Category Archives: Current Events

Current Events Events

CTI Presents 2019 Evening for Educators Oct. 8 at Discovery Place Education Studio

CTI Fellows and teacher researchers will share new curricula they created for their students at CTI’s 2019 Evening for Educators event on Tuesday, October 8, 6:00-8:00 p.m., at Discovery Place Education Studio. Teachers and the general public are invited to learn about engaging new teaching ideas created by CMS teachers in their CTI seminars and summer research experiences — and to find out about new CTI seminars for CMS teachers in 2020!

Experience a night of fun and innovative curricula for grades preK-12 in math, science, social studies, the arts and more. Refreshments will be served. Hosted by CTI and Discovery Place Education Studio, it’s all free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. Discovery Place Education Studio is located at 300 N. Poplar St. in uptown Charlotte. REGISTER HERE.

Current Events Events

Open House for Teachers (1.31.19) – REGISTER TODAY

This event is for all interested teachers (preK-12) who teach fulltime in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Meet the 2019 CTI Seminar Leaders (UNC Charlotte and Johnson C. Smith University faculty) and learn about this year’s eight great CTI seminars and how to apply. A meet & greet with Seminar Leaders follows the presentations and includes opportunities for questions and discussion. CTI Seminar Leaders value your feedback about what you would like to learn this year and what you hope to bring back to your students. CTI is truly collaborative teacher education!

REGISTER HERE!

CTI News Current Events Events

Sept. 6 CTI Reception Features Teacher Researchers

2018 CTI Summer Research Experience for Teachers Reception & Poster Session

  • Thursday, Sept. 6, 4:30-6:30 p.m.

  • New Science Building, Johnson C. Smith University

CTI will showcase CMS teachers’ work on university research projects at a special event on Thursday, Sept. 6, 4:30-6:30 p.m. at Johnson C. Smith University’s New Science Building. This 2018 Summer Research Experience for Teachers Reception & Poster Session is free and open to the public. Guests are invited to learn about Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teachers’ summer research in the sciences and humanities with professors at JCSU, UNC Charlotte and Queens University of Charlotte.

Seventeen CMS teachers worked in eight different laboratories and research settings led by university professors. During the Sept. 6 reception, the SRET teachers, professors and graduate assistants will share poster presentations and discuss their unique collaborations and how this research experience translates to their classrooms and their students. Refreshments will be served.

University research faculty leading these collaborative summer research projects included:

  • UNC Charlotte — Dr. Susan Trammell, physics and optical science; David Wilson, computer science; and Janaka Lewis and Alan Rauch, English.
  • JCSU — Dr. Todd Coolbaugh and Dr. Tracy Fox-Brown, chemistry.
  • Queens University — Dr. Aaron Socha, chemistry; and Dr. Scott Weir, biology.

Details about all eight research experiences — spanning areas from cancer detection prototypes, biofuels, toxicology and nanomaterials to digital design, Black girlhood in literature, and Victorians and the natural world – are featured at 2018 SRET.

Current Events Events

CTI Open House, 2/22/18, UNC Charlotte Center City

CMS Teachers, join us for our 2018 Teacher Open House on Thursday, February 22, 6:30-8:30 p.m., at UNC Charlotte Center City.  It’s a special opportunity to meet the 2018 professors leading seminars, learn more about seminar topics and ask questions of experienced CTI Fellows.

REGISTER for the CTI TEACHER OPEN HOUSE.

Here’s why:

  • Enrich your content knowledge in subjects you teach
  • Collaborate with professors from Johnson C. Smith University and UNC Charlotte and CMS teachers from all grade levels and subject areas
  • Create new curriculum you design to meet your own students’ needs
  • Grow professionally, intellectually, personally
  • Experience meaningful PD to advance your teacher portfolio
  • Develop your leadership role in CMS
  • Publish your work on the CTI website
  • Enjoy hearty dinners before seminar meetings
  • Earn a $1,500 stipend and 3 CEU credits
  • Get inspired and inspire others!

REGISTER for the CTI TEACHER OPEN HOUSE.

Current Events Events

CTI Presents Evening for Educators Tuesday, October 17, 2017

CTI Fellows will share new curricula they created for their students at CTI’s Evening for Educators event on Tuesday, October 17, 5:30-7:30 p.m., at Discovery Place Education Studio. Teachers and the general public are invited to learn about engaging new teaching ideas created by CMS teachers in their CTI seminars. Experience a night of fun and innovative curricula for grades preK-12 in math, science, social studies, the arts and more. Refreshments will be served. Hosted by CTI and Discovery Place Education Studio, it’s all free and open to the public. Register to attend HERE.

