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**Cohort Description**
This public and independent school cohort is a professional learning community of 9-12 grade faculty who will explore current neuroscience research to inform our understanding of how students learn and to study how to improve teaching for schools of the future. We will read, study, discuss and apply what we learn. //How The Brain Learns,// by David Sousa, will be a reference for our work. One goal will be to draw on brain-based teaching strategies and technological tools to build a framework for a 21st Century classroom. The cohort will study at least three important ideas that are at the crossroads of this work: assessment, project-based learning, and integrated studies. Studying the research will be part of the experience as we try to answer questions like the following: (1) how do young people learn; (2) how can instruction be improved through application of brain-based strategies; (3) how has the world changed, and what does this mean for education; (4) what do students need to learn to be successful; and (5) how should we effectively adapt our teaching strategies to the iGeneration learner's needs? We will study ways to leverage available technology to support learning, as well as study how to transform the classroom into a creative learning space using what we know about the brain. Through the PLC, participants will be encouraged to set up collaborative teams, design curriculum units or projects, implement Sousa’s Practitioners Corners, exchange ideas, learn through peer-to-peer observations, or consider designing an action research project.



**Goals of the Cohort Program**
Our four program goals are:


 * Goal 1)** to expand the knowledge base for becoming an effective 21st century teacher through participation in a Professional Learning Community (PLC);
 * Goal 2)** to develop faculty cohort members into teacher leaders and instructional experts;
 * Goal 3)** to improve student learning through enhanced teacher performance; and
 * Goal 4)** to develop public-independent school partnerships that build bridges, share resources, and lead to collaborative collegial relationships.

Funding for the Cohort Program
====Funding for the cohort program came from a generous grant from the [|Edward E. Ford Foundation.] The Center for Teaching at the Westminster Schools was a recipient of an Educational Leadership Award, a two-year matching grant. On the Foundation's website they describe this initiative in the following way. "In June of 2008 the Board awarded five matching grants of $250,000 to schools invited to compete for its newest program, The Edward E. Ford Educational Leadership initiative. By April 2011 a total of sixteen such awards had been made. These programs must: be generative; be transformational; be replicable; include partnerships; and address the question, “What is the public purpose of private education?” The Center for Teaching was fortunate enough to be a recipient in 2011.====