The Seminars and Curriculum Units
From its inception, a tenet of the Institute’s approach has been to
determine its offerings annually in response to the needs for further preparation
and curriculum development that the teachers themselves identify. In 1998
this process, which is described later in the report, resulted in the Institute’s
organizing seven seminars, five in the humanities and two in the sciences.
With support from endowment revenues and additional discretionary funds
provided by President Richard C. Levin for Yale University, the Institute
offered in 1998 the following five seminars in the humanities:
“The Use and Abuse of History in Film and Video,”
led by Robert D. Johnston, Assistant Professor of History
“Cultures and their Myths,”
led by Traugott Lawler, Professor of English
“Art and Artifacts: The Cultural Meaning of Objects,”
led by Jules D. Prown, Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art
“American Political Thought,”
led by Rogers M. Smith, Alfred Cowles Professor of Government
“Reading Across the Cultures,”
led by Thomas R. Whitaker, Frederick W. Hilles
Professor Emeritus of English
With support from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation and the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute, the Institute offered in 1998 the following two seminars
in the sciences:
“Selected Topics in Contemporary Astronomy and Space Science,”
led by Sabatino Sofia, Professor and Chairman of Astronomy
“The Population Explosion,”
led by Robert Wyman, Professor of Biology
The following overviews of the work in the seminars are based on the
descriptions circulated in advance by the seminar leaders and the Guide
to Curriculum Units, 1998. Each Fellow has prepared a curriculum unit that
she or he will use in a specific classroom. Each Fellow has also been asked
to indicate the subjects and grade levels for which other teachers might
find the curriculum unit to be appropriate. These are indicated parenthetically
here for each unit.
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The Institute’s approach has been to determine its
offerings in response to the needs the teachers themselves identify.
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The Use and Abuse of History in Film
and Video
This seminar was designed to give teachers an introduction to the larger
philosophical issues that the relationship between film and history presents,
as well as to familiarize them with some of the most important historical
films, focusing on their teaching potential in the classroom. Films included
a PBS documentary on Martha Ballard, the Hollywood extravaganza “Pocahontas,”
and films dealing with African-American history: “Amistad,” “Eyes on the
Prize,” and “Malcolm X,” which was paired with a reading of The Autobiography
of Malcolm X. With the help of Robert Rosenstone’s Visions of the
Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History, the seminar discussed
general theoretical questions about history and film. The seminar agreed
that academic history and film history are complementary but need to be
evaluated on different epistemological grounds. It also recognized that
effective teaching requires engagement in the never-ending dialogue that
is the genuine meaning of history, rather than a continuous barrage
of facts.
A team of four teachers from L. W. Beecher Elementary School, Jean Sutherland,
Geraldine Martin, Felicia R. McKinnon, and Jean Gallogly, who teach grades
1, 2, and 3, prepared related units for a project designed to help students
use film to examine major movements in American history.
(picture available in print form)
The seminar on “The Use and Abuse of History in Film
and Video.” (Clockwise from top right: seminar leader Robert Johnston,
Fellows Burton Saxon, Joan Rapczynski, Geraldine M. Martin, Felicia R.
McKinnon, Jean E. Sutherland, Jean C. Gallogly, Sloan E. Williams III,
Jeanette R. Rogers, Barbara W. Winters, and Yolanda G. Jones.)
The curriculum units written in the seminar, with their recommended
uses, included: “Films about the Fifties: Teenagers, Identity, Authority,
and Choice” by Alan K. Frishman (U.S. History and Sociology and Film, grades
10-12); “Herstory: Women Portrayed in Film” by Jean Gallogly (Literature
and Social Studies, grades 1-3); “Slavery of Africans in the Americas:
Resistance to Enslavement” by Yolanda G. Jones (Social Studies, grades
6-8); “Mr. Friday and Friends: A Prospectus of Early Pioneer Life Through
Film” by Geraldine Martin (Reading/Language Arts, grade 1); “A Film and
Literature Study of the African-American Migration” by Felicia R. McKinnon
(Reading/Language Arts and Social Studies, grades 2-8); “The Civil Rights
Movement Through Film” by Joan Rapczynski (U.S. History, grades 11-12);
“Heroes and Villains of the Rain Forest: Latin American History Through
Film” by Jeannette Rogers (Spanish and American History, grades 7-12);
“Teaching Ethnicity and Race Through Films” by Burt Saxon (Ethnicity and
Race and Multicultural Studies, grades 7-12); “Discrimination and the Struggle
for Equality: African-Americans in Professional Baseball: A Reflection
of the Civil Rights Movement” by Jean Sutherland (Social Studies, Reading/Language
Arts, and Social Development, grades 3-8); “Teaching Music through its
Relationship to History: with the Use of Film, Video and the Specious Present”
by Sloan E. Williams III (Music and Music History, grades K-12); “Parenting
in the Movies: Examining Responsibilities in Modern American Films” by
Barbara W. Winters (Parenting, grades 9-12).
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The seminar recognized that effective teaching requires
engagement in the never-ending dialogue that is the genuine meaning of
history.
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Cultures and their Myths
This seminar started with theoretical matters related to mythology and
then moved through Norse, Egyptian, African, Native American, and Indian
mythologies. Works included Hesiod’s Theogony, Snorri Sturleson’s
Prose Edda, George Hart’s Egyptian Myths, the Blackfoot Indian
story “The Orphan Boy and the Elk Dog,” an ancient tale from India called
“The Parade of Ants,” and many more.
The curriculum units, with their recommended uses, included: “From Atum-Ra
to Horus—Using Egyptian Myths of Gods and Goddesses as Springboards to
Increased Literacy” by Christine Elmore (Reading and Language Arts, grades
K-5); “Native American Myths: Creation to Death” by Marcia L. Gereneser
(Literature and Social Studies, grade 4); “African Myths and What They
Teach” by Roberta Mazzucco (Literature and Social Studies, grades 2-5);
“Three African Trickster Myths/Tales: Primary Style” by Linda Frederick-Malanson
(Language Arts, Social Studies, and Reading Extension, grades K-4); “Universal
Myths and Symbols: Animal Creatures and Creation” by Pedro Mendia-Landa
(Integrated Social Studies, Language Arts, Science, Social Development,
grades 1-3); “Hercules the Hero: Understanding the Myth” by Christine Y.
House (Language Arts, grades 3-5); “Mythology: Trickster Tales” by Joseph
O’Keefe (Language Arts, Reading and Social Studies, grade 6); “Discovering
Persephone” by Michelle Sepólveda (Drama, grades 7-8); “Writing
through Myths” by John Macauley Oliver (English, Mythology and Writing,
grades 9-12).
(picture available in print form)
The seminar on “Cultures and Their Myths.” (From left
to right: Fellow John Mac Oliver; seminar leader Traugott Lawler; and Fellow
Linda F. Malanson.)
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This seminar moved through Norse, Egyptian, African,
Native American, and Indian mythologies.
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Art and Artifacts: The Cultural Meaning
of Objects
This seminar focused on close analysis of things, a non-verbal way to
learn about other cultures. Objects included were a silver teapot of around
1800, a pre-Revolutionary desk and bookcase, a painting by Winslow Homer,
a depression era photograph by Walker Evans, a building, maps of New Haven,
and clothing. Each Fellow also examined a single object that was related
in some way to his or her curriculum unit. Reflecting the interests of
the New Haven school population, the curriculum units dealt frequently
but not exclusively with African, Hispanic and Native American cultures.
An informal team of two teachers from Davis Street Elementary School,
Waltrina Kirkland-Mullins and Jeanne Z. Lawrence, prepared related units
for a cross-cultural project on masks and mask-making.
(picture available in print form)
The seminar on “Art and Artifacts: the Cultural Meaning
of Objects.” (Clockwise from left: seminar leader Jules D. Prown; and Fellows
Sheldon A. Ayers, Jeanne Z. Lawrence, Waltrina Kirkland-Mullins, Stephen
P. Broker, Anthony F. Magaraci, Peter N. Herndon, Luis A. Recalde, and
Victor J. Leger.)
Curriculum units, with their recommended uses, included: “Shang Bronzes:
A Window Into Ancient Chinese Culture” by Sheldon A. Ayers (Ancient History,
grades 9-10); “African Art and Aesthetics” by Val-Jean Belton (Art, grades
9-12); “Technological Change in a Coastal New England Village, 1790-1990:
The Duck Creek Harbor Site, Wellfleet, Massachusetts” by Stephen P. Broker
(Environmental Science, Biology and American History, grades 10-12); “The
Tainos of Puerto Rico: Rediscovering Borinquen” by Elsa María Calderón
(Spanish for Spanish Speakers, Spanish for Hispanics, Spanish 4 Honors
and Spanish 5, grades 9-12); “Mohandas Gandhi: The Art of Nonviolence”
by Peter N. Herndon (World History, World Cultures, Contemporary Issues
and U.S. History, grades 9-12); “Common Ground: Masks From a Cultural Perspective”
by Waltrina Kirkland-Mullins (Social Studies and Language Arts, grades
1-2); “Masks and the Stories Behind Them,” by Jeanne Z. Lawrence (Social
Studies, grades K-5); “The Environmental Adaptation of the Native American
Indian” by Victor Leger (Art and Social Studies, grades 4-12); “Art and
Warfare: The Warrior Role in Greek Society” by Anthony F. Magaraci II (Social
Studies and Ancient Civilizations, grades 7-10); “Artifacts: Bringing the
Past Back to Life—the Mexican Case” by Luis A. Recalde (Social Studies,
grades 5-8).
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This seminar focused on close analysis of things,
a non-verbal way to learn about other cultures.
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American Political Thought
This seminar read primary texts in American political thought from Tom
Paine’s “Common Sense” in 1776 through very recent writings on the economy,
race, gender and religion by figures like Charles Murray, Robert Reich,
Shelby Steele and Ralph Reed. It examinedwell-known works like the Federalist
Papers, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, William Graham Sumner’s Social Darwinist
writings, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
It also read sometimes forgotten writings like the correspondence between
Catherine Beecher and Angelina Grimke; the defenses of white supremacy
by Henry Grady and Josiah Strong; and the black nationalism of Malcolm
X. The seminar concentrated on three themes: Why have America at all? Who
should be a full member? How should its basic economic and political institutions
be organized?