Current Events Events

2016 CTI Teachers as Scholars: Charlotte as a New South City at the Levine Museum

savethedate-receptiontasTeachers as Scholars

Charlotte:  a New South City

Tuesday, 15 November 2016

5:30-8:30 p.m.

Levine Museum of the New South

200 E. 7th St., Charlotte, NC 28202

REGISTER HERE!

 

 

What can a New South history scholar and three local public school educators who developed new curricula about mill children, music, racism and the power of individual voices, teach us the Queen City’s future? Come find out at Charlotte: A New South City, a Teachers As Scholars event, on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 5:30-9:00 p.m., at the Levine Museum of the New South, presented by Charlotte Teachers Institute.

Part of CTI’s Teachers As Scholars series, this event features work that grew out of CTI seminars for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teachers, including two seminars led by Dr. Shepherd (Shep) McKinley, senior lecturer in history at UNC Charlotte.

“I’ve always felt that much of the rich history of Charlotte and the South in the several decades after the Civil War was relatively neglected,” McKinley said. “Now, after the Keith Scott shooting in September, I think it’s even more important for teachers, students and all of us to understand the origins and rise of industrialization, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights movement and the post-1980 boom years. As always in history, it’s a complicated story, and the more we all know about it, the better choices we’ll make in the future.”

In his two CTI seminars (Charlotte as a New South City in 2013 and The Rise of the New South in 2010), McKinley collaborated with about 25 CMS teachers. These CTI Fellows created original New South curricula to teach to their own students, in first grade through advanced high school classes, and a wide range of subject areas — history, economics, music, literature, apparel and design and more. McKinley’s 2013 seminar included a dozen meetings at the Levine Museum of the New South where Fellows studied the museum’s exhibitions and collections up close to inform and enliven the new curricula they developed for their students. They also toured Charlotte’s NoDa community and Loray Mills in Gastonia. Fellows used these resources and more in creating new curricula to teach students about their own community and its complex history.

The Nov. 15 Teachers As Scholars program begins with a reception and viewing of the Levine Museum of the New South exhibitions from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Featured presentations and discussion follow with McKinley, the three featured CTI Fellows, and some of their students, until 8:00 p.m. Presentations include:

  • Charlotte as a New South City – Shepherd McKinley, senior lecturer in history, UNC Charlotte
  • Using Music as a Common Language to Fight Racism – Holly Lambert, music and special education teacher, and her 12th grade student William Young, Lincoln Heights Academy
  • Inspirational Lessons through Life Struggles: The Mill Children – Elizabeth Kennedy, language arts teacher, Randolph Middle School
  • My Story: Students’ Lives through Students’ Eyes – Eboné Lockett, English teacher, Cato Middle College High School, and students from Cato’s Our Voices Spoken Word Guild and the West Mecklenburg High School Drama Guild.

Guests can explore the Levine Museum exhibitions (The Life and Times of Robert Smalls, NUEVOlution! Latinos and the New South and Cottonfields to Skyscrapers) again after the presentations until 9:00 p.m. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is requested. REGISTER HERE.

Presentation Descriptions

Charlotte as a New South City –Shepherd McKinley, Senior Lecturer, History, UNC Charlotte

Shep McKinley has led two CTI seminars for CMS teachers exploring the New South and Charlotte, 1865-present. In 2010, his CTI Fellows discussed eras and issues from Reconstruction to the newest New South and toured Noda with Tom Hanchett. In 2013, the focus was closer to home. They met with Tom at the Levine Museum of the New South, toured the “Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers” exhibit, and toured the Loray Mill in Gastonia.

Using Music as a Common Language to Fight Racism Holly Lambert, Music & Special Education Teacher, and William Young, Student, Class of 2017, Lincoln Heights Academy

Holly Lambert was a CTI Fellow in Shep’s The Rise of the New South seminar in 2010. Based on her involvement in that seminar she created a curriculum unit for secondary music classes on how music is used to peacefully protest.  Holly will discuss components from her unit, as well as barriers she faced in teaching it to mostly minority special education students. She will also showcase a song created from this unit by one of her students, William Young, who is now in 12th grade.

