The Program

The Summer Institute is designed for classroom teachers, providing them an understanding of how experiential education pedagogy and practice can help enhance their academic curricula and classroom practice. To provide focus to the discussions and stronger opportunities to develop community, the Institute will group three discipline cohorts together at a time (past groupings have included English, Humanities/Social Studies, and World Languages as one cohort and Sciences, Math, and Performing/Visual Arts as another cohort). Note: teachers of literature-based courses (philosophy, religion, etc.) may find the English cohort relevant to join. Educational administrators are welcome to join us at any time but will need to choose one academic discipline with which to focus their time and learning.

All participants will gain the following:

• An understanding of the theory and pedagogy of experiential education and how it relates to academic rigor, student engagement, and classroom enhancement
• Learning how to apply and integrate experiential education pedagogy into the classroom
• Access to extensive resources relevant to their discipline, the opportunity to learn through an experiential education lesson in practice, taking advantage of the resources available online, along with time to work individually and collaboratively with like-minded peers to design/develop curricula and assessments that can be put to immediate use in their classroom
• A network of colleagues with whom they can connect throughout the year, share ideas for curriculum, instruction, and assessment
• Time to develop and receive feedback on curriculum that can be implemented in their classrooms
• A better understanding of the more integrated role experiential education can play in the entire school culture