Curriculum units, with their recommended uses, included: “Democracy
in Action” by Mary Stewart (Social Studies, Literature, Art and Writing,
grades K-4); “‘We, the People’: New Voices in the Constitutional Debates”
by Sophie Bell (Social Studies, U.S. History and Civics, grades 7-12);
“Drama and Destiny” by Yel Hannon Brayton (Theatre and Creative Writing,
grade 8); “The Great Depression and the New Deal” by Joyce Bryant (Social
Studies and History, grade 8); “Who Gets to Invent and How Do Inventors
Change Our Lives” by Jeanne Kimberley Chandler (Social Studies, grades
2-6); “Letters to an Unborn Patriot” by June Gold (American History and
Writing, grades 6-8); “Land is the Basis of All Independence” by Gary Highsmith
(Social Studies, American Government, American History and Black History,
grades 7-12); American Political Thought: Minority Influence” by Mary Elizabeth
Jones (Mathematics and Social Studies, grades 6-8); “Changing Times Here
and Now” by Cynthia H. Roberts (History, grades 9-12); “Lessons in Drama:
Learning About American Political Thought” by Paul Edward Turtola (Drama
and Social Studies, grades 8-12).
(picture available in print form)
The seminar on “American Political Thought.” (Clockwise
from left: seminar leader Rogers M. Smith, Fellows Sophie R. Bell, June
Gold, Mary E. Jones, Mary Stewart, Jeanne K. Chaudler, Mary E. Brayton,
Paul E. Turtola, and Joyce Bryant.)
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Reading Across the Cultures
This seminar engaged contemporary American writing by authors from several
ethnic and racial groups: Latino, African-American, Native American, Jewish,
and Asian American. Reading included Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango
Street; short fiction, essays, and poetry from Harold Augenbraum’s
and Margarite Fernandos Olimos’ The Latino Reader; Gloria Naylor’s
The Women of Brewster Place, Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine;
Bernard Malamud’s The Assistant, and Maxine Hong Kingston’s Tripmaster
Monkey: His Fake Book. The seminar also read in two works that exemplify
certain of the challenges of inhabiting a multicultural community: Gary
Snyder’s No Nature and Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace. For
historical background, it read chapters in Ronald Takaki, A Different
Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. The seminar paid attention
to the distinctive aspects of minority cultures but also, and more importantly,
to matters that seemed to underlie or transcend any ethnic or racial orientation:
similar social and psychological problems, a common tool-kit of artistic
strategies, and complementary visions of the larger national community.
The multi-ethnic constitution of the seminar itself also made its meetings
an adventure in the subject being studied.
Curriculum units, with their recommended uses, included: “Who’s Who
in America? Multicultural Achievers A to Z: Past and Present” by Kathleen
Ware (Social Studies and Multicultural Education, grade K); “Multicultural
Discovery When Reading Poetry and Stories for the Elementary Grades” by
Yolanda U. Trapp (Social Studies, ESL and Language Arts, grades K-4); “Travel
Through Children’s Literature Into the Lives of the People of Our Nation”
by Nancy Taylor Skolozdra (Social Studies and Reading, grades 3-5); “Favored
Holidays of Children Outside of the USA” by Gwendolyn Robinson (Math/Measurement,
Language/Editing, Earth Science, Health and Nature, grades 3-6) “Literature
for Every Child” by Carolyn S. Williams (Social Studies, Literature and
Reading Instruction, grades 4-6); “Learning to Respect Differences through
Cultural Diversity in Literature: Teaching Acceptance” by Carol S. Heidecker
(Reading/Language Arts, grades 5-8); “The Clock Tower on Grand Avenue:
A Cultural Reading Adventure” by Sequella H. Coleman (Reading, Language
Arts and English, grades 5-8); “Celebrating Diversity Through the Study
of Nine American Holidays” by Bonnie Bielen Osborne (Social Studies, English
and Special Education, grades 6-12); “Becoming a ‘Gringo’: Immigrants,
Language Learning and Acculturation” by Genoveva T. Palmieri (Social Studies,
History, Multicultural Studies and Language, grades 11-12); “Other Voices—Latino
and Chicano Literature and Identity in America” by George Peterman (English/Language
Arts, grade 12).
(picture available in print form)
The seminar on “Reading Across the Cultures.” (Clockwise
from left: Fellows Carolyn S. Williams, Nancy T. Skolozdra, and Gwendolyn
Robinson; seminar leader Thomas R. Whitaker; and Fellows Carol S. Heidecker
and Sequella H. Coleman.)
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The multi-ethnic constitution of the seminar itself also made its
meetings an adventure in the subject being studied.
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Selected Topics in Contemporary Astronomy
and Space Science
This seminar discussed the principal concepts of contemporary Astronomy
and then developed special topics by using techniques and concepts consistent
with the scientific method and current astronomical knowledge. Participants
made use of readings in textbooks and semi-technical journals such as Scientific
American, Physics Today, Astronomy, and Sky and Telescope. Because
most of the Fellows were teaching students with special needs, who have
difficulty in grasping abstract concepts and may not be able to follow
complex instructions, most of the curriculum units covered topics related
to the solar system, including the moon and the earth as astronomical objects.
All the Fellows were careful in discussing the various laws of nature which
guide our understanding of phenomena.
(picture available in print form)
The seminar on “Selected Topics in Contemporary Astronomy
and Space Science.” (Clockwise from front left: seminar leader Sabatino
Sofia; Fellows Susan L. Norwood, G. Casey Cassidy, Anthony Thompson, Joanne
R. Pompano, Sheila Martin-Corbin, Sandra Friday, and Saundra P. Stephenson.)
Curriculum units, with their recommended uses, included: “Out-of-this-World
Experiments” by G. Casey Cassidy (Science, Computer Studies and English,
grades 7-8); “The Plausibility of Interstellar Communication and Related
Phenomena Depicted in Science Fiction Literature and Movies” by Sandra
K. Friday (English, grades 9-12); “The Sun” by John K. Grammatico (Science,
Language Arts, Art, History and Math, grades 1-3); “Practical Illustrations
of Astronomical Concepts Relating to the Solar System” by Sheila Martin-Corbin
(Science, Math and Language Arts, grade 8); “Fly Me to the Moon” by Susan
L. Norwood (Science, grade 4); “Exploring the Moon—A Curriculum Adapted
for Use with the Visually-Impaired,” by Joanne R. Pompano (Astronomy, Special
Education and Visually-Impaired, grades 4-6); “Life on Earth and Beyond,
Our Search for Answers” by Judy Puglisi (Astronomy, grades 6-12); “Beyond
Planet Earth” by Lucia Rafala (Science, Literature/Language and Math, grades
K-3, Special Education); “Where Are We in the Milky Way” by Saundra P.
Stephenson (Science and Mathematics, grades 8-12); “Astronomy and Your
Place in the World” by Anthony Byron Thompson (Science and Physical Science,
grades 7-12).
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This seminar discussed the principal concepts of contemporary
Astronomy.
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The Population Explosion
This seminar dealt with both the heartening and heartbreaking aspects
of population growth. It studied how progress in combatting disease and
infant mortality ushered in the era of population growth, and also how
overpopulation has caused human and environmental misery. For the future,
the seminar looked at the technological and economic advances that may
allow us to keep up with, and even improve, the lot of an increasing population.
Seminar participants read a story about a child servant in Malaya who is
accused of murder, a biography of an Egyptian adolescent going through
her awakening as a person, descriptions from Brazil, India and China of
mothers forced by poverty to sacrifice their children, people on mud islands
in Bangladesh that are periodically washed away by the monsoons, and subsistence
farmers in Madagascar who are chipping away at some of the last tropical
forests. The seminar argued all the “hot button” issues of the current
American war over “values”: families, sexuality, teenage pregnancy, contraception,
abortion and the status of women. This topic allowed the Fellows to discuss
some of the most serious and complex problems facing humanity today.
(picture available in print form)
The seminar on “The Population Explosion.” (Clockwise
from left: Fellows Stephen Beasley-Murray, Richard R. MacMahon, Anne M.
Kavanagh, and Eddie B. Rose, Jr.; seminar leader Robert Wyman.)
Curriculum units, with their recommended uses, included: “The Population
Explosion: Causes and Consequences” by Carolyn N. Kinder (Social Studies
and Science, grades 5-8); “Population Needs vs. Population Deeds” by Raymond
Brooks (Science and Earth Science, grade 8); “The World Population Explosion”
by Eddie Rose; “Evolution, Population and Humans” by Richard R. MacMahon
(Honors Biology and Advanced Biology, grades 9-12); “Culture, Crisis and
Population Explosion: A Deweyan Approach in the Classroom” by Stephen Beasley-Murray
(Biological Sciences and Biology/Social Sciences, grades 9-12); “Pandemic
Pet Population: The Reproductive Responsibility of Pet Owners” by Francine
C. Coss (Language Arts, Science and Technology, grades K-5); “Life in 2010”
by Maureen Taylor-French (Earth Science, grades 8-9); “There’s More to
Sex Education Than AIDS Prevention” by Mickey Kavanagh (Social Development,
grade 9).
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This seminar dealt with both the heartening and heartbreaking
aspects of population growth.
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The Process of Determining the Seminar
Topics
Between October and December 1997, the teachers who served as Institute
Representatives and Contacts for their colleagues had canvassed other teachers
throughout New Haven elementary, middle, and high schools to determine
the topics they wanted Institute seminars to address in 1998. (Please see
Appendix for lists of teacher leaders.) The Representatives met together
twice monthly and communicated individually with the school contacts with
whom they were responsible for staying in close touch. The Director of
the Institute then recruited Yale faculty members who were qualified and
willing to lead seminars that engaged the desired topics. Their specific
proposals were then considered and approved by the Representatives.
In their evaluations, the 1998 Fellows indicated that the Institute
Representative for their school had been helpful in many ways: by maintaining
frequent contact with them, asking for their views on seminar subjects
for the following year, encouraging and assisting them to apply to the
Institute, and promoting the use of Institute-developed curriculum units.
(Chart 1, reading from left to right, moves from the more helpful to the
less helpful activities of the Representatives.) As a result, two-thirds
(68 percent) of all Fellows said in the end that they had, while the program
was being planned, sufficient opportunity to suggest possible topics for
seminars. There is slightly less satisfaction with these arrangements than
reported last year (74 percent).
(Chart 1 available in print form)
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Two-thirds of all Fellows said they had sufficient
opportunity to suggest possible topics for seminars.
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The Fellows’ Application and Admissions
Process
Having worked with teachers in their respective schools during the preceding
months, the Institute Representatives met on January 5 to receive for distribution
in all schools copies of the Institute application form, brochure, and
descriptions of the seminars to be offered. At this meeting a general presentation
of the subjects of the seminars ensured that all Represenatives could explain
to their colleagues the purpose of each seminar.
