Educators Discuss 21st-Century Skills

The second annual event was an outgrowth of the Westminster Teaching Initiative (WTI) that was formed in 2010 to enhance teaching and learning at Westminster by encouraging collaboration and dialog among faculty members and departments about curriculum and pedagogy. The purpose of the symposium is to widen the circle of sharing and allow teachers from area schools to come together, converse and learn from one another.
 

A major highlight of this year’s symposium was a keynote address by Patrick Bassett, president of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), a membership organization of more than 1,400 independent schools and associations of schools in the United States and 250 affiliated schools and associations internationally. He spoke about what he calls the “Six Cs”— communication, creativity, collaboration, character, critical thinking and cosmopolitanism — saying they are the skills and values that will be demanded of students and rewarded in the 21st century.
 

Throughout the day, symposium attendees were able to select from 15 presentations on topics ranging from flipped classrooms, to collaboration through mobile devices, to incorporating creativity into lesson plans. Among those making presentations were Westminster faculty members Maureen Lamb, who teaches Latin and gave a presentation titled “21st-Century Technology for the Language Classroom,” and John Sandoval P’13 ’15, who teaches visual arts and history and whose talk was titled “Improvisation, Creative Teaching and Surrounding Areas: The Five Minute Lesson Plan.”
 

“The symposium offered an excellent professional development opportunity for the educators who presented, and we will continue to make this a significant element of the symposia in years ahead,” said Westminster science teacher Bill Sistare who co-directs the WTI. “Teachers learn best from other teachers.”
 

 Science teacher Mark de Kanter ’91, who co-directs the WTI with Bill, added, “This symposium demonstrated that our faculty are seriously reflecting on the current trends in education and trying to incorporate best practices into our curriculum. As multiple studies have corroborated, there is no replacement for a good teacher, and Westminster is continually working to make our strong faculty even better.”