Call for Presentations: Teaching Our Cities Summit

  Joel Tolman           February 18, 2019 - 3:47pm

Teaching Our Cities -- a network of urban public high schools with a shared focus on the environment and social justice -- is seeking proposals for presentations for our April 5th Teaching Our Cities School Summit at Connecticut River Academy in East Hartford, Connecticut. 

Proposals are due by Monday, March 11.

We are seeking:

  • Teams of students and staff

  • Sharing work in progress

  • With a real purpose and audience

  • Focused on environmental and social justice issues

  • Rooted in the cities that our students call home

Format:

  • Presentations will take place from 10:15-11:30am, as part of a day-long workshop. Presenters are invited to participate in the entire day, which will include:
    • 9-10 am: Youth-centered, youth-facilitated conversations, with adults listening, focused on creating city schools that help to solve the environmental and social justice challenges facing their cities. 
    • 11:30-12:30: Lunch & opportunity for informal exchange with other participants.
    • 12:30-2:30: A workshop for students & teachers, focused on creating four-year pathways for all students that challenge them, support them, and create opportunities for real work that's rooted in our cities.  
  • Three presenting groups will share a presentation space -- offering an opportunity for teams to share, offer feedback, and learn from each other.
  • Presentations will be grouped based on similar formats (capstone projects, interdisciplinary expeditions and units of study, internships and other independent learning opportunities) or by theme (environmental justice, environmental design challenges, etc.), based on submissions.   
  • Each session will include:
    • Gallery Walk: Students and teachers explore artifacts: student work in progress, curriculum documents, etc.
    • Gallery Talk: Each team will have 10-15 minutes to share their work from teacher and student point of view.
    • Caucuses: Teachers will meet with teachers, students with students, to go deeper into their work, support one another. Is the level of challenge right in this experience? What are you learning? Where are you stuck in where to go next? How do we deepen learning/increase rigor? How relevant is it? How do we increase relevance?
    • Reflection: Students and teachers re-convene to share out key lessons/next steps.
  • Based on these presentations, we hope to publish student and teacher work and reflections on the Teaching Our Cities website (or, if preferred, share just among participating schools via google drive).

To submit a proposal, fill out this google form. 

About the Author

Joel Tolman

  Project Director, Teaching Our Cities         Common Ground High School

Joel Tolman is Project Director for Teaching Our Cities. He is also Director of Impact & Engagement at Common Ground -- a high school, urban farm, and environmental education center in New Haven, CT.  In this capacity, Joel Tolman leads work to make Common Ground a more effective and inclusive organization – with a focus on strategic planning, growth strategies, evaluation, and community engagement.

Joel came to Common Ground as a classroom teacher in 2003. Through classes including Architecture, Documenting New Haven, El Caribe, and Power, Joel’s students explored and documented New Haven’s neighborhoods, monitored urban air quality, created bilingual oral histories of community elders, secured start-up funding for small social ventures, and presented policy proposals to state legislators.

In 2008, Joel become Common Ground’s Director of Development and Community Engagement. In this capacity, he more than doubled grant revenue and individual giving, helped to launch a major capital campaign, and secured the resources necessary to grow organizational reach significantly.

Before joining the Common Ground faculty, Joel worked for 5 years on high school reform and youth policy issues in Washington, DC – providing technical assistance to school districts and municipalities, writing a number of publications on youth leadership and development, and managing multi-site initiatives related to school reform and out-of-school time. He has a degree in environmental studies from Williams College, and a M.Ed. in social studies education from George Washington University.

More by Joel