On January 13 the Institute held an open house for prospective applicants
where any teacher might learn more about the planned seminars from the
Representatives and from the seminar leaders, who attended and conducted
discussions in small groups with interested teachers.
On January 20, the Representatives met to discuss their progress in
working with prospective applicants and to hand in their own completed
applications. The final application deadline for teachers applying to the
Institute was January 27. This date was selected so that teachers would
apply in advance of the February school vacation. The office would then
have the vacation period to process application materials, and the review
of applications could be completed during February to provide the earliest
possible notification to teachers who were accepted.
There are four principal criteria for teachers to be eligible for consideration
as Fellows:
1. The applicant must be a current New Haven public school
teacher who will be teaching in New Haven also during the school year following
Institute participation.
2. The applicant must agree to participate fully in the program by attending
and coming prepared to all scheduled meetings and by completing research
and meeting due dates in the preparation of a curriculum unit.
3. The teacher must demonstrate in the application that his or her specific
interests are directly related to the seminar as it has been described
by the seminar leader.
4. The applicant must also show that the seminar and the curriculum
unit that he or she proposes to write are directly related to school courses
that he or she will teach in the coming school year.
For some years it has been the policy of the Institute to allow no more
than twelve teachers to enroll in any seminar. The small size of the seminars
is necessary both for the collegiality of the Institute experience and
for the individual attention that each teacher’s work in progress receives
from the seminar leader and from other teachers in the seminar.
During the planning process, 145 teachers expressed interest in participating
in one of the seminars to be offered (10 percent more than expressed interest
last year). Of those teachers, 47 were from high schools, 8 from transitional
schools, 41 from middle schools, and 49 from elementary schools. By the
application deadline, the Institute Representatives, assisted by the school
Contacts, had obtained applications from 92 elementary, middle, and high
school teachers in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, almost
as many as the record number in 1997. According to the Representatives
the extraordinarily high demand for seminars over the past three years
may be attributed in some measure to the frequent mention of the Institute
by the school administration and to the desire of a good many teachers
to apply as members of teams.
The individual application form calls for the interested teachers to
specify the subjects and grade levels they teach, the course or courses
in which they plan to introduce the material they study in the Institute,
and their willingness to meet each of the Institute’s requirements for
full participation. The applicants also write a brief essay describing
why they wish to participate in the seminar to which they are applying,
and how the curriculum unit they plan to write will assist them in their
own teaching. Writing this essay is, in effect, their first step in formulating
a curriculum unit through which they will bring the material they study
from the seminar into their own teaching.
(picture available in print form)
Representatives meeting. (Left to right: Val-Jean Belton
and Sequella H. Coleman.)
The team application form requires the interested teachers to demonstrate
how the team envisions working together in intergrade and/or interdisciplinary
ways and must outline plans for a culminating activity in the school. Teams
may receive preference during the admissions process, and are required
to submit a final report on their work together during the following school
year. If a team is not admitted as such, however, the members of the team
may be admitted to the program as individual Fellows. The Institute encourages
such Fellows to work as informal teams in their schools.
The applications were then reviewed by three groups: seminar leaders,
school principals, and seminar Coordinators. The seminar leaders examined
the applications for their relationship to the seminar subject. This afforded
each seminar leader the opportunity, as well, to tailor or enlarge the
bibliography for the seminar so that it would address the specific interests
of the teachers who are accepted.
At the same time, the applications were reviewed in the applicant’s
own school, in keeping with plans to decentralize administrative functions
and decision making within the school district. The Institute’s Representative
for each school contacted the school principal to determine who should
be involved in this building-level review. The intention is to increase
awareness within each school of the projects that teachers wish to pursue
in Institute seminars and to afford an opportunity for the principal and
other educational leaders to examine the relationship between teachers’
applications and school plans. As Reginald Mayo, Superintendent of the
New Haven Public Schools, wrote to all principals on January 21, 1998:
“We believe this is a highly promising way for ensuring that the assistance
that the Institute provides to individual teachers and to teams of teachers
has the best prospects for advancing each school’s academic plans.” This
process informs the consideration of each application, provides each applicant
pertinent feedback, and often provides a significant opportunity for Institute
Representatives to talk with their principals about the Institute.
The Public Schools’ supervisors were then given an opportunity to examine
the applications of the teachers they supervise to determine whether or
not each proposal is consistent with, and significant for, the teacher’s
own development and for school curricula generally.
As in the past, the Institute formed a group of teachers who served
as Coordinators to assist with the organization and smooth operation of
the seminars. These Coordinators were drawn from the group of Representatives
who had earlier helped to plan the program of seminars. When the seminars
began, each Coordinator would participate as a Fellow in a different seminar,
and they would meet together weekly with the Director. At this earlier
point they served as an admissions committee. They met after school on
February 5 to conduct a first reading and discussion of the applications
to their respective seminars. They then contacted all teachers whose applications
needed to be clarified or amplified. On February 12 the Coordinators met
again for a full day, by taking professional leave, for their final consideration
of and decisions on the applications.
During their review, the Coordinators considered the findings of the
school administrators and seminar leaders and made recommendations to the
Director about which teachers the Institute should accept. By these means,
the Institute seeks to ensure that all Fellows participate in seminars
that are consistent with their interests and applicable in the courses
they teach. A meeting of seminar leaders and Coordinators was held on February
26 to discuss the admissions process just completed, and to review the
seminar and unit writing process and the policies and procedures of the
Institute. On February 27 the Institute accepted as Fellows 84 New Haven
teachers (as in 1997, the largest number in a seventeen-year period), 60
in the humanities and 24 in the sciences. (Four of the seven seminars were
oversubscribed.) Once again a team of teachers from a given school was
admitted with the expectation that team members would coordinate their
curriculum units and work together during the school year, planning cross-grade
and cross-department instruction and school-wide activities.
Consistent with the Institute’s aim to serve the largest possible proportion
of all New Haven teachers, 23 (or 28 percent) of the teachers accepted
in 1998 were participating in the Institute for the first time. Of these
first-time Fellows, 16 were in the humanities and 7 were in the sciences.
About one-third (32 percent) were Black, slightly less than two-thirds
(63 percent) were White, and 4 percent were Hispanic.
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The small size of the seminars is necessary for the
collegiality of the Institute experience.
The extraordinarily high demand for seminars may be
attributed to the frequent mention of the Institute by the school administration.
“We believe this is a highly promising way for ensuring
that the assistance that the Institute provides has the best prospects
for advancing each school’s academic plans.”
—Reginald R. Mayo
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The Fellows Who Were Accepted
Fellows came from 6 of the 8 high schools, 8 of the 9 middle schools,
and 2 of the 5 transitional schools. Of the 27 elementary schools, 13 had
teachers participating. The Institute first admitted elementary school
teachers in 1990; this year 28 (33 percent) of all Fellows were elementary
school teachers. Twenty-eight percent were middle school teachers, and
34 percent were high school teachers. In one case, a team of Fellows from
a given school took part together in a seminar. Four schools had five or
more Fellows; thirteen schools had three or more. Overall, about 33 percent
of the Fellows were 41-50 years old; 35 percent were younger and 31 percent
were older.
As Chart 2 shows, almost one-fifth of the Fellows (19 percent) had four
or fewer years of total experience in teaching. The Institute attracted
a slightly higher proportion (23 percent) of teachers with 20 or more years
of total experience in teaching. One-third (34 percent) of the Fellows,
however, had four or fewer years of experience teaching in the New Haven
school system. Illustrative of the need for the professional development
that the Institute provides, more than half (54 percent) of all Fellows
have been in their present teaching position four or fewer years; more
than three-quarters (77 percent) have taught in their present position
for nine years or less. Thus, even though 62 percent of the Fellows have
10 or more years total teaching experience, more than half have four or
fewer years experience in their present position. These figures help to
explain why many teachers say they need to develop their knowledge in subjects
that they have been recently reassigned to teach, or curricular materials
for students of a different age or background from those they have taught
before.
(Chart 2 available in print form)
Moreover, as in past years—and as is the case in the school system generally—many
of the 1998 Fellows did not major in college or graduate school in the
subjects they currently teach. As Chart 3 shows, in no field did all Fellows
teaching a subject have a graduate or undergraduate degree in that subject.
In some fields, notably bilingual education, chemistry, general science,
and physics, no Fellows had a graduate or undergraduate degree in a field
they taught. Of the Fellows teaching in the field of English, fewer than
half had an undergraduate or graduate degree. Of those teaching in the
field of social studies, fewer than one fourth had so much as an undergraduate
degree.
(Chart 3 available in print form)
Chart 4 shows the subjects Fellows taught in the 1997-1998 year of their
Institute participation. Overall, more than two-thirds (69 percent) of
Fellows in the humanities and more than four-fifths (82 percent) of Fellows
in the sciences had not majored either in college or in graduate school
in one or more of the subjects they taught in that year.
(Chart 4 available in print form)
Understandably, therefore, when the 1998 Fellows were asked about the
incentives that attracted them to participate in the Institute, they responded
(as Chart 5 shows, reading left to right from the most important to the
least important) that the most important incentives were the opportunities
to increase their mastery in the subjects they teach (67 percent), to exercise
intellectual independence (65 percent), and to develop curricula to fit
their needs (68 percent) and materials to motivate their students (67 percent).
Indeed, incentives that might be imagined to be important for teachers
with access to Yale University—credit in a degree program and access to
Yale athletic facilities—were notably unimportant for Fellows in the Teachers
Institute.
(Chart 5 available in print form)
As past Institute studies have shown, Fellows are in most respects highly
representative of all New Haven teachers. So, for example, this year’s
Fellows continue to reflect the gender and ethnicity of all New Haven teachers,
though there are great disparities overall between the ethnic and racial
characteristics of New Haven teachers and those of their students. (See
Table 1 on Page 22.) Similarly, the Yale faculty members who have led Institute
seminars generally reflect the wider faculty at Yale.
|
Many teachers say they need to develop their knowledge
in subjects that they have been recently reassigned to teach, or curricular
materials for students of a different age or background from those they
have taught before.
More than half have four or fewer years experience
in their present position.
More than two-thirds of Fellows in the humanities
and more than four-fifths of Fellows in the sciences had not majored in
one or more of the subjects they taught.
