NGTM Home  |  Updated Tuesday, March 02, 2010

For retreat information, call Kay Crouch 828.726.2366
 

Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute is pleased to host the 18^th Annual North Carolina Great Teachers Retreat to be held February 24-27, 2011 at the Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville, NC.  As with its many counterparts across North America & beyond, the retreat focuses on innovations and problems of instruction in teaching.  Although originally started in the community college environment, others from public schools, universities, and private institutions of learning have successfully participated.  In spite of what the name might suggest, the retreat is not so much an assembly of great teachers as it is a group of dedicated educators in search of the Great Teacher within themselves.  Educational institutions are encouraged to send faculty who would benefit from and actively contribute to this search.  

Any North Carolina educator - experienced or inexperienced; fulltime, part-time, or adjunct - is invited to take advantage of this unique professional development opportunity.   Please plan to attend for the full seminar (Thursday evening through Sunday lunch). You will be experiencing a process that requires your full participation from the very beginning to the very end. 

A Registration Fee ($515.00) includes all lodging, meals, and retreat expenses (Thursday supper through Sunday Lunch).  Single rooms are available for an extra fee.  Participants will be comprised of faculty from community colleges and other educational institutions throughout North Carolina and elsewhere.  The NCGTR is an OPEN RETREAT.  We welcome educators from ANY institution of learning.

When your registration is received, you will receive further details VIA E-MAIL and directions to help in your planning. If you send in your registration and do not receive a prompt confirmation, please contact Kay Crouch immediately at 828.726.2366.   Your registration payment will confirm your participation in the NCGTR!  We are unable to accommodate guests.  Pets are not allowed in the Kanuga Inn.  Retreat fees & room rates are based upon double occupancy.  As noted, single rooms are available for an extra fee and guaranteed with payment. 

Each participant will bring to the seminar two very brief (1 page max) papers for discussion: 1) an innovation in classroom teaching and 2) a specific problem encountered while teaching.  Seminar staff will lead sessions centered around the special interests and problems of each group. 

The North Carolina Great Teachers Retreat is an energizing & refreshing event that brings teachers from diverse teaching fields together to explore teaching and learning innovations and solutions to problems encountered in the classroom.  The NCGTR is open to all full-time, part-time, and adjunct faculty in both curriculum and continuing education in the community college system.  Faculty from other educational systems are also welcome. The North Carolina Great Teachers Retreat is run as a self-supporting event and is not subsidized or financially supported by any organization.

In 1969, David B. Gottshall founded the Great Teachers Seminar based on earlier staff development experiments of the late Roger H. Garrison. The many state and provincial Great Teachers Seminars and Retreats, which take place annually throughout North America and abroad, continue to have a profound influence on faculty development in higher education. Noticeable differences include: the improvement of teaching skills, the adjustment and analysis of teaching methods, and the modification of behavior and attitudes as teachers of diverse fields.

The focus is not on the teaching of specific disciplines, but rather on the ART of teaching itself. The emphasis is on the universals of teaching and on the special nature of those who are and will be great teachers. It is based also on the notion that, if properly tapped, the collective wisdom, experience and creativity of any group of practicing educators far surpasses that of any individual expert. The structure of the retreat evolves from an ongoing needs assessment as the seminar progresses. Underlying all activities of the retreat is the perpetual challenge to characterize and to define the GREAT TEACHER.