Also collaborating on the event’s sponsorship are the New Teacher Center (NTC), California State University (CSU), the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU), and its member institutions. Funding has come from grants to NTC, CSU Fullerton, and Loyola Marymount from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, and the Silver Giving Foundation.
More information about the event, including a complete agenda, can be found at cateacherssummit.com. Stay up to date on all developments before and during the event at #CATeachersSummit.
Free to all California Pre-K-12 teachers, teachers candidates and school administrators, the day-long event will focus on strategies for teaching the common core: English, language arts/literacy, and math. HSU’s session sold out quickly, with 100 participants scheduled to attend.
“This is a first of a kind event—a united effort across California to bring teachers together to acknowledge and celebrate their expertise and the important work that they do,” said Mary Dingle, HSU Education Department Chair and local coordinator of the Summit.
Beginning at 8 a.m., local participants will gather in the Goodwin Forum on the Humboldt State campus. Along with more than 13,000 teachers throughout the state, they’ll listen in via Skype to keynote addresses by Yvette Nicole Brown and Leland Melvin.
Brown is perhaps best known for her role on NBC’s Community. She recently partnered with Stephen Colbert on an initiative to fund education projects in South Carolina.
Melvin is a football player turned NASA astronaut who has served as the co-chair of the White House task force charged with developing the nation’s 5-year STEM education plan, as well as the International Space Education Board, a global collaboration on learning about space.
Breakout sessions at each campus will focus on a variety of concepts. Humboldt State’s program, co-sponsored by the HSU Education Department and Humboldt County Office of Education, will focus on Science, Math and Technology though the Edcamp Model, which employs principles of connected and participatory learning.
“Teachers love the EdCamp model because it provides the opportunity to share their ideas, talk about what works in their classrooms, and focus on the things that are most important to them,” Dingle said. “It is led by teachers, for teachers.