Traverse '17

In the summer of 2017, 100 innovative educators from across the country gathered in Boulder to experience new ways of teaching and learning. They shared ideas over microbrews, experienced innovative programs firsthand, and enjoyed some sunny reflection at the foot of the Rockies.

Want to know what makes Traverse so special? See below for participant photos and the detailed play-by-play.

Traverse '17 Schedule

Monday, June 5

2:00pm Registration Opens
3:00pm Traverse '16 Kicks Off!
3:30pm Opening Session: What is the role of community in real-world learning?
6:00pm Salon dinner on the Future of Education at Rayback Collective

Tuesday, June 6

7:00am Short hike in the foothills of the Rockies, led by Watershed faculty (optional)
​8:30am Breakfast and mixing with the Traverse community
9:00am Gathering in Home Groups
9:30am Expedition 1: Choose from 7 three-hour, hands-on workshops both on and off campus (many will repeat)
12:30pm Lunch from local food trucks and mixing with the Traverse community on the patio and lawn
1:30pm Expedition 2: Choose from 7 three-hour, hands-on workshops both on and off campus (many will repeat)
4:45pm Reflection in Home Groups
5:15pm Live music and Happy Hour with local microbrews in the Watershed School art studio/patio, with a view of the Rockies

Wednesday, June 7

7:30am ​Morning yoga with the Traverse community, led by Watershed faculty (optional)
8:30am Breakfast and mixing with the Traverse community
9:00am Gathering in Home Groups
9:30am Expedition 3: Choose from the three-hour, hands-on workshops both on and off campus (many will repeat)​
12:30pm Lunch and reflection in Home Groups
1:30pm Reflections on learning
3:30pm Final art project and community commitments
4:15pm Closing circle
​4:30pm Traverse concludes
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Traverse Expeditions

Architecture: An Experiment in Student Ownership and Professional Collaboration
with Helen Higgins of Eagle Rock School
The space in which we live, teach, and work are designed to fulfill a purpose. However, we rarely stop and consider the effect of these designs. By developing architectural thinking, students can examine the spaces around them rather than passively moving through them. Developing skills to explore design allows students to go beyond engagement within a class and integrate themselves into the realm of institutional decision-makers. In true project-based form, students can embark on challenging existing conditions and proposing solutions for spaces to serve them better. This workshop is a hands-on exploration of an architecture course in which students generated proposals for our schools' master plan. They were guided and instructed along the way by several of the original architects of our campus. We will take you through some of our experiences with the class as a starting point to think about authentic ways that students can take ownership of not only their educational engagement but also the spaces in which they spend their lives.

Crossing the Cultural Divide: Working with students to bring awareness to identity, biases, and ethnocentrism
with Simon Hart of Where There Be Dragons
Dragons programming removes students from familiar cultural environments and intentionally introduces encounters with "otherness" to break down stereotypes, challenge norms, and build meaningful relationships across diversity. This expeditionary workshop heads into downtown Boulder to engage in a focused cultural engagement with place and people. Through a series of individual encounters, participants are given an opportunity to identify their own cultural boundaries and comfort zones, and in turn work with students to teach cultural competency.

Part 1 Framing: Experiential Activity - Pandis and Chispas, the inevitability of ethnocentrism
Part 2 Activity: Cultural Immersion in Boulder - An ethnographic approach to experiential education - how do we fame intercultural experiences for students?
Part 3 Debrief: How can we actively invite deeper levels of cultural awareness in our students?

Entrepreneurship Education as a Vehicle for Transforming Students...and Academics
with Doris Korda, Hawken School and Wildfire Education and Julia Griffin, Hawken School
PBL, Entrepreneurship, Experiential education, STEAM  – the jargon is endless. Everyone agrees that schools aren’t doing enough to teach our students the skills they need.  But how?  How do we create and teach academic classes so that we’re truly preparing our students with the skills they need to thrive in their changed world? See and experience Hawken’s radically different model for 21st Century teaching and learning. With a unique methodology that combines content with richly developed skills mastery curriculum, instructional practice and portfolio-based assessment, this method has been implemented by hundreds of educators in academic courses of all types, including entrepreneurship, science, social justice, technology, and even Hawken’s 9th grade Humanities course. The Entrepreneurial Studies program was the academic origin of Hawken’s work to create the Mastery Transcript Consortium, a group dedicated to creating a new transcript to transform high school.

