Academic Evening Workshops
About
SIG Academic Evening Workshops prepare students for success in the 21st century world. These workshops offer a foundation for interdisciplinary and integrative skills that enhance one's skills for academics, future careers, and civic responsibilities in and to the world. All residential students in grades 6-12 students are required to participate in one evening workshop of their choice and will remain in that workshop for the duration of the program.
Our academic evening workshops:
• Introduce students to the practice of critical reflection and self-awareness as an essential component for twenty-first-century academic, leadership, and career success.
• Challenge students to critically examine ethical responsibilities and choices locally and globally.
• Foster intercultural awareness and social-emotional competencies.
• Encourage intellectual curiosity about one's responsibility to the local and global community.
• Evaluate the benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary conversations through proactive conversations and debate in the community, classroom, and professional spaces.
Workshop Options:
Civics & Service: Make Your Mark!
Students will explore teen hunger within the region of their campus location and engage in a variety of activities such as guest speakers from the local community on the issue of teen hunger, develop a personal action plan to raise awareness of teen hunger in their home community, or partner with local food bank or other nonprofits to build awareness and opportunities of service. For the summer of 2022, the theme is hunger and teen food insecurity in the USA.
The Art of Inquiry in Reading Communities
Students collaborate with like-minded peers in enjoyable and positive reading experiences to understand how reading is an integral part of the college and career readiness. Students create an intellectual community among students and residential staff and make connections to real-world experiences. From discussions surrounding current societal issues to debate, this workshop allows for insightful discourse within a scholarly community experience. The book selection for this workshop is Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert. Information on the book below:
In Under a White Sky, author Elizabeth Kolbert presents readers with what she calls the “Anthropocene irony.” After all that humans have done to destroy nature, is ingenuity now its only hope of survival? A search for answers sends her packing from Moku o’ Lo’e to the Mojave Desert to Melbourne and more than a few other places in between. In a grand display of human hubris, Kolbert finds engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs trapped in an infinite cycle of inventing new solutions to the problems created by old ones. With a whole lot of imagination, it might work. Probably not. But one thing’s for certain– there’s no going back now. It’s a new kind of world.
Students will receive a copy of the book, Under the White Sky, for the workshop during the program.
Examining Scholarly Articles: Debate and Discourse
Using research and scholarly articles on the topics of college and career success, students will explore how to synthesize, express, and communicate complex ideas. The goal of the workshop is to equip students with strategies for understanding, discuss and debate scholarly texts focused on areas of interest, skill-building, and disciplinary learning necessary to succeed in 21st century careers. Students will learning how to understand the structure of academic and peer-reviewed research articles, identify differences and similarities between popular and scholarly/academic articles, and implement specific strategies for dissecting and digesting academic articles.
CliftonStrengths: Unlock Your Potential and Thrive!
Today’s youth have to search for patterns in their actions, learn from them, and use them to make the most of life experiences, now and in the future. To do that, a solid understanding of where and when they are at their best is critical! Come discover and develop your strengths in this workshop through CliftonStrengths for Students to reach your full potential.
Students will take the CliftonStrengths assessment, get their top five themes of talent, which discuss what themes you lead with for life, college, and career experiences. Once students identify their leading themes, they can turn them into strengths. Learn how to do more of what you do best and build your life around your areas of greatness.
Students will receive a copy of the book, CliftonStrengths for Students, and an access code to the CliftonStrengths assessment for the workshop during the program.