Summer Institute (RESI)

Teachers College, Columbia University has a faculty with more expertise on issues of race and education than many other graduate schools of education, whose work in the field individually and collectively seeks to reimagine education for a more racially just society. The faculty along with TC graduate students work together under the leadership of their colleague Amy Stuart Wells to co-construct the Reimagining Education Summer Institute (RESI) as an annual four-day professional development institute held in July in New York City and online. Each year, the team comes together to reserve space for the learning community to explore, make sense of, and provide tangible support to reimagine education for a more racially just society. RESI has grown from 130 participants in 2016 to 1,200 in 2020. Over the years, participants have come from schools in 30 different states and several countries, including Egypt, Brazil, Canada, Spain, and China. The four-day Institute is organized around four themes of Why Reimagine? Racial and Cultural Literacy, Equity Pedagogy, and Culturally Responsive Leadership. How can you prepare to address the racial and socio-economic educational inequalities and widening opportunity gap worsened by the pandemic? How can you lead the much-needed shift in our field away from an over-reliance on standardized tests and toward a more student-centered focus on teaching and learning?

Teachers College’s Reimagining Education: Teaching, Learning and Leading for a Racially Just Society Summer Institute provides the knowledge, support and community of professionals you need to become a racially literate, culturally relevant and anti-racist educator. Without these tools, you cannot support your students’ academic, social and emotional well-being or address racial injustice in our educational system and society. The future of our diverse democracy and the inter-cultural understanding needed to sustain it depends on our schools’ ability to do the required race work to educate and integrate.

Back by popular demand, our professional development Summer Institute will return for the 8th year and be held July 10-13, 2023, virtually and in-person at an affordable price for educators who need to earn PD credits (30 CTLEs or clock hours). Join us this summer and hear from the one-and-only Dr. Gholdy Muhammad as she shares her new book: Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Teaching. Dr. Muhammad will talk about the fifth pursuit – joy – to her groundbreaking framework. In an era when joyfulness is in short supply in the field of education, Dr. Muhammad shows how joy, “rooted in the cultural and historical realities of Black students, can enhance our efforts to cultivate identity, skills, intellect, and criticality for ALL students, giving them a powerful purpose to learn and contribute to the world.” What the field of education needs now is more JOY! RESI is thrilled to welcome Dr. Muhammad as our 2023 keynote speaker. In addition, we will be hearing from many amazing TC faculty and practitioners speaking to our 2023 theme: Antiracist Education: It’s Just Good Teaching.

Dr. Muhammad also co-authored Black girls’ literacies: An Edited Volume. Her Culturally and Historically Responsive Education Model has been adopted across thousands of U.S. schools and districts across Canada. In 2022 and 2023, she was named among the top 1% Edu-Scholar Public Influencers due to her impact on policy and practice. She has also received numerous awards from national organizations and universities. She was named the American Educational Research Association Division K Early Career Award and the 2021 NCTE Outstanding Elementary Educator in the English Language Arts. She has led a federal grant with the United States Department of Education to study culturally and historically responsive literacy in STEM classrooms. Her forthcoming book, Unearthing Joy, is the sequel to Cultivating Genius and provides a practical guide for putting culturally and historically responsive education into curricular practice.

                                                                     Purchase Now                                               Purchase Now

To request disability-related accommodations, please fill out the Accommodations Request Form or contact the Office of Access and Services for Individuals with Disabilities (OASID) at oasid@tc.edu, (212) 678-3689, (646) 755-3144 video phone, as early as possible.

ASL interpreters and CART will be provided for Keynote, Plenaries, and Public Teach-in and Policy Dialogue. Please contact oasid@tc.columbia.edu for other disability-related access needs

The pool parties, or small-group dialogue sessions, are spaces where participants deepen their learning and build community with others. Similar to school homerooms, each pool party is composed of a diverse group of participants. The facilitator(s) meet with the same group daily to lead the participants through activities designed for engagement with the week’s content, connection with other participants, and self-reflection. Educators explore how insights gained from workshops and plenaries will actively inform their own practice. Participants will be encouraged to engage in critical conversations in order to challenge assumptions and spark innovation for their work moving forward. By Thursday, participants will emerge with a vision of reimagined education and the understanding needed to realize this vision.