Inspirational Lessons through Life Struggles:  The Mill Children — Elizabeth Kennedy, Language Arts, Randolph Middle School

Beth Kennedy was a Fellow in Shep’s 2013 CTI seminar Charlotte as a New South City: Using the Collections of the Levine Museum of the New South which began with the question, “What makes the South distinctive?” After hearing her non-southern colleagues’ perspectives, Beth became inspired to bring the culture, hardships, uniqueness and history of mill workers and their villages to her students, and embedded many primary and secondary sources within her novel study/unit. She notes her students strongly benefit from this unit because many of them see mills from the past in their own backyards.

My Story”– Students’ Lives through Students’ EyesEboné Lockett, English, Cato Middle College High School

Eboné Lockett was a Fellow in CTI’s 2014 Visual Storytelling seminar. She chose to develop new curriculum centered on “The Children of Children Keep Coming,” written by Russell Goings and posthumously illustrated by Romare Bearden. This poetic epic captures and celebrates ancestral Giants, including the Griot who told their tales.  “My Story” was the vehicle Eboné used to inspire her students to become Griots and give breath, voice and ‘worth’ to their own life stories and experiences. Some of Eboné’s students will share their stories with us tonight: Jalah Adgers and Ethiene Matondo from the West Mecklenburg High School Drama Guild, and Isabella Moose, Dayani Williams, Yulisa Wilson-Randich and Imani Clark from the Cato Middle College High School “Our Voices” Spoken Word Guild.

Current Events Events

2016 Evening for Educators: Science/Art/Identity

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Current Events Events

2016 Science Research Experience for Teachers

SRET 8 Sept 2016

Please join us on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016 in the College of Health and Human Services (Room 128) at UNC Charlotte , as CTI Fellows, UNC Charlotte professors, graduate and undergraduate students share their collaborative research working in university laboratories together this summer.  This event marks the kick off of CTI‘s fall seminars for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teachers.

Science Research Experience Participants

 

CTI News Current Events Events News

2016 CTI Teachers As Scholars: The Global Energy Challenge

8.5_11globalenergychallenge for widget

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) teachers will share bright new ideas for teaching and learning about energy, at a CTI event for the public on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at Discovery Place in Uptown Charlotte.

REGISTER HERE

This “Teachers As Scholars” program features CMS teachers who collaborated on the topic “The Global Energy Challenge,” and highlights innovative curricula they developed during a long-term CTI seminar. CTI Seminar Leader Durwin Striplin, professor of chemistry at Davidson College, will also share his energy expertise at the free Feb. 4 event.

Sponsored by Duke Energy, the program begins with a reception and viewing of the CTI-generated, energy-related curricula from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., followed by presentations and a panel discussion with Striplin and CTI Fellows until 8 p.m. Space is limited, so registration is recommended.

Featured topics and teachers include:

  • The Global Energy Challenge – Striplin
  • Energy Explorations – Lisa Lewis, First Grade, Mountain Island Lake Academy
  • Efficiency and Availability: Designing an Energy Self-Sufficient Community – Kory Trosclair, Science, Bailey Middle School
  • Creative Verve: The Merging of Metaphor and the Scientific Mind – Gloria Brinkman, Art, North Mecklenburg High School
  • A Good Planet is Hard to Find: Climate Change, Energy and Global Sustainability – Jeanne Cooper, Earth and Environmental Science, Mallard Creek High School

The event is an outgrowth of an intensive, seven-month-long CTI seminar Striplin led for CMS teachers in grades K-12, where they explored various forms of energy, the history and science behind its conservation, as well as what new technologies can address the global energy crisis. CTI Executive Director Scott Gartlan said, “We are so proud to showcase teacher-written curricula focused on energy sciences for K-12 students.  These CTI Fellows are on the front lines inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers.”

Thirteen sets of extensive, energy-related curriculum units for grades K-12 were developed by teachers in Striplin’s seminar and designed specifically for their own students. All 13 are published on the CTI website, along with 500 other teacher-created curricula from CTI.  Currently CTI is offering another eight seminars for 2016.

Current Events Events

2015 Evening for Educators: CTI Fellows Share Curriculum Created in 2014 Seminars

CTI hosted an awesome “Evening for Educators” at the Discovery Place STEM Education Studio March 3. CTI Fellows shared the new curriculum units they developed during their 2014 CTI seminars with students, teachers and members of the community as they participated in a Gallery Crawl and viewed poster presentations.