The most important incentives were the opportunities
to increase their mastery in the subjects they teach, to exercise intellectual
independence, and to develop curricula to fit their needs and materials
to motivate their students.
|
Activities for Fellows
At the first organizational meeting of each seminar, held on March 5,
1998, the seminar leader distributed an annotated bibliography on the seminar
subject and presented the syllabus of readings that he or she proposed
the seminar would consider. The Fellows described the individual curriculum
units that they planned to develop. This afforded the members of each seminar
an overview of the work they were undertaking together and the projects
they would pursue individually. The bibliographies both introduced the
seminar subject and guided Fellows as they began research on their curriculum
units. One wrote, “The seminar leader provided a vast array of expertise,
provided a very good bibliography and was very helpful in his guidance.”
Another wrote, “The material covered during our weekly meetings was not
only quite interesting, but each topic seemed to be related closely to
one or more of the units written by the participants.” A third said, “The
assigned readings were wonderful exposures to various cultural practices
and beliefs and to thoughts about diversity in our society.”
Table 1
Ethnicity and Gender of Participants
|
White
|
Black
|
Hispanic
|
Other
|
non-Hispanic
|
non-Hispanic
|
All
|
Male
|
Female
|
All
|
Male
|
Female
|
All
|
Male
|
Female
|
All
|
Male
|
Female
|
Institute Fellows, 1998 |
63%
|
21%
|
43%
|
32%
|
9%
|
24%
|
4%
|
3%
|
1%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
Institute Fellows, 1978-98 |
67%
|
21%
|
46%
|
28%
|
6%
|
22%
|
4%
|
1%
|
3%
|
1%
|
0%
|
1%
|
New Haven Public School Teachers, 1998 |
69%
|
21%
|
48%
|
21%
|
4%
|
17%
|
9%
|
2%
|
7%
|
1%
|
0%
|
1%
|
New Haven Public School Students, 1998 |
13%
|
7%
|
6%
|
57%
|
29%
|
28%
|
28%
|
14%
|
14%
|
2%
|
1%
|
1%
|
Institute Coordinators, 1998 |
29%
|
0%
|
29%
|
57%
|
0%
|
57%
|
14%
|
14%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
Steering Committee, 1998 |
67%
|
33%
|
33%
|
33%
|
0%
|
33%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
Representatives and Contacts, 1998 |
50%
|
15%
|
35%
|
38%
|
8%
|
30%
|
10%
|
3%
|
7%
|
2%
|
0%
|
2%
|
Institute Seminar Leaders, 1998 |
100%
|
100%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
Institute Seminar Leaders, 1978-98 |
84%
|
70%
|
14%
|
9%
|
9%
|
0%
|
6%
|
4%
|
1%
|
0%
|
0%
|
0%
|
Yale Faculty, 1998 (includes tenured and term ladder faculty) |
89%
|
68%
|
21%
|
3%
|
2%
|
1%
|
2%
|
1%
|
1%
|
7%
|
5%
|
2%
|
Totals may not add to 100% due to rounding.
In contrast, some Fellows emphasized how demanding they found the reading
to be. One said, “At times the required reading was more time-consuming
than necessary. I found the workload overwhelming at times, especially
at the end of the year.” Another said, “The seminar did present a challenge
to some in regards to the extensive reading. Personally for me, I thoroughly
enjoy reading, and the required books were of great interest to me, so
I did not find it a hard task on the whole.”
The seminar leaders also commented on what they perceived to be the
Fellows’ responses to the weekly readings. One said: “I thought the Fellows
would be generally conscientious but that there might be problems of insufficient
reading. Those expectations were to some degree realized, though in fact
more teachers did a good job of getting through all or most of the readings
than I anticipated.”
Before the second seminar meeting all Fellows met individually with
their seminar leader to discuss their projects. The Institute requires
that Fellows schedule at least two such conferences as part of the unit
writing process; many Fellows, however, meet more frequently with their
seminar leader. At the end of the program, most Fellows (87 percent) said
that they had ample opportunity to discuss their choice of readings with
the seminar leader.
One seminar leader said: “Some of the individual discussions were rather
mechanical. Most, however, were good, absorbing, productive discussions
of the units, issues in the seminar, issues in teaching. The individual
meetings are time-consuming but very valuable to me, and I hope they are
also valuable to the teachers.” Another said, “As usual, I went to people’s
schools to see them. I loved being in the schools, seeing people’s classrooms
and often their students.”
Fellows also commented on the value of the individual meetings. One
said: “The seminar leader was more than willing to discuss the curriculum
unit one-on-one outside of the seminar and was most helpful in the writing
process through editorial comments, discussions, and support.” Another
said: “I was very appreciative when our seminar leader visited my classroom.
The last time I remember a college faculty member visiting my classroom
was when I was student teaching eons ago.” A third Fellow said:
Our seminar leader was sensitive and caring in giving of his
time both in and out of class. I especially liked the fact that he was
interested in our grade level classes and wanted to know how the material
that was presented could be used in our individual classes. Also, the fact
that he is interested in coming to our school for our final production
that is given by our team is both encouraging and supportive of our individual
efforts.
(picture available in print form)
Fellow Eddie B. Rose and seminar leader Robert Wyman.
During the period that preceded the regular weekly meetings, Fellows
continued their reading, both preparing for the upcoming seminar discussions
and working toward a brief prospectus of what their final units would contain.
At the second seminar meeting, on April 7, Fellows submitted this prospectus,
presented their revised unit topics, and began to discuss the common readings.
The regular weekly seminar meetings began on May 5; thereafter Fellows
continued to develop their units in stages, with a first draft submitted
on May 19. The weekly meetings of the seminars continued through July 14,
with Fellows submitting the second draft of their units on July 7 and their
completed units by July 31.
For several years, Fellows have been asked to submit the prospectus,
together with a revised topic of the unit and a list of appropriate readings,
at the time of the second seminar meeting. This allows them a full six
weeks to write a first draft. The due date for the second draft is late
enough to allow Fellows ample time to address the comments they received
on the first draft from other Fellows and from the seminar leader. Although
some seminar leaders have urged that the revised topic, preliminary reading-list,
and first draft be submitted somewhat later, and some have informally instituted
yet another draft between the first and second drafts, a high proportion
of Fellows have been satisfied with this schedule. In 1998, 73 percent
of the Fellows thought the unit writing deadlines occurred at the right
time in relation to the school calendar.
The Institute attaches great importance to the process through which
Fellows develop their curriculum units, and many Fellows commented in their
evaluations upon the benefits derived from following this process. One
wrote: “I found the seminar leader’s comments on my unit drafts to be insightful
and extremely helpful.” Another wrote: “The editing in the first draft
was exhaustive and there was much positive direction in the seminar leader’s
comments.” A third wrote: “Our shared works in process were perhaps the
most enlightening part of the process. We read the first drafts of three
other people. The work was divided by similar topics and teaching areas.
At the next session we had discussion, comments and tips for each other
that seemed to be appreciated by all.” At the conclusion of the seminars,
most Fellows indicated that the program schedule (90 percent) and the guidelines
for writing a unit (92 percent) had been useful to them to a great or moderate
extent.
This year 66 percent of the Fellows said they tried out the subject
matter and 71 percent said they tried out the strategies of their units
in their classroom. Of those Fellows who did, most (72 percent) said that
this influenced what they included in the final units. One wrote, “My students
will definitely enjoy learning about the myths of the Native Americans.
They have already demonstrated this during the ’98 semester.”
During the first two months of the program, which serve as a reading
period, all Fellows also met together on Tuesday afternoons for a series
of talks. Ordinarily, at least some current or prospective seminar leaders
are included in this series, while some other faculty members are invited
to speak on topics the school Representatives believe will be of particular
interest to many Fellows. In 1998 the Representatives decided that all
five talks should be given by either current or prospective seminar leaders.
In this way all Fellows could listen to either an overview or an example
of the work their colleagues are pursuing in other seminars, while learning
as well about seminars in which they might want to participate in a future
year. The talks given in 1998 were: “Reconstructing the Ancient Mayan Murals
at Bonampak, Chiapas, Mexico,” by Mary E. Miller, Professor and Chair of
History of Art; “The Chemistry of Oxygen Production by Plants,” by Gary
Brudvig, Professor of Chemistry; “The Population Explosion,” by Robert
J. Wyman, Professor of Biology; “America’s Racial Future: ‘The Fate of
the Third Reconstruction,’” by Rogers M. Smith, Professor of Political
Science; and “Race and Masculinity—Danny Glover,” by Hazel Carby, Professor
and Chair of African and African-American Studies.
Although the talks have recently met with more favorable response than
was once the case, they remain somewhat controversial. Some felt, as one
Fellow wrote: “The Institute invited guest speakers whose topics had minimal
correlation with the seminar topic I signed up for. Many of the speakers
were interesting and informative, but I do not believe all of these lectures
should have been mandatory.”
Most Fellows, however, saw in the talks the purposes for which they
were organized. They said that to a great or moderate extent the talks
provided them intellectual stimulation (94 percent) and a sense of collegiality
and common purpose among Fellows (76 percent). Two-thirds (69 percent)
said the talks were successful in providing an overview of Fellows’ work
in the seminars. Three-quarters (78 percent) said that the Institute scheduled
the right number of talks. One Fellow wrote: “I feel that the strength
of the Institute is the fact that we are exposed in the talks and seminars
to faculty members who are excellent in their fields. Knowledge is imparted
to us in different ways.” Another wrote: “I thought the talks were incredibly
great—really engrossing, impressive in their grasp of the subject at hand,
and several were seriously thought-provoking.”
(picture available in print form)
Hazel Carby giving her 1998 talk on “Race and Masculinity—Danny
Glover.”
Many Fellows reported that the talks prompted them to read about their
topics (47 percent), discuss the topics with their students (47 percent),
and discuss the talks with other teachers (75 percent).
As in recent years, the Institute scheduled a session on curriculum
unit writing on March 17, well before the regular meetings of the seminars
began. Before starting on their curriculum units, the Fellows all need
to understand the central role that the process of writing plays in Institute
seminars. As part of their admissions folder, all Fellows had received
Institute guidelines and mechanical specifications for preparing curriculum
units, which outline the Institute writing process and the five steps for
Fellows’ formulating, reformulating, and enlarging their individual units.
During the session on curriculum unit writing, a panel of Coordinators
first spoke briefly to all the Fellows about following the Institute process
for unit development, considering one’s audience, using a computer to write
a unit and put it online, using the computer assistance the Institute and
Yale University provide, and working together with other Fellows in writing
and using units. Then the Fellows were divided into seminar groups, where
each Coordinator led a discussion of purposes and practices in writing
Institute curriculum units. This afforded an opportunity for the first-time
Fellows to learn about the guidelines and other aspects of curriculum unit
writing from experienced Fellows. At the same time, it encouraged experienced
Fellows to share that experience, and it allowed all to discuss how the
completed volume of units might display a range of teaching strategies
and contain a standard form of annotation. By leading these discussions,
the Coordinators also identified themselves as being knowledgeable about
the process of writing curriculum units, so that other Fellows might seek
their advice.
