NEH 2022 Format and Syllabus
Social Activities. We will begin with a welcoming event to initiate the seminar. I look forward to being able to begin the process of introducing you to the many virtues of the Amherst area as well as showing you around our campus.
Format of the Institute: We will meet Monday through Friday from 8:30a.m. – 5:00p.m. Our sessions will be interactive and discussion based. We will use many different formats, including pairing, small groups and of course whole group meetings.
We will take breaks to ensure that everyone stays fresh and engaged.
Monday through Thursday each week will include different kinds of sessions. We will begin the day with what I call review/preview sessions that will allow me to weave the strands of the Institute together. They will be followed by presentations by/ discussion-oriented colloquy/roundtable discussion with our Visiting Faculty. I will facilitate those discussions and envision them as lively question and answer sessions.
Late afternoons will alternate between time for reading and participant project development (time to sketch out lesson plans, units, curriculum development activities, etc.) and “Talking About Teaching” sessions led by Roy Blumenfeld, the K-12 educator with whom I will work. Those sessions will be devoted to consideration of ways participants envision using that material in their teaching. Some of the sessions will be plenary sessions, but both in the review/preview and “Talking About Teaching” meetings some sessions will be offered to smaller groups.
Time will also be available for meeting individually or in groups with me and the Visiting Faculty.
On Fridays, we will flip the format and begin with presentations by Visiting Faculty. We will then have sessions devoted to considering how the issues and themes of the week can be used in curriculum development and school/classroom management. They will offer opportunities to think through ways Institute materials and pedagogical approaches can be adapted for, and/or incorporated into, K-12 classrooms. Participants can explore new approaches to their existing curricula, as well as ways they might create new curricula based on the Institute. Throughout the Institute, participants will work on their own lesson plans and curricular approaches.
The Friday of the last week will be devoted to culminating sessions for reflections and presentations by participants. They might present a K-12 sample lesson or activity (e.g., a civics unit on the place of punishment in a constitutional democracy or ways to focus a discussion of a book like The Scarlet Letter on approaches to punishment), facilitate a discussion of how to use Institute material in their classrooms, or model a classroom setting and ways teachers can link specific texts used in classrooms to the themes of the Institute.