May 8, 2010

Club Leaders from AIM, The Lab School of Washington, and Baltimore Lab held their first retreat today. The meeting was held at Baltimore Lab School and was attended by nearly all of the Club Leaders from the three schools. Much of the day's discussion focused on many of the exciting new technologies that can be used to enhance the Club experience. Noel Bicknell, Coordinator of Clubs in Washington, led a presentation on developing new curriculums to meet the demands of a changing population. The conversation centered on taking a critical look at how the vision of the Academic Club model has changed since its inception over 40 years ago. Chris Herman, Coordinator of Clubs at AIM, led a presentation on the powerful impact of Club on overall literacy and how to integrate research-based strategies to promote language comprehension. His presentation was built around the LETRS framework and offered ways to bolster background knowledge, vocabulary, morphology, verbal reasoning, and print knowledge within Club's unique environment. Baltimore graciously hosted the day, the first of many, which will enable the three schools to focus on their future goals of collaboration and outreach.