At the Coordinators’ weekly meetings with the Director, which were held
on the day after seminar meetings, they discussed the progress of each
seminar and gained an overview of the program. In addition, the Coordinators
met with the seminar leaders immediately before the program began to provide
them with information about the teachers who had been accepted and to begin
to define their role in assisting with the conduct of the seminars. Both
seminar leaders and Fellows acknowledged in their evaluations the essential
role of the Coordinators. Most Fellows (89 percent) agreed that the Coordinator
had provided teacher leadership without diminishing the collegial rapport
within the seminar. Almost all Fellows said the Coordinators helped them
by facilitating discussion of Fellows’ work in progress (92 percent), and
by providing information about guidelines and deadlines for unit writing
(97 percent) and about use of University facilities (95 percent). Few Fellows
found the Coordinators unhelpful in any respect.
To maintain current information on the program and to address any problems
that arose, the Institute Director met monthly with the seminar leaders
as a group. This also afforded the seminar leaders, two of whom were conducting
an Institute seminar for the first time, an opportunity to talk with each
other about their approaches to the seminar and experiences in it.
|
Fellows are in most respects highly representative
of all New Haven teachers.
“The assigned readings were wonderful exposures to
various cultural practices and beliefs and to thoughts about diversity
in our society.”
—Institute Fellow
“I was very appreciative when our seminar leader visited
my classroom. The last time I remember a college faculty member visiting
my classroom was when I was student teaching eons ago.”
—Institute Fellow
“Our shared works in process were perhaps the most
enlightening part of the process.”
—Institute Fellow
“I thought the talks were really engrossing, impressive
in their grasp of the subject at hand.”
—Institute Fellow
Most Fellows agreed that the Coordinator had provided
teacher leadership without diminishing the collegial rapport within the
seminar.
|
Rewards for Fellows
The seminars have always been regarded as the core collaborative experience
of the Institute, and each year the Fellows’ comments about the seminars
have been rich and positive. This year the Fellows often were very enthusiastic
indeed. One said:
My experience this year was a good one. First, there was my
relationship with my colleagues. There were four Fellows I had known in
other capacities but not from taking a seminar with them, so I particularly
enjoyed the opportunity to discuss matters relating to the seminar topic
and to teaching with them. Similarly, I gained from discussions with my
elementary school colleagues, admiring their ability to translate complex
issues into teachable and understandable forms. Second, there was the seminar
leader. Quickly, he showed himself to be a natural, gauging just the right
amount of work and artfully weaving discussions of our units in progress
into our broader discussions. The materials he chose were both useful and
thought provoking. He encouraged us to use the Internet and e-mail for
research, and most of us did.
Another Fellow said:
This year’s Institute seminar was very demanding but quite
rewarding. Under the guidance of our seminar leader, we were assigned a
diversity of literature to read. He kept the discussions lively and stimulating.
He was well organized and he provided ample opportunities for the Fellows
to meet with him while writing their unit. No previous Institute seminar
leader I’ve encountered has surpassed the help he offered in the writing
of my curriculum unit.
Seminar leaders described their seminar in general terms. One said:
I was almost completely enthusiastic about the conduct of the
seminars. The teachers had no problems with my shifting the main burden
of the discussion to them, and in fact they thrived on that format, fortunately
recognizing my pedagogical purpose. The discussions were so lively that
I often had trouble reining in participants when time was “up.”
Another said:
Rather than me having to drag commentary out of the participants,
I, instead, had to constantly cut off debate and restrict the flow of ideas
to only the most central ones. The time always went much too fast and we
always had to stop in the middle of some intense discussion. It was a pleasure
to have adults in the seminar. The discussion flowed even better than it
did in seminars on a similar topic with Yale undergraduates.
A theme in Fellows’ comments this year, as in many past years, was the
appreciation and understanding they gained of their own and other cultures
as a result of what they read and the interaction they had with Fellows
of different backgrounds. One Fellow wrote: “The ethnic backgrounds of
the participants were a plus for this seminar because each was able to
serve as a cultural resource during discussions. The exchange that took
place within the seminar, as well as outside, was most useful to me in
relating to teachers of different subject areas and grade levels.” Another
wrote: “We all came from different ethnic and age groups and educational
disciplines; the different perspectives made for lively discussions.”
(picture available in print form)
The seminar on “American Political Thought.” (Clockwise
from left: Fellows Mary E. Brayton, Paul E. Turtola, and Joyce Bryant;
seminar leader Rogers M. Smith.)
Ever since the Institute’s inception, its participants and staff have
sometimes been asked whether the co-professionalism among Yale faculty
members and New Haven school teachers, for which the program is widely
known, is authentic. The collegiality on which the Institute is founded
is perhaps best illustrated by the mutual respect between Fellows and seminar
leaders that the seminar experience engenders. Comments made this year,
including some already cited above, are representative:
My respect for the teachers deepened after almost every week
of the seminar. Their dedication and energy to the seminar, and to teaching
in general, came through quite forcefully and was very impressive. The
Institute is an absolutely superb partnership between teachers and scholars.
Being very bright, several teachers had constructed for themselves strong
and complex theories in their areas of interest. Since these were teachers
with many years of experience, their theories had also been gestating over
years. What the teachers lacked, however, was a community of scholars to
criticize their constructs and offer alternative visions. The seminar to
some degree, and my personal interactions with each teacher to a greater
degree, served to provide that questioning environment. This is education
in its highest form. As academics, the Yale faculty is accustomed to the
luxury of critical debate. I found it very gratifying to be able to provide
some of the excitement and contention of this debate for these Fellows.
In turn, Fellows expressed their respect for their Yale colleagues. One
Fellow said, “Our seminar leader was extraordinary. Every single seminar
was fascinating, stimulating and informative. I cannot speak highly enough
of him.” Another said:
Our seminar leader’s tutelage made this year’s Institute an
exciting and thought-provoking experience. His kind manner and great generosity—in
terms of his availability for conferencing outside the classroom—his thoughtful
critiques, and the incredible breath of knowledge that he shared with us
made for user-friendly, easy-access learning.
As some Fellows have already noted, the seminars afford them an otherwise
too rare opportunity to talk and work with other teachers across the artificial
boundaries that often separate grade levels, schools, and disciplines.
Many Fellows this year spoke of the value of the Institute for them in
these respects. One said: “The group itself was a key ingredient in the
seminar’s success. Providing a balance of elementary, middle and high school
teachers, the members brought a positive variety of knowledge, experience,
and perspective which provided a stimulating balance. Each willingly carried
a responsibility for the seminar’s success.”
|
“The discussion flowed even better than it did in
seminars on a similar topic with Yale undergraduates.”
—Seminar Leader
“My respect for the teachers deepened after almost
every week of the seminar.” —Seminar Leader
|
Relating Seminar Topics to Curriculum
Units
Each Institute seminar must balance the complementary and inseparable
but sometimes competing demands for studying the seminar topic and developing
specific applications of that knowledge for school classrooms. The Fellows,
coming from elementary, middle, and high schools, are obligated to develop
curriculum units that have some demonstrable relation to the seminar topic,
but they are free to work out curricula that enter territory not covered
in detail by the seminar. The curriculum units, therefore, have a diversity
of subject and approach that one would not expect in a regular university
course on the seminar topic. As a result, discussions in the seminar, while
doing justice to the common reading, can also range widely over substantive
and pedagogical issues relating to the curriculum units. Some comments
by seminar leaders and Fellows quoted earlier have already indicated that
each seminar approaches these demands somewhat differently as seminar leaders
strive to strike an appropriate balance.
(picture available in print form)
The seminar on “Art and Artifacts: the Cultural Meaning
of Objects.” (Fellows Anthony F. Magaraci and Sheldon A. Ayers.)
In recent years the Institute has also encouraged Fellows to build into
their curriculum units both subject matter and skills that are called for
by the local curriculum framework and the state Mastery Test. The various
strategies for incorporating such elements in what may be quite individual
and innovative units can provide stimulating discussion among the Fellows
in a seminar.
In the end, a sizable majority of this year’s Fellows (78 percent) said
that there had been an appropriate balance in seminar between general study
of the seminar subject and Fellows’ work in progress on their units. As
one Fellow put it: “There was a good balance between discussion of the
seminar topic and individual topics. We were each given two opportunities
to speak formally to the entire group.” For a few others, more time spent
discussing work in progress would have been beneficial. One wrote, “I would
have appreciated more class time for working on the unit. I am suggesting
that the seminar classes focus more on the writing of the units than on
the seminar subject.”
After the curriculum units were completed in July, they were compiled
in a volume for each seminar, and in October the volumes were deposited
in the libraries of all elementary middle, and high schools, so that New
Haven teachers, whether or not they have been Fellows, might use them in
their own teaching. As in the past, the Institute prepared a Guide to the
new units, based on synopses by the authors and their recommendations of
the grade levels and school courses to which their units apply.
The Institute also updated the Index of all the 1,172 units contained
in the 129 volumes the Institute has published since its inception in 1978.
The Index and Guide, too, were deposited in all school libraries and distributed
to the teachers who serve as Institute Representatives for the schools.
A full set of the new curricular resources was provided to those school
district administrators who have responsibility for curricula system-wide.
At the same time, the Representatives conducted an inventory to ascertain
whether each middle and high school has a complete set of all 129 volumes
of units and whether all elementary schools have each of the volumes that
their teachers believe are applicable at those grade levels.
Maintaining a library set of units has proved most difficult in those
schools that do not have a full-time librarian or, in some cases, even
a library. In 1993-94, the Institute therefore sought to determine the
best location for Institute material to be deposited in every New Haven
school, and it has since continued to supply units missing from any collection,
insofar as the volumes have been still in print. As described below, the
Institute has also created an electronic version that makes its curricular
resources more widely accessible.
|
The curriculum units have a diversity of subject and
approach that one would not expect in a regular university course on the
seminar topic.
The Institute has also encouraged Fellows to build
into their curriculum units both subject matter and skills that are called
for by the local curriculum framework and the state Mastery Test.
|
Results for the Participants
As in past years, Fellows in 1998 spoke of the results of their Institute
participation especially in terms of intellectual growth and renewal. Just
as the opportunity to increase mastery of the subject one teaches was an
important incentive for most Fellows (67 percent) to take part in the Institute,
almost all (93 percent) said that they had gained knowledge of their subject
and confidence to teach it by participating in their seminar. Only two
Fellows differed with the statement that the seminar helped with intellectual
and professional growth.
