018
- Student Choices to Engage All Learners: This session would focus on the choices we can give all children to empower them to meet their own physical and educational needs in the regular education classroom. If you are looking to develop a student-centered classroom that empowers children to take charge of their learning, this session is for you.
- Building a Rigorous Math Program for All Students: This presentation focuses on NCTM best practices, the latest research about math instruction and building a rigorous program that meets the needs of all learners in your classroom. Mathematics should be fun and engaging for students and teachers. It is time to get rid of math anxiety and celebrate mathematics as a community.
Kasie Giallombardo, Maine Teacher of the Year 2018 Finalist
- Utilizing Natural Curiosity to Increase Student Engagement. Humans are hard-wired for curiosity. In fact, research has found that it is a key ingredient in happiness, remembering, engagement, and drive. In this interactive session, participants will be able to experience and explore strategies that utilize natural curiosity in a proficiency-based classroom.
- Student-Centered Simplified: Strategies for Any Classroom What is student-centered learning? Why is it important? What does it look like? And does it require extra work for me? In this interactive session, participants will be able to answer these questions as they explore a range of student-centered examples, from strategies to student-driven curriculum that can be easily incorporated into any classroom.
Mallory Haar
- STEM and ELL: Collaborating to Serve All Learners: Participants will use "The Air Up There," a high school chemistry unit on climate change, to learn differentiation strategies and tools for "amplifying" academic language in STEM content instruction. They will also have a chance to learn about structures for fostering collaboration between ELL and content teachers.
- Initiating the Conversation: Strategies for Building Cultural Competency Discussions in Schools: Participants will learn about Courageous Conversations, a discussion structure used at Casco Bay High School to foster critical dialogue among students. They will also participate in discussion protocols used to address microaggressions (language or behavior that unintentionally or intentionally conveys prejudice to a person based on his/her identity).
Leslie Marquis
- Improving Our Practice Through Design Thinking: Educators who attend this session will reflect on their practices and use design thinking. Attendees will use this process to develop or modify practices in their classrooms to bring forth more student-centered learning. Most of the time will be spent in group discussions, individual reflection and brainstorming with short periods of direct instruction and presentation. This session is meant to encourage collaboration and discussions surrounding student-centered learning.
- Improvement Science: Approach to Making Educational Changes: How often have you tried a new practice in your classroom, it didn't work to your expectations, and you shelved it? How often has your PLC tried to implement a change, the results were not what you intended, and you discarded it? Has your school attempted new ideas, they wavered, and you moved on to the next idea? In current times a more appropriate title for educators would be "Learning Engineers". As educators, we are trying to design lessons for ever-changing learners in an effort to reach each and every student. We "engineer" our craft on an ongoing basis to reach this lofty goal. Consequently, due to our work and a push for immense shifts in pedagogy, we could all benefit from a systemic approach to change through a model called "Improvement Science". This approach allows teachers, schools, and districts an implementation process that promotes action based on measuring success and continual improvement.