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Annual Report 2003 Contents

Electronic versions of the Institute's publications--including the volumes of curriculum units and essays and other work--are available at its Web site. (The address is http://teachersinstitute.yale.edu.) The Web site played an important role during the National Demonstration Project, as a link in its network of information and a model for the Web sites of other Teachers Institutes, and it continues to be of importance as the Yale National Initiative proceeds. (The Yale National Initiative is also inaugurating in February 2004 a new Web site, which will include links to this Web site and to those of the other participating and allied Teachers Institutes. Its address is http://teachers.yale.edu. For a description of that Web site, see the section of this Annual Report on "The Yale National Initiative: Communication and Dissemination.") The full texts of almost all the units written between 1978 and 2003, plus an Index and Guide to these units, are thus available on-line to teachers in New Haven and elsewhere. Information about the Institute (its brochures and most recent Annual Reports) is also available, as is the text of its periodical On Common Ground. To call attention to this resource the Web location has also been advertised prominently on the cover of On Common Ground, which contains articles regarding school-university partnerships and is intended for a national audience.
The Institute has created a "guestbook" on its Web site, in order to invite comments and suggestions from those who have visited the site. (The new Web site for the Yale National Initiative will also invite e-mail comments on specific curriculum units and will provide forms on which may be entered information concerning teachers and schools.) In recent years the site has been used by more and more people in many parts of this country and abroad--teachers from both public and private schools (including Fellows from other Teachers Institutes in the National Demonstration Project and the Yale National Initiative), school and university administrators, parents, volunteers, university professors, high school students, graduate students, librarians, military personnel, home schoolers, local policy-makers, and others conducting research or having an interest in education. We estimate that from its inauguration in June 1998 through December 2003, this Web site has been visited by approximately 3,000,000 different persons. Of these, approximately 800,000 visited during 2003. The site registered some 5,460,000 hits during the year. (image available in print form) Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute Web site located at teachersinstitute.yale.edu.	The Institute's Web site has been visited by approximately 3,000,000 different persons. Approximately 800,000 visited during 2003, when the site registered some 5,460,000 hits.
In 2003 we continued to hear from educators from a great many countries. A partial list would include elementary and secondary school teachers, university professors, and researchers from Pakistan, Austria, Israel, India, Brazil, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Nepal, Canada, Greece, China, Germany, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Guam, and South Africa. (The partial list for 2002 also included the United Kingdom, Mexico, Algeria, Egypt, Australia, France, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Iran, the Philippines, Yemen, Venezuela, Romania, North Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore.) A correspondent in Austria, who is engaged in American Studies research and future teaching, has used the material and will recommend the site to friends who are teaching English in Austrian high schools. An acting teacher in Athens, enthusiastic about the curriculum units in theatre, is translating some units for use in a book she is preparing. A consultant to school library services, in the Education and Manpower Bureau in China, has for two years praised the usefulness of this curriculum database. And a social researcher in Johannesburg, South Africa, has likewise found them of great interest.	"The thoroughly researched units listed on the site have become a starting point for any project in education I complete." --Teacher from Illinois
From various parts of the United States came similar statements. A teacher in Virginia said: "I am so moved by this Web site. . . . Keep it up; teachers need this!" A teacher in Texas found the units "wonderful and refreshing." A teacher now in training in Illinois said, "The thoroughly researched units listed on the site have become a starting point for any project in education I complete." A teacher at the Fisher's Island Correctional Facility found certain units to be most helpful in classes for female adolescents. A teaching assistant in Meridian, MS said: "I have really appreciated finding a site that so generously fills the needs of those in all areas of classroom teaching. But especially those of us who are interested in educating our children in their history through the use of their literature, art, and song." A teacher in New York said, "I wish our local college could have such a resource." Another public school teacher said: "I have been visiting this site for years." And a teacher in California said: "The archive of the Institute's participant research and the extensive bibliographies have been a delightful surprise to me. This is what the Internet was supposed to be!"	"The archive of the Institute's participant research and the extensive bibliographies have been a delightful surprise to me. This is what the Internet was supposed to be!" --Teacher from California
An education librarian at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh said: "I've shown this Web site to several college-level education classes that come to the library for instruction." An educational consultant to public schools stated: "Your resources have been invaluable to me in helping teachers develop units of instruction." A college teacher in New York said: "Your school system is lucky to have such creative teachers." A public school teacher and university adjunct in Pennsylvania said: "This is a tremendous opportunity for New Haven schools. The vast array of educational information available through this partnership would be a boost to any school curriculum." Some of the units were very helpful to an educational researcher based at a center in the University of Minnesota that is "looking for ways to integrate more rigorous mathematics into traditional vocational fields such as health, automotive, and information technology." A researcher in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard also recommended curriculum units to primary school teachers in New York City and Belmont, MA. And the author of an article for the American School Board Journal drew on several units concerning writing at the secondary school level. The "guestbook" also contains some delightful surprises. A National Park Ranger at Cape Hatteras was "thrilled with its depth and content." A high school student in biology found the site very useful in his individual preparations--as did a new teacher at a Navajo preparatory school in New Mexico. And a recent Yale graduate now working with AmeriCorps VISTA praised the Institute seminars and curriculum units as "one of the ways in which Yale is working to strengthen its ties with its host community."	"This is a tremendous opportunity for New Haven schools. The vast array of educational information available through this partnership would be a boost to any school curriculum." --Teacher from Pennsylvania
Indeed, the curriculum units prepared by Fellows of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute have demonstrated their usefulness in a great many different ways for teachers who are engaged within a wide range of subjects and with who have received many kinds of preparation. Their responses this year--like those we have mentioned in previous Annual Reports--continue to refute the mistaken notion that such curriculum units are unchangeable exercises that are of use only to their writers.

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