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Registration for the 2015 National Early Childhood Inclusion Institute is now open! The Inclusion Institute, presented by the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG), is the premier event for people from all early childhood sectors to come together to learn, share, and problem-solve about inclusion for young children. This year's theme is Implementing Quality Inclusion Practices:  Supporting People, Programs, and Policies.

The Faculty Institute for Diversity: Train the Trainer Workshop brings together a community of leaders interested in creating inclusive teaching programming on their campuses. The workshop is designed to prepare new and seasoned trainers in the development of a diversity institute tailored to your institution.

Faculty, staff, and administrators throughout higher education are employing contemplative practices for many reasons. These include sharpening attention; creating environments that enhance the well-being of all; addressing inclusion and access for all in support of the vibrant diversity of our institutions; deepening engagement and learning of subject matter; reflecting on and supporting meaning-making; considering the wider impacts of our actions; and ultimately supporting the development of a more just and compassionate society. Given the breadth and depth of these many intentions, the types of practices used are extremely diverse, and their assessment needs to be approached with great sensitivity. Assessment of practices designed to develop attention, for example, will be different from assessment of those practices designed to increase conceptual understanding or develop compassion and creativity.

"Emergent Dialogues in Assessment"   In the last decade, the higher education sector has been confronted with increasing skepticism about its effectiveness and quality from government agencies and employers, as well as from prospective students and their families. In the face of such criticism, higher education's response has been very weak, as illustrated by the inclusion of assertions that these skeptics should trust us; the production of weak and misleading reports on institutional quality; and accreditation-based assertions of quality based on criteria that miss the point of the skeptics' criticism. While we assert quality in many ways, we rarely do it in a way that answers the central, critical question these skeptics want answered: will graduates be able to function and succeed in the world after graduation?  Colleges and universities can no longer avoid answering that question, nor can they try to answer it with surrogate measures.   The demand answers that are both rigorous and practical is being exacerbated by fundamental changes in student demographics and the way higher education institutions "do business."  Growing adult/returning student populations, more diverse student bodies with more diverse needs, and an increasingly challenging economic environment  will force higher education to be more flexible and accountable, but with fewer resources. In this environment assessment practitioners can play a major role in evaluating and developing response strategies like translating learning into credit (e.g. prior learning assessment), "direct assessment programs" ( e.g. competency-based education), and emergent learning environments (e.g. adaptive learning).  

The Summer Institutes model the scientific teaching principles they teach. We invite college and university faculty, instructional staff, and future faculty to develop teaching skills at multi-day workshops to transform the undergraduate STEM classroom. Summer Institutes draw on the expertise of both presenters and participants. Current research, active learning, assessment, and inclusive teaching are woven into the program, creating a forum to share ideas and develop innovative instructional materials to be implemented upon returning home.