Many Fellows described the Institute experience as having increased
their professional confidence and morale. One Fellow said: “After participating
in the Teachers Institute I have been re-energized, motivated, and ready
to teach next school year. I am more open to experimenting with different
methods of teaching. I realize that I have been teaching from a very narrow
perspective.” Another said, “The Institute is invaluable in helping me
to develop new and stimulating material for the teaching profession each
year. Creative teaching is highly motivating to me and helps to keep me
excited about bringing new learning experiences to my students.”
Fellows spoke, too, of the access to Yale facilities they had gained
from participation. From the Institute’s inception, all Fellows have been
full members of the University community, listed in the directory of faculty
and staff, and granted use of facilities and services across the campus.
For most Fellows (60 percent) access to Yale’s academic facilities such
as the library was an incentive for their participation, and 60 percent
reported that membership in the Yale community had been greatly or moderately
useful to them.
(picture available in print form)
The seminar on “The Population Explosion.” (Left to
right: seminar leader Robert Wyman and Fellow Michael Golia.)
One Fellow said, “My class field trip to the CCL Computer Classroom
was a tremendous success, and it brought forth a genuine enthusiasm from
my middle school students, especially as they were allowed to walk through
the Old Campus, drill the undergraduate tour guide with questions, and
have lunch at one of the dining halls.” Another Fellow said that the Institute
had introduced “some wonderful resources at Yale—Yale Art Museum, Map Reading
Room in the Main Library, Yale Film Archive, Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute
Web site, etc.—which can be key ingredients for multidisciplinary projects.”
Nor do Fellows see the results of the Institute as limited to their
own classrooms, or even to teachers who have participated in the seminars.
Almost all said that they plan to encourage and assist other teachers in
using the unit they prepared; two-fifths said they planned to do so with
four or more other teachers. Fellows this year provided various accounts
of the more extended influence the Institute has had, and will have, for
themselves and their schools. Several Fellows wrote:
At my high school, curriculum is being written within the various
departments. The document for parenting is now being constructed. I expect
that the framework will include a review of the subject in various periods
of American history, as well as a strong suggestion to use film and video
to present role models in action. I will also include among the resources
the wide range of units written by previous Fellows that could easily be
included in lesson plans for the classroom. I predict that my curriculum
unit will have effect in two other areas—in particular and among the teachers
of parenting in the system.
The school will be able to use my unit without fear of getting away
from the Mastery Tests objectives. I designed this unit to assist the average
teacher looking for an interesting topic that targets the standard Mastery
skills. The grades I wanted to affect are third through sixth. Modifications,
if needed, may be made by the teacher using this unit.
This curriculum was developed for students in 4-6 grades who are attending
regular and special education programs. In addition, it is adapted to assist
visually impaired and blind students in accessing the materials and information
necessary to work on this topic. It is hoped that the adaptations suggested
will also help teachers understand how future science lessons can be modified
for students with visual impairments.
Each year we are attentive to the responses of both first-time and veteran
participants because we want a high proportion of New Haven teachers to
become Fellows and we also want the Institute to become a regular part
of Fellows’ professional lives. Both groups cite their own rewards. One
first-time Fellow wrote: “The Institute possessed many strengths. Its greatest
strengths were the people in charge at the seminar level.” Another wrote:
“I enjoyed being able to have access to various computer labs across the
Yale campus.” And another said: “I think a major strength of the program
is giving teachers the opportunity to have control over what they teach.
It makes me feel proud of myself to teach something that I worked on creating.
It allows me to teach 4th grade reading while integrating an interesting,
informative piece of literature.”
For returning Fellows, the rewards of participation do not diminish
over time, because the experience becomes cumulative, and not repetitive
or redundant. In fact, a good many teachers report that the benefits increase
as one has more experience as a Fellow. One returning Fellow wrote:
Four years ago, I could not have imagined the impact that the
Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute would have on my view and ways of teaching.
A parent of one of my students informed me that their child sent a letter
to the Superintendent of Schools praising the method of teaching that was
unique and inspiring. She talked about how history and music were presented
together, which seemed to help her learn music in a more effective manner.
In my General Music Class I was able for the first time to have students
play in a symphonic ensemble. This was also the result of the teaching
academic skills through music approach developed at the Institute.
Another Fellow wrote:
When I began teaching in the New Haven schools in 1993, I questioned
my ability to connect with my inner city students. I felt out of touch
with today’s modern urban student, and I felt uncomfortable when having
to take on the task of providing students with my knowledge. I had little
experience with teaching diversity, never having had the chance to coexist
in a school setting with people of different races and religions. Over
five years I have picked up a valuable discipline, and have figured out
a way to deal with today’s students. As long as I approach this “teaching
challenge” as one in which I am its biggest student, then I can feel comfortable
teaching anything to just about anybody. I have found that as long as I
concentrate on learning, I can teach.
As in every year since 1990, when they became a regular part of the Institute,
elementary school teachers spoke this year of the particular advantages
of the Institute for them specifically. One said: “My previous participation
gave me the opportunity to enhance certain areas of the elementary curriculum.
I was able to provide teachers with information and resources that were
useful in creating an interesting unit.” Another said:
Last year my curriculum unit was used to bring Language Arts
to life. During the course of the year, children were exposed to a wealth
of children’s literature regarding African and African-American culture.
Storytelling was shared on an intergrade level: related activities were
conducted with all Grade 1. Journal writing was emphasized and students
had an opportunity to create their own stories and share them with classmates
across the grade.
(picture available in print form)
Seminar leader Sabatino Sofia.
Seminar leaders, too, speak of what they gain from participation. They
not only appreciate their expanded involvement in public education and
the University’s home community; they also find that there are often benefits
accruing to their own scholarship and teaching. Presenting their experience
is especially important because the Institute is often asked to explain
the incentives and rewards for Yale faculty members who participate. Several
seminar leaders this year said:
Leading an Institute seminar truly recharged my teaching batteries.
I had a series of incidents with bratty undergraduates in the spring, and
the Fellows helped restore my usual cheerful teaching self with their respect
and their humility. They know why they want to be there and what they wish
to learn, and I felt much more so than usual that my teaching made a real
difference.
There is value in getting outside of the insularity of the
Yale classroom experience. It is good to have contact with teachers who
operate under very different conditions and yet share with us the common
goal of education, the transmission of information, values, and methodologies.
There was a particular benefit this year in having contact with faculty
and teachers from outside of Yale and New Haven.
It is extremely valuable to me to get a first-hand sense of what public
school teachers are like, what their challenges, aims, and experiences
are in teaching, what they know and don’t know. I learn a lot about contemporary
education as well as different perspectives on issues I frequently teach.
Then, when I teach those materials with Yale students I have new ways to
highlight what’s significant and exciting about the materials. I also benefit
from seeing the different ways they adapt the themes in their curriculum
units, sometimes in ways I can use in my own teaching. This year I also
learned from them about how to use the World Wide Web better.
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“I am more open to experimenting with different methods
of teaching. I realize that I have been teaching from a very narrow perspective.”
—Institute Fellow
Almost all said that they plan to encourage and assist
other teachers in using the unit they prepared.
“Over five years I have picked up a valuable discipline,
and have figured out a way to deal with today’s students.”
—Institute Fellow
“Leading an Institute seminar truly recharged my teaching
batteries.”
—Seminar Leader
“It is good to have contact with teachers who operate
under very different conditions and yet share with us the common goal of
education.”
—Institute Fellow
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Teams of Fellows
For the past five years the Institute has admitted teams of four teachers
from one school to a seminar with the expectation that the team members
would coordinate the curriculum units they wrote and work together during
the school year, planning cross-grade and cross-department instruction
and school-wide activities. This program, highly successful in several
schools, has encouraged teachers who were previously reluctant to participate
in seminars on an individual basis to apply to a seminar as part of a school
team.
(picture available in print form)
Students in the team’s culminating assembly at Beecher
Elementary School.
In 1998, a Fellows team from L. W. Beecher Elementary school once again
participated in the Institute. Members of the team were enrolled in the
seminar on “The Use and Abuse of History in Film and Video.” The team’s
related units dealt with the film portrayal of the roles of women in American
history, the nature of early pioneer life, the African-American migration,
and African-Americans in professional baseball. It is the responsibility
of a team to shape its curriculum units so that they lead to some shared
culminating activity. As in previous years at Beecher Elementary, the use
of the curriculum units in individual classrooms led to a presentation
in the spring that involved the entire school, bringing in administration,
support staff, and parents.
One team-member said:
This is my fourth year of being part of a teacher’s team in
the Institute. For both my students and myself this has been a most rewarding
experience. Collaboration has helped to enrich the learning process. It
has helped to bring unity to our school staff whereby teachers, secretaries,
custodians, etc., see a need for a working relationship and comradeship
while in school and out of school.
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“Collaboration has helped to bring unity to our school
staff.”
—Institute Fellow
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Benefits for Students
The ultimate purpose of the Institute is not only to strengthen teaching
in New Haven’s public schools, but also in this way to improve student
learning throughout the schools. The Institute intends to serve students
at all achievement and performance levels. Fellows often write their units
for students at more than one level. In fact, Fellows reported that they
designed their new curriculum unit for their “least advanced” students
(57 percent) as frequently as they reported that they designed their unit
for their “advanced” students (62 percent).
(picture available in print form)
Fellow Sequella H. Coleman and her students at Fair
Haven Middle School.
These excerpts from the plans of several Fellows illustrate the wide
range of unit use in the schools.
I would like to use my unit to help my students experience
different types of stories and to improve our social studies program. I
hope to read a lot of myths from all cultures during the school year. I
would like to do my unit during Black History month and combine the literature
with the study of Africa.
My unit will enrich our language arts (reading, writing, speaking, listening),
mathematics, social studies and comparison work.
If embraced and implemented by fellow sixth-grade social studies, mathematics,
science and literature teachers, all sixth-grade students will be immersed
and exposed to mythology and opportunities to practice literacy.
(picture available in print form)
Fellow Waltrina Kirkland-Mullins and her student in
the Davis Street Magnet School Center for Curricular and Professional Development.
I intend to follow through in completing my unit with at least
three separate classes of students from the start of the school year. I
anticipate having the three classes share with the rest of the school their
projects created in my art class by the end of the year.
