37th Annual CCSS Conference - Cultivating Critical Thinkers: Raising the Bar for the Student Experience
March 3rd, 2025 ~ History Colorado
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In the modern world, we are bombarded with more information - and misinformation - than at any point in human history. We have immediate access to facts, answers, ideas, content, and almost anything else you can think of. However, we do not inherently have the ability to discern truth from untruth, to analyze and interrogate sources, or to draw connections and make meaning from the information we have access to. In today's information-rich world, we must explicitly teach and cultivate these skills. While Social Studies educators and leaders have always emphasized critical thinking, this aspect of our work has never been more essential to the future success of our students and our democracy.
As educators and leaders, it is our responsibility to develop the next generation of thinkers, leaders, and engaged citizens. It is our role to enable students to navigate the complexities of both history and our modern world. In today’s world, this demands that we pursue new and creative ways to engage our students and cultivate the skills we all need for our democracy to succeed. This calling has never been more essential for our students; it is in their classrooms that they must learn the skills of critical thinking and academic discourse. Sessions at this conference will explore the pedagogical moves we can make as educators to engage our students in this work - even in the face of the myriad of challenges confronting K-12 educators and students.
We hope you will join us to explore this and other issues facing our field for our 37th annual conference and take advantage of the rare opportunity to pause, reflect, and thoughtfully plan for your future students and practice.
Submit your session proposal here by October 29, 2024.
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Clint Smith is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, the Stowe Prize, and selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 best books of 2021. He is also the author of the New York Times bestselling poetry collection Above Ground and the award-winning poetry collection Counting Descent. His writing has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. Clint received his B.A. in English from Davidson College and a Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University. He is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
Website: https://www.clintsmithiii.com/