About CMK
CMK is about constructing knowledge in the modern world…
Gary Stager founded the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute in 2008 to create a unique model of professional development that honors the learner as the center of the learning experience. It was born of conversations with Seymour Papert about the need to build bridges between communities of educators.
Your Constructing Modern Knowledge hosts are Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez. Read more about them here.
Constructing Modern Knowledge is committed to creativity, collaboration, and computing. Participants enjoy opportunities to engage in intensive computer-rich project development with peers and a world-class faculty.
CMK is about Reggio…
Dr. Stager’s research and classroom practice over the past twenty-five years has been inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach®. Gary first traveled to Reggio in 2009 and has returned many times since. More importantly, leading visionaries from Reggio Emilia have been featured at Constructing Modern Knowledge in the USA on five occasions, including Carla Rinaldi (twice), Lella Gandini (twice), Barbara Donicci, and Elena Sofia Paoli.
CMK is about action…
Rather than spend days listening to a series of speakers, Constructing Modern Knowledge is about action. Attendees will work and interact with educational experts concerned with maximizing the potential of every learner.
While our outstanding faculty is comprised of educational pioneers, bestselling authors, and inventors of educational technologies we depend on, the real power of Constructing Modern Knowledge emerges from the collaborative project development of participants.
CMK is about empowered educators empowering students…
Constructing Modern Knowledge is built upon the Piagetian admonition that “knowledge is a consequence of experience.” If we wish for educators to teach and lead differently, they need to experience learning in the fashion they aspire to for their students.
CMK is about powerful ideas in education…
The following is a list of powerful ideas typically explored at CMK events:
- Creativity and learning
- Constructivism and constructionism
- Project-based learning
- 1:1 Computing
- Problem solving across the curriculum
- Student leadership and empowerment
- Reinventing mathematics education
- Computer programming as a liberal art
- Storytelling
- School reform
- Tinkering
- Effective professional development
- Sustaining innovation
- Learning by making
CMK is about computing and technology in the service of learning…
21st-century educators need to develop their own technological fluency and understand learning in order to meet the changing needs and expectations of their students.
Constructing Modern Knowledge helps participants enhance their tech skills, expand their vision of how computers may enhance the learning environment, and leave with practical ideas to use in the classroom. Beginners and advanced technology-using educators can all benefit from this experience. Bring your laptop, digital camera/cellphone, and imagination!