The unit I have written will offer students a variety of approaches
to this topic through mythology, philosophy, history, and creative dramatics,
therefore bolstering their understanding of what they will be learning
in their social studies classes. The unit fits our school plan as well
with regard to its interdisciplinary focus.
Teaching mathematics concepts in conjunction with the entire curriculum
helps students to better appreciate and understand mathematics.
I have been team teaching with math, science, and social studies teachers
for the past three years. As an English teacher I continue to learn the
art of combining disciplines.
My curriculum unit was developed for a course which does not presently
have a published New Haven Public Schools curriculum, and it will be useful
in the development this year of such a curriculum document.
(picture available in print form)
Fellow Paul E. Turtola and his students at the Fair
Haven Middle School.
To attempt to gauge the impact of this year’s units in New Haven classrooms,
we asked Fellows about the number of students to whom they planned to teach
their new unit, and on how many days. Sixty-two of the Fellows planned
to teach their unit to more than 25 students; 30 of that group said that
they would teach their unit to 50 or more students. The total number of
students to be taught a unit by this year’s Fellows is 4,068. Chart 6 indicates
the length of time the Fellows planned to teach the unit. For all Fellows,
the unit is a significant part of their teaching plans.
(Chart 6 available in print form)
Fellows continue to be optimistic about the responses they anticipate
receiving from their students to the material they had studied and developed
in the Institute. Most Fellows this year (77 percent) agreed that, as a
result of Institute participation, they have a higher expectation of their
students’ ability to learn about the seminar subject. More than one-third
of the Fellows (35 percent) strongly agreed with that conclusion. Fellows
spoke about how their own enthusiasm for a subject would motivate students,
and how they planned to involve students more actively in classroom learning.
One Fellow said:
My curriculum unit will be incorporated into the United States
History II course that is required of all eleventh graders. In my past
years of teaching U. S. History, one of my goals was to make history come
alive and be exciting for my students. I have always found visual materials
to be a successful teaching strategy. My seminar reinforced and validated
my belief in the importance of films.
Another Fellow said:
My enthusiasm springs from the fact that I have invested so
much time and energy into creating my curriculum unit and feel very satisfied
with its final form. Also, the content—Egyptian mythology—holds great appeal
for children and I think that it will be an effective springboard for teaching
literacy skills to my young students.
We also asked Fellows who had participated in the Institute in prior years
to report on student responses they had actually observed when teaching
units they had previously developed in the Institute. Their comments were
very much in the same vein. One said: “I noticed that the response from
students was different when they found that I had written the unit with
them in mind. They asked specific questions about the information and for
clarification about any part of the assignment.” Another Fellow said:
I have found that while I may not repeat a whole unit each
year I sometimes take parts of units and reuse them. I have used part of
a unit on architecture while teaching about the culture of different countries.
A few years ago I did a poetry unit and I still try to use parts of it
to introduce poetry to my students. Being in the Institute has also influenced
what others in my grade teach. The students seem to enjoy the units. They
go beyond any textbook and provide topics that the children really get
involved in.
A third Fellow offered a succinct summary of the values discovered in teaching
previous units: “For my students: integrated curriculum to meet individual
needs, more enthusiasm, improved peer relations, improved self-awareness
and achievement in academic as well as social areas.”
(picture available in print form)
Fellow Sequella H. Coleman and her student at Fair
Haven Middle School.
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“All sixth-grade students will be exposed to mythology
and opportunities to practice literacy.”
—Institute Fellow
Most Fellows have a higher expectation of their students’
ability to learn about the seminar subject.
“For my students: integrated curriculum to meet individual
needs, more enthusiasm, improved peer relations, improved self-awareness
and achievement in academic as well as social areas.” —Institute Fellow
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Participants’ Conclusions Overall
We asked Fellows about the extent to which several features of the Institute
had been useful to them. As shown in Chart 7 (reading again left to right
from the most useful to the least useful), very few Fellows said that any
aspect of the Institute had not been useful. In fact, except for the lecture
series, membership in the Yale community, and computer assistance, each
aspect of the Institute was regarded as useful, to a great or moderate
extent, by three-fourths of the Fellows or more. More than half responded
that favorably to the lecture series (59 percent) and to membership in
the Yale community (60 percent).
(Chart 7 available in print form)
One seminar leader reached the following conclusions about the Institute
this year:
Our work has limits: it cannot hope to improve teaching enough
to overcome the difficulties of schools and students plagued by limited
resources and terribly difficult working/living conditions. But it simply
cannot be denied that the seminars increase the teachers’ knowledge, help
build new networks among them and with us, and improve morale and profes
sionalism. I have come increasingly to think that eventually this kind
of relationship between universities and public school systems must become
the norm, with universities becoming working partners in public education
much more than they ever have been. It can’t happen soon enough.
We also asked Fellows to provide their overall conclusions about the strengths
and weaknesses of the Institute. One comment summed up a frequent balance
of views: “The strengths were the people who participated, both from Yale
and from New Haven Public Schools. The only areas I would mention for improvement
are logistical, and perhaps beyond the Institute’s ability to change.”
In general, the content of the Institute’s offerings was received with
enthusiasm, and the results of its program were consistently praised.
In their evaluations, almost all the Fellows said they intended to participate
(77 percent) or might participate (16 percent) in the Institute in one
or more future years. At least four of the five teachers who do not intend
to participate are no longer eligible because they have assumed administrative
positions or have left the school system. Indeed, there are now 35 members
of the administration of the New Haven Public Schools who have participated
as Fellows of the Institute for periods of one to seventeen years. The
increasing presence of former Fellows in positions ranging from Assistant
Principal and Principal to Assistant Superintendent has clearly rendered
the Institute more visible and has encouraged other teachers to participate
in this program.
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“This kind of relationship between universities and
public school systems must become the norm. It can’t happen soon enough.”
—Seminar Leader
The increasing presence of former Fellows in positions
ranging from Assistant Principal and Principal to Assistant Superintendent
has clearly rendered the Institute more visible.
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Electronic Resources and Assistance
From the Institute’s inception, Fellows have been full members of the
Yale community with access to resources throughout the University. For
several years the Institute has been exploring how computing can enhance
its partnership, because computing overcomes the barriers of time and distance
that can impede collaboration, and because it is a non-hierarchical form
of communication and therefore consistent with the collegiality that is
a tenet of the Institute’s approach.
In 1995, Fellows became eligible to purchase Yale computer accounts,
and a number of Fellows now have Internet access provided in this way.
The Institute has also engaged several undergraduate and graduate students
to serve as computer assistants to the Fellows, a role modeled to some
extent on that of the computer assistants in the Yale undergraduate residential
colleges. Computer assistants were available Monday through Friday 9:00
a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Institute’s computer support center. Increasingly,
however, the Institute has referred Fellows to the Internet Information
Center, which serves the entire Yale community. The Yale University Library
also sponsors a series of hands-on computer classes each semester on a
variety of topics, including an overview of the Library’s online services,
an introduction to Netscape, Internet search engines, and subject-specific
Internet workshops. These classes, which are free of charge, take place
in the Electronic Classroom at the Cross Campus Library.
The electronic resources and services available to Fellows therefore
include many opportunities to learn about and use computing, regardless
of previous experience and expertise. In 1998 Fellows received computer
assistance on a variety of topics, which included getting started with
computing, setting up a PPP/e-mail account, getting started on the Internet,
using the Internet in research and teaching, using Institute resources
online, and word processing and file handling for the preparation of curriculum
units. The Institute has also established an online forum for teachers
who are Institute Fellows or who have access to an Institute Center to
discuss Institute-related topics and to help each other with computing
problems. Discussion on the electronic forum goes on over an e-mail list:
any message sent to the list is sent to anyone who subscribes to the list,
creating a kind of group discussion.
In 1998, even more than in the previous year, Fellows were strongly
urged to submit their curriculum units on disk. They were asked to hand
in this disk version directly to an Institute computer assistant, who checked
them for formatting errors and readability. A record 97% of the Fellows
(all but three individuals) turned their units in on disk, and this checking
procedure facilitated the process of putting them online. Almost all followed
our recommendations on word processing software, which simplifies converting
their units for the web site. Because of the benefits to the Fellows and
to other teachers that result from having the curriculum units online,
the Representatives decided that in 1999 all curriculum units must be handed
in on disk.
Almost half of this year’s Fellows (49 percent) took at least some advantage
of the computer assistance available to them through the Institute or through
Yale University. Most who sought help did so in person (45 percent of all
Fellows), some by phone (37 percent), and some by e-mail (25 percent).
For 38 of the Fellows (58 percent) the availability of computer services
was an incentive to their participation.
Most Fellows who did not use the computer assistance said they did not
need it because of their own previously acquired competence, or because
of the availability of resources at home or at school. A few said they
did not do so because of time constraints during the school year, or parking
problems. One Fellow claimed, “My computer skills are so retarded I did
not want to frustrate the instructors.” Those who took advantage of the
assistance, however, were full of praise for the expertise, the patience,
and the persistence of those at the Institute and at Yale’s Internet Information
Center whom they consulted.
One Fellow said, “I would rather do without adequate parking than without
their services. They are invaluable to people like me.” Another said, “The
computer assistants called around campus and found someone to help salvage
the information on my disk once they realized they weren’t able to help
me. Thanks, this has been a wonderful experience for me.”
Overall, of the Fellows who used the computer assistance offered them,
all but three (5 percent) said the assistants were helpful in getting started
with computing. Those who consulted the assistants also found them to be
helpful in setting up e-mail and Internet access (16 percent), in using
the Internet in research and teaching (35 percent), in word processing
and file handling for the preparation of a curriculum unit (32 percent),
and in using the Institute’s curricular resources online (29 percent).
(See Chart 8.)
(Chart 8 available in print form)
Nine staff developers from the New Haven Public Schools, none of whom
had been Institute Fellows, also attended a computer workshop in the Electronic
Classroom, where they were provided with materials relating to the Fellows
program and the Institute Centers. It is hoped that these staff developers
might spread this information to other schools where the Institute Centers
are not currently based.
The Institute has now concluded, however, that with computer assistance
more amply available on campus than in earlier years, and with a much larger
proportion of the Fellows already computer-literate, its own direct assistance
in this area has become less necessary. Perhaps one Fellow may here speak
for many: “I did not use the computer assistance available because assistance
was provided in prior years, so none was needed. Thank you for the generous
assistance of prior years!”