The Epic "Future of Learning" Photo Scavenger Hunt
with Christian Long of Wonder, by Design
Join this active learning and design expedition as we head out into the streets, alleyways, parks, and hidden rabbit holes to creatively photograph the unexpected and wondrous elements of Boulder before we collectively 'co-curate' a living gallery exhibit to celebrate a bold vision of what might be possible in the future of learning. Simultaneously this expedition requires no 'expertise' in terms of photography, although it does require that you bring a device that can a) take digital photos and b) download them to a computer. This session is less a set of concrete ideas to take back to your classroom as it is an opportunity for participants to explore and wonder together. Walking shoes (or leaping and bounding and exploration footwear) are also a must as we'll be out-n-about most of the time.

An Ethnographic Approach to Observation and Community Partnership
with Josan Perales, Eagle Rock School
How can we engage students as change-makers in their immediate and distant communities, in meaningful and important ways, while teaching them to confront their own bias in order to represent other’s ‘cultures’ as authentically as possible?  By using an ethnographic approach to observation, students become objective observers of a culture and make observations from the point of view of the subject of the study.  The unpacking of this objective narrative becomes the stage for subjective analysis of self (assumptions, bias, stereotypes) and allows students to make personal connections and realizations into their own identities.  Finally, when appropriate, action gives this ethnographic research a purpose, and through careful and strategic building of long-term partnerships and collaborative learning experiences that are product-focused, bridges between researcher and subject can be built and participants can begin working in solidarity together.

This workshop is a hands-on introduction to observation through the ethnographic lens, through which participants will define ‘culture’ within the Ethnographic context and experience the process of Ethnography, from observation to action.  As partnerships and action are important components of this process, we will be of service to the Traverse conference, and create a slice of Ethnography of the culture of the conference itself - moving from objective observations to actionable recommendations.  Through learning about the Eagle Rock Ethnography class and partnership with Estes Park High School, participants will explore ways to implement this model in their own schools, brainstorm potential partnerships and project ideas, and receive feedback from their peers.

How Can We Bring Purpose to Our Teaching?
with Ross Wehner from World Leadership School
Research shows that adults who have a purpose in life — simply put, a compelling reason to get out of bed each morning — live longer, heal quicker and have deeper levels of happiness. Adolescents who are exploring their purpose meanwhile experience less stress among other benefits. These students connect to learning in powerful and emotional ways because they approach learning as a way to explore themselves and find meaning. As Stanford researcher Bill Damon puts it: “The biggest problem growing up today is not actually stress, it’s meaninglessness.” So how can we help students explore purpose? We need to explore and articulate our own purpose first. "Before we can lead others, we must learn to lead ourselves,” says Richard Leider, an expert on purpose-based learning. World Leadership School takes students and teachers abroad each year to explore purpose in immersive community experiences. In this panel, we will dive as deeply as possible into WLS’ learning paradigm of “disconnect, decenter and re-envision.” By visiting Impact Hub Boulder, we will engage with Boulder entrepreneurs and social innovators to explore how they seek purpose through work. Through two activities (Calling Cards and Story Exchange), we will challenge each other to identify and articulate our unique purpose. Finally, we will also reflect on the purpose-based learning movement and what this means for our classrooms.

Infusing Systems Thinking into Real-World Learning
with Scott McClintock of Chesterfield Day School and Andrew Chernow of Watershed School
In this Traverse expedition, you will be introduced to systems thinking as a unifying framework for understanding real-world problems and sustainability.  Through active engagement, participants will learn systems analysis tools that can be applied across a variety of content areas, both in the field and in the classroom.  You will also have the opportunity to learn how to infuse experiential education into expeditionary learning to engage students, build high-functioning, collaborative teams, and to reflect on shared experiences. We will start in the classroom during this expedition, but then we will head out on bikes to explore how some Boulder neighborhoods are committed to creating living spaces where honey bees and other pollinators can propagate without the effects of toxic chemicals.

