Westminster Hosts Teaching Symposium

Westminster hosted its first annual Westminster Teaching Symposium Oct. 21 titled “The Many Ways of Assessing Student Learning,” which was attended by 32 guests from area schools as well as numerous Westminster faculty. The daylong event was held in the Armour Academic Center and featured eight experienced classroom teachers as presenters.
 

“We have chosen the topic of assessment for today’s symposium because we believe it is not just a buzzword, but is, in fact, at the heart of what we do as educators,” said Tim Quinn, director of the Westminster Teaching Initiative in his opening remarks. “We give assessments so that we can determine what our students have or have not learned, and so that this may inform further instruction, both with the same students and with future students. Hence, both what we assess and how we assess are of tremendous significance to our teaching practice.”
 

The symposium was organized by the Westminster Teaching Initiative (WTI), an organization formed in fall 2010 to enhance teaching and learning at Westminster by encouraging collaboration and dialogue about curriculum and pedagogy, and to facilitate the sharing of these ideas throughout the school. After a year of successfully sharing ideas at Westminster, the symposium was planned to widen the circle of sharing and allow teachers from area schools to come together, converse and learn from one another.
 

Those attending the symposium had an opportunity to attend three presentations of their choice, as well as observe Westminster classes, attend chapel, and have lunch with Westminster faculty and students.
 

The presentations topics and presenters included “The Use of Student Response Systems (“clickers”) as an Interactive Formative Assessment Tool” by Scott MacClintic of Loomis Chaffee School; “Applying Research Skills in Collaborative Groups and Individual Projects” by Tom Drake of the Hotchkiss School and Eric Styles of Loomis Chaffee School; “Do We Value What We Measure? Do We Measure What We Value” by Bill Williams of Pace University; “How Do We Assess New Media?” by Jeff Schwartz of Greenwich Academy; “Assessing Language Skills and Encouraging Divergent Thinking Through Essential Questions” by Jason Cummings of Greens Farms Academy and Sara Deveaux of Westminster; “The Harkness Discussion and its Role in Student Assessment” by John Corrigan of Pomfret School; “Encouraging and Assessing Student Understanding Through Collaborative Writing” by Charlie Griffith of Westminster; and “Presentation and Reflection as Tools for Student Learning and Teacher Assessment in the Arts Classroom and Beyond” by Whitney Barrett of Westminster.
 

“The WTI and the symposium represent a deliberately bottom-up model for professional development, one that relies not on keynote speakers, outside experts, professors of education, educational theorists or even administrative direction, but rather on the wisdom, the experience and the ideas of the true experts, the classroom teachers who are in the trenches every day,” explained Tim. “It was insightful and humbling to spend the day looking at what people are doing in their classrooms, and it revealed the true complexity of teaching and learning.”