| Introduction
From its beginning in 1978, the overall purpose of the Yale-New Haven
Teachers Institute has been to strengthen teaching and learning in local
schools and, by example, in schools across the country. New Haven represents
a microcosm of urban public education in this country. More than 60 percent
of its public school students come from families receiving public assistance,
and 85 percent are either African-American or Hispanic.
The Institute places equal emphasis on teachers' increasing their knowledge
of a subject and on their developing teaching strategies that will be effective
with their population of students. At the core of the program is a series
of seminars on subjects in the humanities and the sciences. Topics are
suggested by the teachers based on what they think could enrich their classroom
instruction. In the seminars, Yale faculty contribute their knowledge of
a subject, while the New Haven teachers contribute their expertise in elementary
and secondary school pedagogy, their understanding of the students they
teach, and their grasp of what works in the crucible of the classroom.
Successful completion of a seminar requires that, with guidance from the
Yale faculty member, the teachers each write a curriculum unit to be used
in their own classroom and to be shared with others in the same school
and other schools through both print and electronic publication.
Teachers are treated as colleagues throughout the seminar process. Unlike
conventional university or professional development courses, Institute
seminars involve at their very center an exchange of ideas among teachers
and Yale faculty members. This is noteworthy since the teachers admitted
to seminars are not a highly selective group, but rather a cross-section
of teachers in the system, most of whom, like their urban counterparts
across the country, did not major in one or more of the subjects they teach.
The Institute's approach assumes that urban public school teachers can
engage in serious study of the field and can devise appropriate and effective
curricula based on this study.
Now completing its twenty-first year, the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
has offered 128 seminars to 452 individual teachers, many of whom have
participated for more than one year. The seminars, meeting over a five-month
period, combine the reading and discussion of selected texts with the writing
of the curriculum units. Thus far, the teachers have created 1,172 curriculum
units. Over the years, a total of 100 Yale faculty members have participated
in the Institute by giving talks or leading one or more seminars. At this
date about half of these are current or recently retired members of the
faculty.
The Institute's twentieth year, 1997, had brought to a climax a period
of intensive development of the local program. That had included placing
all Institute resources on-line, providing computer assistance to the Fellows,
correlating Institute-developed curriculum units with new school-district
academic standards, establishing Institute Centers for Professional and
Curricular Development in the schools, and establishing summer Academies
for New Haven students. In that year, while continuing to deepen its work
in New Haven, the Institute began a major effort to demonstrate the efficacy
of its approach in other cities across the country.
This effort has involved in 1998 the first stage of a National Demonstration
Project, supported by the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, that has
established partnerships between colleges or universities and school districts
at four sites that will adapt the Institute's approach to local needs and
resources. During this first stage, five proposed partnerships received
planning grants and worked closely with the Institute in order to understand
more fully the nature of its approach. Four new Teachers Institutes-in
Pittsburgh (Chatham College and Carnegie Mellon University), Houston (University
of Houston), Albuquerque (University of New Mexico), and Santa Ana (University
of California at Irvine)-then received implementation grants that will
allow them to work with the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute over the
next three years.
The two major sections of this report therefore describe what are now
the two complementary areas of activity for the Yale-New Haven Teachers
Institute.
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The Institute began a major effort to demonstrate
the efficacy of its approach in other cities across the country.
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| The Program in New Haven
This section of the report covers the offerings, organization, and operation
of the Institute's 1998 program for the New Haven teachers who participated
as Fellows. It draws extensively upon the evaluations written by Fellows
and seminar leaders at the conclusion of their participation.
The report here documents the increasing teacher interest in Institute
seminars, the content of the seminars that have been offered, the application
and admissions process, the participants' experience in the program, and
the preparation for 1999. With respect to long-range planning and program
development, it describes the continuing progress in establishing Institute
Centers for Professional and Curricular Development in the schools, placing
more Institute resources on-line, and providing computer assistance to
the Fellows. It sets forth the structure and activities of the local advisory
groups; and it outlines the process of local documentation and evaluation.
We hope that this section of the report will be of interest to all those
who assist in supporting, maintaining, and expanding the program in New
Haven. We also hope that its account of our local procedures may prove
useful to those who are establishing new Teachers Institutes in Pittsburgh,
Houston, Albuquerque, and Irvine-Santa Ana.
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The report documents the increasing teacher interest
in Institute seminars.
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| The National Demonstration Project
This section of the report covers the first of four years to be devoted
to the National Demonstration Project that is supported by the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's
Digest Fund. In describing this Planning Phase, the report draws upon the
evaluations written by school teachers, university faculty, and planning
directors from various sites who have participated in the Information Session
and the July Intensive (with its three National Seminars) that were held
in New Haven.
The report offers a narrative account of the Planning Phase, including
the recommendations made by the National Panel. It describes briefly the
plans of each of the new Teachers Institutes for the Implementation Phase,
and the plans for another July Intensive (with four National Seminars)
in New Haven in 1999. It sets forth the national accomplishments that have
already occurred and are expected to occur as a result of the Demonstration
Project; and it comments upon the learning in New Haven that is also taking
place. The report then explains how the Institute's periodical, On Common
Ground, will now be used to disseminate the progress and the results of
the National Demonstration Project. Looking toward the future, it points
out the opportunity for further expansion of the newly established league
of five Teachers Institutes.
This section of the report then sets forth the plans for national advisory
groups, parallel to those in New Haven. It also describes the internal
processes of evaluation by which the four new Teachers Institutes, in collaboration
with the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, will provide a continuing account
of their challenges and accomplishments. It then notes the plans for an
external evaluation to be commissioned by the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest
Fund.
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