Inspiration by Observation: Innovation Begins with an Eye
with Nicole Martin and Meghan Cureton from Mount Vernon Presbyterian School
Complex problem-solving, critical thinking and creativity are the top three skills necessary for success in the workplace 2020, according to the World Economic Forum. How are we teaching those skills? Who is responsible for teaching those skills? As teacher-leaders, what are we doing to improve our own practices in those three distinct areas? This session is all about getting out into the community to observe and ask questions, which are critical components to complex problem-solving and innovation. As Tom Kelley of IDEO says, “innovation begins with an eye” - an eye that is committed to observing the world around you for ways to hack or improve. We will leave the classroom and the school campus to explore what is right outside our doors. We’ll equip participants with tools to explore, capture observations and generate questions. During this three-hour session, pairs of participants will engage in an expeditionary learning-inspired session that will spark learning by doing.

Know Thyself, Know Thy Team: New Rules for Learning Collaboratively
with Nikita Dyer from Trello and Christian Talbot from Malvern Prep & <basecamp>
We know that our global community and economy demand that learners collaborate creatively.  Yet effective collaboration often ​seems mysterious.  But what if there were simple tools and simple questions to catalyze great teamwork?  This Traverse expedition takes the form of an inner journey.  You’ll explore the talents that come as easily to you as breathing--but which you may not realize. We will use StrengthsFinder as a jumping off point, so if you think might want to participate in this session please send a request to Christian [christian.talbot at gmail.com] for a link to the online StrengthsFinder assessment (note: this does not obligate you to attend the session!)

Learning Walks and Instructional Rounds: Being an Explorer of Your Own School
with Bo Adams and Shelley Clifford from Mount Vernon Presbyterian School
How do you study your own school community as researchers, designers and innovators? In this session, pioneers at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School will share their journey in using learning walks and instructional rounds to study the art and science of teaching and learning a their school. After laying some groundwork in our base camp, we will venture out to conduct learning walks among the other sessions at Traverse ‘17. Through experiential practice, fellow adventurers in this session will have a successful summit under their belts so that they can begin imagining and planning for future learning expeditions at their own schools upon return. 
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Real-World Learning in Size 5 Sneakers: Learning in the Field with Elementary Students
​with Chris Andres and Jim Tiffin from Mount Vernon Presbyterian School
I wonder why there is so much trash along the river. I wonder what happens to the milk at the grocery store that goes bad. I wonder why the sign at the library reads, “No bathing, No washing, No loitering.” There are a lot of things in our world that elementary students are curious about. How might we, as teachers, guide the explorations of students’ own curiosities even when those ideas might be thought of as out-of-reach for our learners? In this expedition, we’ll go out into the Boulder community to explore part of the city from the perspective of an elementary student. We’ll generate questions from our observations, then refine and define them as solvable problems through an elementary lens. We’ll reflect on ways to connect traditional classroom content areas to an authentic, transdisciplinary, real-world experience for our students, and share practices for managing that experience. Grab a Go-Go Squeeze and juice box, and come rediscover the learnable world through the eyes of an eight year old.

Redefining What School Might Be: Exploring Possibility for Both Students & Teachers 
with Paul Kim and Tom Thorpe of Colorado Academy’s REDI Lab
Today, education is often described as being based on antiquated, centuries-old models. As a result, ideas about how we might transform education are a consistent part of social and political discourse. To offer students a unique opportunity that challenges current thinking about education, Colorado Academy has launched the REDI Lab, a new “school-within-a-school” program for high school juniors that focuses on Research, Entrepreneurship, Design, and Inquiry. The REDI Lab was created to provide both students and teachers with the space to exercise their agency and potential in school. It is a highly personalized, collaborative program in which self-directed learning creates a context for students to use intrinsic motivation to work on big ideas that have personal relevance.
In this Traverse expedition, you will design your own personal learning project in a cohort of like-minded educators. Using core pieces of the REDI Lab framework, you develop a 6-week program in which you will self-direct your way through your own unique learning journey.

