McWhinnie Hall, Room 213
Dept. 3374, 1000 E. University Ave.
Laramie, WY 82071
Phone: 307-766-3274
Email: partnership@uwyo.edu
The National Network for Educational Renewal (NNER) is excited to announce our 2019 Annual Conference will take place in Ft. Collins, Colorado. This year’s conference is co-hosted by NNER settings, The Wyoming School – University Partnership and Colorado State University.
Colloquially, we refer to difference in multiple ways. It can refer to a quality of being unlike or dissimilar from a standard or norm. It can refer to a disagreement or argument about something meaningful while also referring to the cause of the disagreement. Difference could even describe a significant change or effect on a situation. Invariably, we encounter difference on a daily basis, yet, we much less often consider how standards, norms, and meanings give context to these dynamics of difference.
As educators both within and outside of school contexts, we know educational spaces, from Pre-K through higher education, are a crucible for these dynamics of difference. John Goodlad, recognizing the important role of schools to embrace the interactions, relationships, and interdependencies of local cultures and environments, asserts how “education is corrupted when the schools are expected to inculcate belief in certain values and traditions rather than promote open inquiry into them” (p. 64). While difference and conflict are a natural state of affairs, schools and educators are often encouraged to deny, ignore, and marginalize problems rather than confront and resolve them.
For over 30 years, the National Network for Educational Renewal (NNER) has led a central role in emphasizing the importance, in a democratic society, of supporting schools to go beyond the custodial functions and regulations of schools so that we develop in our citizens the wisdom necessary to “sustain in good health the delicate social and political ecology of the complex, moral community that is the United States of America” (Goodlad, p. 153).
The dynamics of difference have been with us since our county was born. How might we examine our differences as a sign of our vitality? How can we demonstrate that difference gives testimony to our resiliency? How does difference actually support and sustain democratic life? The 2019 NNER Annual Conference invites you to explore these crucial questions and engage in conversation and research that explores the Dynamics of Difference.
Started in 2006, the Lost in Transition Initiative, renamed the Wyoming Academic Transition Initiative,brings together secondary and post-secondary educators and administrators to improve student success as students transition from high school to higher education. Each year, the Partnership holds meetings for English/language arts, life sciences, mathematics, social sciences, and world languages. This was concluded in the 2017-2018 academic year.
To learn more about the initiative's history and purpose as well as past meetings, click to visit the WY Academic Transitions website.
Sponsored by UW's College of Education Literacy Research Center and Clinic and the Partnership, the Literacy Conference is going on ten years! Each year, the conference brings educators from all institutional levels together at the University of Wyoming to explore different areas in literacy education.
The 2020 Fall Literary Conference has been cancelled due to COVID. If you are interested in learning more about the 2021 Fall Literary Conference or would be interested in presenting, please check on the Fall Literacy Conference website.
On June 25, 2015 in Laramie, the Partnership and the NNER held the Kids, Schools, and Communities that Help them Prosper conference. Participants shared multiple perspectives about the opportunity gap children and youth face, discussed different practices that increase opportunities for students, and celebrated the idea that it take a community to give a rich education to students.
The Partnership offered the opportunity to earn a mini-grant to fund a project that continued the ideas of the conference. The Partnership awarded two projects. Learn more about both projects.
McWhinnie Hall, Room 213
Dept. 3374, 1000 E. University Ave.
Laramie, WY 82071
Phone: 307-766-3274
Email: partnership@uwyo.edu