Brewster Summer Institute

Course Offerings

SESSION 1

Monday July 7 (AM): Orientation

After welcoming participants to the program and providing the program schedule and expectations, participants will be oriented to technology use at Brewster. Laptops will be distributed. There will be instruction on basic network functioning at Brewster, an introduction to our e-mail system, and the basics of working with Apple computers. Participants will also be introduced to our technology ethics and policies. At the end of the session, participants will be asked to demonstrate computer proficiencies with Microsoft Office so that differentiated instruction can be planned for the next day.

Tuesday July 8: Technology Skills for the Classroom

This session ensures participants are skilled in the basics of Microsoft Office suite, which serves the word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation needs of the Academy. All three applications are used extensively in our program and teachers need to demonstrate good dexterity with each of these applications. In addition, participants will become familiar with 2 powerful applications used at Brewster. Inspiration, an aid in the visual representation of ideas, and Kurzweil, a reading, writing, and study skills program, have become valuable tools in assisting programs students in our program.

Wednesday July 9 (AM) : Introduction to the Brewster Program

This session introduces you to The Brewster Program and the tenets that underpin it. The mission, core purpose, and accompanying intentional structures are presented so that participants gain a clear idea of how Brewster Academy defines the task of best serving its students academically, socially, and athletically.

Wednesday July 9 (PM): Teaching Students with Learning Differences

In order for teachers to have success in working with all students they will encounter at Brewster, they need to be armed with knowledge about students with learning differences. To accomplish this objective, participants will gain a hands-on perspective of what it is like for students with learning differences, how these differences are manifested in the classroom, and what strategies are helpful when working with these students. Areas of instruction will include students with problems of attention, students with language processing deficits, students with executive functioning deficits, English as Second-Language students, and students with specific learning styles.

Thursday July 10: Teaching Students with Learning Differences Con't

Friday July 11: Managing Student Behavior

Successfully managing student behavior is central to a successful experience for students and teachers. In this session participants will be provided with a theoretical background of the principles that underpin Brewster’s approaches to managing student behavior. Participants will also be introduced to several tools Brewster uses to assist with this process. These include our recognition system, the steps for developing effective classroom routines, the BMP process (including demonstration of our digital classroom tools to track student information), classroom rules and how to use them successfully, and managing rewards and consequences. Brewster’s commitment to heterogeneous grouping requires that classrooms be differentiated in terms of teaching and learning. This course will teach faculty how to manage rotated instruction in the classroom and how to give feedback to students when they are working independently.

Monday July 14: Direct Instruction

In this class participants will learn how to transform a lecture into an effective teaching approach that meets the needs of students with different learning styles and ensures that all students learn lesson objectives through structured practice activities. In the afternoon, participants will work with their department head to study how direct instruction plays out in the curriculum they will be teaching.

Tuesday July 15: Adapting Instruction to Meet Learner Needs

This course teaches those cognitive strategies that have been shown to successfully assist students to extend their capacity to understand other key ideas and concepts in the curriculum and to help students achieve higher order thinking in the classroom. Participants learn techniques that include thinking strategies, information organizers, word banks, study guides, concept maps, need to know charts, etc. so that participants are armed with strategies for their teaching repertoire.

Wednesday July 16, Thursday July 17: Principles of Cooperative Learning and its Methods

This course identifies the essential characteristics of effective cooperative learning approaches and teaches participants how to employ those characteristics to create successful cooperative learning lessons. Participants will learn how these essential characteristics play out in three strategies (STAD (Student Team Achievement Divisions), Jigsaw II, and peer tutoring) that can be employed as effective methods for groups of students to work together to better learn lesson objectives. In addition, participants will learn strategies for managing student behavior when students are working independently.

Friday July 18: Cooperative Learning Methods - Application

This session involves having participants working with their department head to see how cooperative learning practices are implemented in the curriculum that they will be teaching. Competence with delivering at least one cooperative learning lesson is required in this session.

Monday July 21: More Technology Skills for the Classroom

This course seeks to ensure that participants are skilled with innovative technologies that can enhance and differentiate lessons. This course ensures that participants are well versed in the nuances of Internet literacy and Internet usage. In addition participants will experience a wide array of web 2.0 technologies that can be employed in the classroom. These will include podcasts, blogs, wikis, video, RSS aggregators, social networking, and social bookmarking.

Tuesday July 22: Student Assessment

Valid assessment and evaluation of student work is an essential component of the teaching process. In this session, participants will be taught the principles that underpin Brewster’s approach to evaluation as well as assessment skills such as test design that reaches a range of thinking skills, authentic assessment, and grading procedures in a mastery curriculum. On-line tools for recording student grades and completing grade reports will also be shown.

Wednesday July 23: Who are our students and how do we support them

This course provides participants with a more in depth picture of the learning profiles of students they are likely to encounter at Brewster. Tools for understanding these learning profiles (admissions information, file reviews) will be described. In addition, Brewster has a highly defined Instructional Support Program that helps students with particular learning needs. It is an integral part of our program so understanding how that program works is important for all teachers to know. The specific skills required to work in collaboration with academic support teachers will be taught. In addition, the referral process and how student growth is monitored in the IS program will be covered.

Thursday July 24 - Friday July 25

Community Life Orientation OR Athletic Orientation

Monday July 28 - Wednesday July 30 : Departmental Curriculum Internship

In this course participants will engage in a variety of activities depending on the differentiated needs of the specific department that they will be working in. Department heads will work with participants to ensure that they develop a solid understanding of the curriculum they will be teaching in the fall and that they are able to deliver the practices of that curriculum with integrity.

Thursday July 31: Lesson Demonstrations

In this concluding session, participants will each get a chance to deliver one lesson that demonstrates their facility with the teaching practices covered in BSI. It is also an opportunity to incorporate as many of the instructional strategies and technology innovations that have been covered over the previous 4 weeks. It is an opportunity to integrate all that has been learned in a celebratory experience.

Thursday July 31: Graduation Dinner

SESSION 2

Wednesday August 27: Collaboration and Teamwork

Collaborative decision-making resides at the core of the Brewster Program. Students, teachers and administrators all employ team collaborative approaches in all aspects of the life of the school. In this course participants will learn the collaborative problem solving approach and the roles and responsibilities associated with team primacy. The role of the advisor and the development of action plans for students will also be covered

Thursday August 28: The Brewster Portal and Library Resources

Brewster has a custom built operating system that organizes all the tools which teachers, students, and parents need to fill their respective roles. This operating system is comprised of a remarkable array of technology tools available to support people in doing their jobs in the learning process at Brewster. This course provides teachers with an overall view of each of the databases that are part of our ‘portal’, as well as detailed instruction as to how to use the tools needed to make their classroom function efficiently. In addition participants will learn about the fantastic array of library research tools that are available to our community.