Click here to see the full list of presenters and their curriculum unit titles.

 

CTI News Current Events Events News Other Special Events

2014 CTI Teachers As Scholars: The Nature of Energy

8.5_11natureenergyCTI Fellows Share New Curricula on Energy Science

REGISTER NOW

CTI will share bright new ideas for teaching and learning about energy in a special Teachers As Scholars event on Tuesday, Sept. 30, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the EnergyExplorium at McGuire Nuclear Station in Huntersville. The program features CTI Fellows who collaborated on the topic “The Nature of Energy: How We Use and Store It to Power Our Everyday Lives,” and highlights innovative curriculum they developed in their CTI seminar. Seminar Leader Susan Trammell, professor of physics and optical science at UNC Charlotte, will also share her energy expertise.

Sponsored by Piedmont Natural Gas and Duke Energy, the event is free and open to the public. It begins with a reception and viewing of the EnergyExplorium’s exhibits from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., followed by presentations and a panel discussion with Trammell and CTI Fellows until 8 p.m.

Featured topics and teachers include:

  • The Nature of Energy: How to Use and Store It to Power our Everyday Lives – Trammell
  • Energy in Our World – Cindy Woolery, Science, Elizabeth Traditional Elementary School
  • Cruising Continents and an Awesome Asthenosphere: How Convection and Geothermal Energy Fuel Earth’s Ever Changing Surface! – Julie Ruziska Tiddy, Science, Carmel Middle School
  • Mama Did Not Take the Kodachrome Away But Charge-Coupled Devices Did – Deb Semmler, Physics, East Mecklenburg High School

Read the Press Release

View all 13 curriculum units developed by CTI Fellows in The Nature of Energy seminar.

REGISTER NOW

Current Events Events Exploding Canons

CTI Presents Exploding Canons: Sports by the Numbers October 22, 2013

sportsbynumbers_8.5x11_FINALCharlotte Teachers Institute Tackles “Sports by the Numbers” October 22

Ever wondered whether your favorite team should punt or go for it – or who’s really Number 1? CTI will tackle these tough questions and more as we explore the intersection of sports and math in the next installment of our flagship speakers series “Exploding Canons” on Tuesday, October 22. The event takes place from 5:30 to 8 pm at UNC Charlotte’s EPIC Building, next to the new Jerry Richardson Football Stadium on the university’s main campus.

In “Exploding Canons: Sports by the Numbers,” faculty from Davidson College, UNC Charlotte and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools along with professional sports statisticians will offer a variety of perspectives on how numbers and data are used in sports performance, development, analysis and decision-making – by athletes, coaches, teams, economists, teachers and everyday people. Sponsored by Piedmont Natural Gas with additional support from the Charlotte Bobcats, the event is free and open to the public. All attendees will receive special ticket offers from the Charlotte Bobcats and the Charlotte Checkers.

The event begins with a reception and local sports expo in the EPIC atrium at 5:30 p.m., followed by the panel discussion from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the Siemens Energy Lecture Hall (EPIC G256). Space is limited, so pre-registration  is recommended. CMS teachers and administrators from all grade levels and subject areas are especially encouraged to attend.

Program topics and featured speakers include:

  • Who’s Number 1? How to Create Predictive Sports Rankings — Tim Chartier, associate professor of mathematics, Davidson College
  • Using Math to Run Lightning Fast: Usain Bolt by the Numbers — Sharonda LeBlanc, postdoctoral fellow in mechanical engineering, UNC Charlotte, and West Charlotte High School track and field coach
  • The Hot-Hand Phenomenon: Is It Real? — Michael Pillsbury, secondary math specialist, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
  • Thinking Like a Statistician in the Huddle, the Dugout and on the Bench — Jason W. Rosenfeld, manager of basketball analytics, Charlotte Bobcats
  • Sports Economics: Using Sports Data to Understand the World — Fred Smith, professor and chair of economics, Davidson College

Brian Ralph, vice president of enrollment management at Queens University of Charlotte, will serve as moderator.

Community partners featured during the opening reception’s Sports Expo include: the Charlotte Bobcats, Charlotte Checkers, Charlotte Knights, NASCAR Hall of Fame, as well as UNC Charlotte, Davidson College and Queens University athletic programs.

Event directions and parking information.