The Center for Inquiry in Teaching and Learning
The Center for Inquiry provides professional development for the Consortium, offering a wide range of workshops and events that nurture staffs’ professionalism and collaboration. Practitioner-led workshops occur throughout the year and bring together teachers and staff from across the member schools. Working collaboratively, teachers design and share rigorous, inquiry-based and equity-focused curricula and practices, visit each other’s classrooms, revise rubrics, and serve as external evaluators for each other’s students. In addition, the Consortium has discipline-based professionals, experienced in performance assessment, who consult with our schools.
Each year, the Center for Inquiry coordinates the annual Consortium Conference, featuring over 40 workshops. The Center also develops and facilitates Moderation Studies bi-annually to ensure reliability in our PBAT system and deepen teachers’ expertise in performance assessment.
The Center has offered mentorship and training nationally and internationally to organizations, school systems, politicians, and scholars interested in inquiry-based teaching and performance assessment. Teacher-to-Teacher Publications, a series of books and DVDs published by the Center for Inquiry, are distributed by Teachers College and available through the Consortium.
Use the links below or the menu above to browse the Center’s work.
External PBAT Evaluation
PBAT Calendar
The Center for Inquiry maintains a PBAT calendar for Consortium schools so that external evaluators, including community members, professionals in subject-related fields, and educators from our schools can sign up to participate in the PBAT process.
Professional Development
Workshops, Clinics and Intensives
The Center organizes and facilitates a variety of practitioner-led professional development opportunities throughout the year, including workshops, coaching, intensives, teacher exchanges, cross-school curriculum development projects, classroom inter-visitations.
Annual PD Conference
Each winter, the Center for Inquiry and the Consortium host a professional development conference featuring workshops led by Consortium educators and staff.
Collective Curriculum Development
The Center has supports the development of curricular resources by bringing teachers together to design engaging, equity-driven, and inquiry-based curriculum.
Special Projects
Consortium-CUNY Admissions Pilot
In 2015, the Consortium began a partnership with the City University of New York (CUNY) to implement an innovative admissions pilot that has enabled a select group of Consortium graduates who did not meet CUNY’s SAT score cut-offs, but were otherwise strong students, admittance to CUNY four year colleges. Several hundred students have matriculated through this program, and the their progress is impressive.
COVID Journal
At the end of 2020, The Center invited students in Consortium schools to submit work to be included in an edited collection of art and writing about school, life, and justice during COVID-19.
Teacher-to-Teacher Publications
A series of books and videos published by the Consortium and the Center for Inquiry through Teachers College Press, which provide a valuable and practical resource for educators and others interested in inquiry-based teaching and learning.