About The 2008 Institute
Our rapidly changing world presents profound challenges for today’s educators.
How do you best prepare young people for a future that is hard to imagine?
How do you create learning experiences that are engaging and exciting for children?
How do you teach for the kind of deep understanding and thought that allows
people
to solve complex problems and do work that is both excellent and innovative?
How do you encourage students to fall in love with learning?
The Project Zero Classroom (PZC) is designed to help practicing
PreK-12 educators create classrooms, instructional materials,
and out-of-school learning environments that address these challenges.
In a Project Zero Classroom teachers promote students’ efforts
to understand important content, recognize and develop students’ multiple
intellectual strengths, help students learn to think critically and creatively,
and assess student work in ways that promote further learning. In a Project Zero Classroom teachers
themselves are learners who model intellectual curiosity and rigor, interdisciplinary
and collaborative
inquiry, and sensitivity to the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of learning.
Throughout the week, the institute addresses fundamental questions,
such as:
• What are the components of an effective education for the world
that students live in now and will live in— 10, 20, or 50 years from
now?
• What is understanding,
and how does it develop?
• What are the roles of reflection and assessment in
student and teacher learning?
• How can participants share and pursue
their understanding
of Project Zero’s ideas with others after the institute?
Institute sessions are varied, interactive, and include full-group
meetings (300 participants), mini-courses (10–45 people), and
small study groups of under 20. Participants have many opportunities
to talk informally with faculty and colleagues from around the world.
New Techniques For Improving Instruction
Participants in the institute learn to use various frameworks
to look analytically at teaching and to make informed decisions about instruction.
The program also helps participants develop new approaches to planning
and carrying out instruction. Participants reaffirm and expand their repertoire of classroom techniques. Many
opportunities are provided to discuss and compare experiences with
others.
Who Should Attend
Although we strongly encourage participants to attend in teams so
that they can reflect on ideas together both during and after the
institute, individual participants are also welcome. In addition
to PK-12 educators and administrators, pre-school
teachers, teacher educators, and museum educators are
also encouraged to attend.
Fluency In English Is Mandatory
Session Highlights
Plenary Sessions highlight both early and emerging ideas from Project Zero work and are presented by Howard Gardner, David Perkins, Steve Seidel and other senior staff.
Study Groups are created based on participant interests
and offer an opportunity to reflect on applicability of ideas to individual practice.
Mini courses draw from the following topics:
• Teaching and assessing for understanding
• Multiple intelligences
• Learning in and through the arts
• Educating for the 21st Century
• Making thinking and learning visible
• Understanding of organizations
2008 Faculty Included
Howard Gardner, John H. and Elisabeth
A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education. |
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Gardner served
as the Co-Director of Project Zero for nearly 30 years, and currently
serves as Chair of the Project Zero Steering Committee. For the last 13 years,
in collaboration with psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, William
Damon, and other researchers at Project Zero, Gardner has been engaged in a study of Good Work; work
that is at once excellent in quality and also responsive to the needs
of broader society.
The project is now working with young people in secondary schools and colleges in an effort to nurture good work. Gardner's most recent books are: Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons and Five Minds for the Future. With several colleagues, he recently published Responsibility at Work.
David Perkins, Senior Co-Director of Project Zero, is Professor of Education
at the Harvard Graduate School of Education |
 |
His newest book is King
Arthur’s Round Table: How Collaborative Conversations Create
Smart Organizations. He is also the author of The Eureka Effect, Smart
Schools, Outsmarting IQ, Knowledge as Design, and several other books
and many articles. He has helped develop instructional programs and
approaches for teaching understanding and thinking, including initiatives
in Sweden, South Africa, Israel, and Latin America. He is a former
Guggenheim Fellow.
Steve Seidel, Director of Project Zero and the Arts in Education Program
at the Harvard Graduate School of Education |
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Seidel is the Patricia Bauman and John
Landrum Bryant Lecturer in Arts in Education. He has worked in the areas
of arts and education for over 30 years. With more than 15 years teaching
in high schools, he joined Project Zero in 1988, working on projects
in arts education, alternative assessment, project-based curriculum,
and school reform. He is currently a Principal Investigator for several
projects, including Making Learning Visible and The Qualities of Quality:
Excellence in Arts Education and How to Achieve It.
Study Group and Mini-Course Faculty, consist of nationally and internationally
acclaimed consultants, authors, presenters, researchers, and practitioners.
General Information
Program Fees
The comprehensive program fee includes tuition, all instructional materials,
and social events. Participants receive a certificate of completion and
a letter confirming clock hours of instruction. Participants are responsible for their own travel expenses.
Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis. Payment or a
purchase order must be received within thirty days of registration and prior to the program start.
Participants are responsible for their own travel expenses; please
wait for payment confirmation before making travel arrangements.
Cancellation Policy
The Harvard
Graduate School of Education reserves the right to cancel the program
or change faculty at its discretion. In the unlikely case of the program changes,
the school is not responsible for non-refundable travel arrangements
or other planning costs incurred.
Conference Location
The conference will be held at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Accommodations
Hotel accommodations are made available to participants
at a reduced rate. Accommodation options will be posted closer to the program start. Travel and hotel accommodations are the responsibility of the individual participant.
Further Information
800-545-1849 • ppe@gse.harvard.edu
The Harvard Graduate School of Education affirms the right of all individuals to equal treatment in education without regard to race, age, religion, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, handicap, national origin, or any other considerations that are extraneous to effective performance. The Harvard Graduate School of Education will accommodate anyone with disabilities
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