Seeking the Spark: What Drives Students To Take The Lead In Learning?
with Jeff Osgood (Watershed School Faculty) and Ellie Griffin (Watershed School Student)
Sometimes we find ourselves guessing at what will motivate and empower our students.  Go to the source for facts on this issue and engage a panel of Watershed students ranging from 6th grade to 12th as they share what sparked their learning.  Students will be asked to unpack stories behind academic gains and character development.  Participants will have the chance to also sit down with the panel members and steer the conversation in new directions.  We will wrap up with a debrief of what was heard and how we might go forth and add some combustion to our own communities. 

Social Entrepreneurship: How Might We Create an Optimistic Future?
with Korin Folan and Kevin Moore of Malvern Prep and Eric Glustrom of Watson
How well do you know your innate strengths?  How well do you see beyond the ordinary, and how often do you do something about that vision?  Social Entrepreneurship is a 100% project- and team-based experience that inspires learners to create the optimistic future our world needs.  In this experience, you will learn about the talents that come to you as naturally as breathing, and how to use those talents as part of a team tackling a social impact issue.  While design thinking is imperative to the entire process, your team will focus on problem identification and rapid prototyping. Then you will harness the strengths of your team to design a solution.  At the end, you will test your solution by presenting to a panel, receiving feedback, and reflecting: What did you learn through the experience?  How might you carry this experience back to your students?  Most importantly, how might you help your students to create an optimistic future?

Step Forward: Emboldening Your Practice of Leadership
with Kevin Fleming of NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) and John Harnetiaux of Catlin Gabel School
As experiential educators, we need tools for working in the here and now. Our effectiveness as teachers depends on our ability to help students make meaning of both what happened and what is happening. We often dwell on the past, or focus on the future, instead directing our awareness to the experience of the present moment. Self-awareness is often said to be “knowing your strengths and weaknesses” or “understanding your impact on others,” but we find this definition too limiting. On this expedition, we’ll explore several models of self-awareness and immediacy that ask us—as educators and as humans —to focus instead on our experience of the present. We’ll explore the differences between thoughts, emotions, and desires; the mind-body connection; and the idea of immediacy. Through discussion, activity, and intensive group work, we’ll challenge participants to take risks and deepen their own conceptions of self-awareness.

The Target Media and Gender Experience: Making Field Work Happen Anywhere
with Chris Carithers and Taylor Replane of Watershed School
This session will explore how to design field experiences that allow students to construct their own ideas and understanding while engaging in easy to access fieldwork. We will be traveling to Target to see how everyday places can be used as field experiences. Specifically, we will be looking at media and gender literacy in order to better ‘read’ images and understand the concept of gender binaries before going to Target to use qualitative and quantitative field skills to analyze how Target is a gendered experience.

Teaching and Embracing the Unknown 
with Jeff Osgood and Pablo Stayton of Watershed School
Educators feel an immense pressure to be the expert in the room and to know exactly where their students’ learning is headed. Jump into a course where the end result isn’t known.  Immerse yourself in a learning opportunity where students and real world experiences steer the learning. In this session, we will model how to bring the real world into the classroom and guide learning toward unknown outcomes.

Using Real-World Modeling to Enhance Mathematical Thinking
with Janie Routh and Amir Erez of Watershed School
What is modeling and how can it be used in the classroom? In this session, participants will engage in  multidisciplinary modeling of the mathematical and physical science of projectile motion. Participants will work in groups to investigate and model the vertical and horizontal displacement of projectile motion as time elapses. There will also be a chance to examine previous student work to examine how modeling can be applied to different mathematical topics. Participants will have the opportunity to explore how modeling can be incorporated into their classroom. A mathematical background would be beneficial but is not mandatory.

Zen and the Art of Learning
with Jen Curtis and Hannah Nelson of Watershed School
How can mindfulness support students and teachers to be happier and more effective in and out of the classroom? Join in an exploration of meditation, metacognition, and mindfulness as a practice to incorporate in classrooms to help individuals develop tools to reduce stress and anxiety, while increasing self awareness and reflection skills. Participants will get off campus to practice and identify ways to bring mindfulness into their classrooms and lives through small gestures and larger projects.

What Participants Say

"Traverse is a conference with 100 people who care the most about education and how to transform their instruction to meet the needs of all kids.

I would most definitely recommend this conference to any other educators who want to grow themselves and push themselves to be the best they can be. This conference is full of forward thinkers, and any and all educators could benefit from this experience."
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​- 2016 Participant

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