Electronic versions of the Institute’s publications are now available
at its web site. The address is http//teachersinstitute.yale.edu. The full texts
of all 1,172 units written between 1978 and 1998, plus an index and guide
to these units, are thus available to teachers online. Also available are
the full text of the New Haven Public Schools’ recently adopted framework
of curriculum standards, information about the Institute (its brochures
and most recent Annual Reports), and 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.
(image available in print form)
Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute web page located
at /.
The Institute has created a “guestbook” on its web site, in order to
invite comments and suggestions from those who have visited the site. In
recent years the site has been used by an increasing number of people,
in this country and abroad. From the many guestbook entries, it is evident
that the curriculum units written in New Haven have already been of great
use to other teachers. For example, a high school English teacher from
Watertown, NY, wrote: “This is one of the most useful sites I have ever
used.” A junior high school teacher from Bountiful, UT, wrote that one
of the lesson plans on middle school drama was mentioned in their state-wide
e-mail newsletter. A current graduate student in Forest Hill, MD, wrote:
“I have found this web site extremely helpful in completing a graduate
level course in Curriculum and Instruction. . . . Thanks for modeling
a wonderful cooperative learning style!” A college librarian in Boston
wrote: “We are developing online materials for our teachers-in-training,
and will be pointing to your site. I’ve looked at it a little this morning,
and am quite impressed, by the content but also the site itself.” A teacher
from McKinleyville, CA, said, “This is one of the best web sites for teachers
that I have found. . . . Have sent it to at least a hundred colleagues.”
A middle and high school English teacher from Seoul, Korea, wrote: “This
is fantastic.” A teacher in Alexandria, Egypt, wrote: “I have no access
to public libraries and resources—your site is extremely useful to me as
I try to write an entirely new curriculum for the school where I am currently
teaching!” And a teacher from Münster, Germany, wrote: “I really enjoy
reading the publications of the Teachers Institute. They are so very interesting
and help me to get new insights into various topics and teaching methods.
I simply haven’t found anything better on the Internet yet.”
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The Institute has been exploring how computing can
enhance its partnership.
Almost half of this year’s Fellows took at least some
advantage of the computer assistance available to them.
“I did not use the computer assistance available because
assistance was provided in prior years, so none was needed.”
—Institute Fellow
“This is one of the best web sites for teachers that
I have found. . . . Have sent it to at least a hundred colleagues.” —California
Teacher
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Institute Centers for Professional and
Curricular Development
In 1996 the Institute undertook with the New Haven Public Schools a
new program designed to broaden and deepen its efforts to strengthen teaching
and learning in the schools. It offered several elementary, middle, and
high schools the opportunity to establish an Institute Center for Professional
and Curricular Development within their buildings. Five such Centers were
established in 1996. In 1997 two more Centers were opened. In 1998 two
Centers were not renewed and two new Centers were opened. Centers are now
located at seven schools: two elementary schools (L. W. Beecher and Davis
Street Magnet), three middle schools (Roberto Clemente, Fair Haven, and
Jackie Robinson), and two high schools (Career High School and Cooperative
Arts and Humanities High School). Planning is underway for three more Centers
in the near future, at Edgewood Elementary School, Wilbur Cross High School,
and East Rock Global Studies Magnet School.
Funding is now available to support twelve Centers. These Centers are
not permanent installations and must be annually renewed. A Center may
remain in a school so long as the school has a need and a desire for it,
but it can then be moved to another school. Moving Centers from school
to school increases the citywide exposure to the Institute. The Steering
Committee, which makes these decisions, has developed criteria for targeting
sites. A suitable site must be of sufficient size, with a critical mass
of participants and a sufficient leadership. It must be able to rely upon
a favorably disposed school administration and an appropriate school plan,
and it must be located in such a position that the majority of the New
Haven teachers will have a Center at their school or a nearby school.
The Institute and the New Haven Public Schools view the establishment
of Institute Centers as a vital component of curriculum reform efforts
system-wide. The Centers carry out school-based plans and address the District’s
“Kids First” goals, which call for more site-based management, improvement
of curriculum and instruction, greater staff development, increased parental
involvement, and improved physical condition of schools. The Centers directly
address the first three of these goals and provide new opportunities with
respect to the last two. They attempt to create in schools a place that
will be conducive to the kinds of conversations teachers have with each
other and with their Yale colleagues in Institute seminars. They are intended
to increase the visibility and use of Institute resources and include teachers
who have not yet been Institute Fellows. They disseminate Institute-developed
curriculum units more widely, and help the teachers learn how to use curriculum
units that are online, explore computing as a means of collaboration, and
apply the Institute’s principles in new ways within the school environment
itself.
(picture available in print form)
Career High School Center for Curricular and Professional
Development.
The Centers therefore operate from attractive and properly equipped
rooms in the schools themselves, containing special furnishings designed
by Kent Bloomer, Professor of Architectural Design at Yale, who has led
two Institute seminars. Bloomer has designed for each Center two pieces
of furniture that will remind the users that a Center is a way of bringing
teachers together, and that it is a function of the mutual presence of
Yale in the schools and the schools in Yale. Combining utility and symbolism,
these pieces have a solidity and elegance in harmony with the tradition
of design at Yale University, and an evident durability suggestive of the
Institute itself. One piece is a round table, with a hole in the middle,
which provides the “center” about which eight people can sit. The center
of the table is filled with a circular design, the Yale-New Haven Teachers
Institute logo multiplied as a continuous fret, which is done in tile and
set in cast metal for permanence. The second piece is a very high bookcase,
designed to hold volumes of the curriculum units and other Institute materials,
with hand-plated inlay work across the top that carries the same continuous
fret depicting the Institute logo. A banner continues the logo of the fret
into the room. Each Center will also contain at least one computer with
a high-speed modem so that the teachers have easy access to the Institute’s
web site.
Interested schools must apply to the Institute’s Steering Committee
to become a Center site. An application, which requires the involvement
of the school’s principal and management team, must contain an Academic
Plan for the calendar year, describing how the teachers in the Center will
take full advantage of Institute resources while working on school plans
that address the goals of the District. If a school is selected as a Center
site, its Academic Plan must be updated and renewed each year.
Schools selected as Center sites become eligible to receive special
resources and incentives from the Institute. These incentives, which are
outlined in the Center booklet, assist with the Center’s development as
well as the implementation of its Academic Plan. The Centers or Institute
Fellows at Center schools may apply for mini-grants from the Institute
to implement approved aspects of their Center Academic Plan. During 1998
the Centers were supported by grants received in 1995 from the Sherman
Fairchild Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation (for high school
Centers) and in 1997 from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund (for new Centers).
The Institute has developed a standard format (Center logs) for all
Centers to use in documenting activities. In previous years Center Coordinators
met monthly with the Institute’s Director to review the activities of Centers
and report on progress. In 1998 the Steering Committee decided to establish
collaborative leadership at each Center, so that responsibility would be
more widely shared and continuity could be more easily assured. The members
of the Coordinating Team share responsibilities for leading certain efforts
within the Center, including documentation. Team members complete the required
mid-year and end-of-year reports and are encouraged to document their Center’s
work in a variety of ways, including video and audio tapes, photographs,
and minutes of meetings.
At the request of Center Coordinating Teams, the monthly meetings with
Center Coordinators were replaced in 1998 by two Forums on Exemplary Practices
and Plans. A lively discussion among the teachers and staff members occurred
at each Forum, with many details about plans and practices being exchanged.
The Forum held on April 8 considered a variety of topics, with presentations
by Center leaders on activities at their schools. Peter Herndon and Tony
Magaraci spoke on Collaborative Leadership of Centers, Francine Coss on
Computing and Electronic Resources, Sloane Williams and Tony Magaraci on
Interdisciplinary Planning, Sequella Coleman on Curriculum Development
Activities, Alan Frishman and Carolyn Kinder on Academies and Other Work
Directly with Students, and Jean Sutherland on Integrating Center Activities.
(picture available in print form)
Institute Forum on Exemplary Practices and Plans (From
left: Fellows Alan K. Frishman, Peter N. Herndon, and Anthony F. Magaraci.)
At the Forum held on December 15, 1998, some of the same topics were
continued, but there were also presentations by Sheldon Ayers on attracting
teachers to the Center, Jean Sutherland on using formal teams, Waltrina
Kirkland-Mullins on using informal teams, Francine Coss on identifying
units related to school courses for K-8 teachers, and Mary Stewart on K-8
interdisciplinary thematic units.
We mention here some of the accomplishments and plans at specific Centers
during 1998. At Beecher Elementary School, teams of teachers have taken
an Institute seminar every year since 1995, and the planning for and presentation
of the culminating activity continues to involve a great number of Beecher
teachers, students, administrators, support staff, and parents. In 1997-98,
a team of teachers attended Robert D. Johnston’s seminar on the “Use and
Abuse of History in Film and Video” and then worked with their students
toward a culminating program held on April 17, which was attended by about
four hundred people. A mini-grant was awarded to a first-grade teacher
at Beecher for the development of a play, “Queen Esther,” a project that
grew out of a unit on traditional Jewish holidays that was part of an earlier
team effort. At Beecher another team of three teachers received a mini-grant
from the Institute in summer 1998 to identify, classify, and summarize
Institute-developed curriculum units that could be used by elementary teachers
not only in their own school, but also by teachers throughout the district.
The team hopes to complete this ambitious project in summer 1999, and results
will be made available to all teachers at New Haven elementary schools,
whether or not those schools have an Institute Center. In January the entire
faculty of Beecher Elementary School also attended a computer workshop
in the Electronic Classroom of the Cross Campus Library.
At Fair Haven Middle School, the goal established by the new Center
last year was to adapt Institute curriculum units to curricular areas identified
as important by the school’s new “curriculum map,” which emphasizes teamwork
and integration across disciplines. Fair Haven’s teachers have made good
use of the Center this year to meet and develop new curriculum based on
Institute units. On May 7, 1998, twenty-one students from Fair Haven attended
a two-and-a-half hour computer workshop in the Electronic Classroom, where
they were introduced to doing research on the World Wide Web. The school’s
1999 Academic plan is to use Institute resources to prepare curricular
units that align Fair Haven’s curriculum with the school’s and district’s
literacy goals.
At Davis Street Magnet School, following the Beecher example, two of
the teachers enrolled as an informal team in Jules D. Prown’s seminar,
“Arts and Artifacts: The Cultural Meaning of Objects,” and coordinated
studies of Native American and African-American cultures that involved
mask-making. When they taught their curriculum units, all of the second-grade
classes were brought in, along with the first-grade class. The art teacher
and music instructor also worked closely with the project, and several
teachers in the fourth and fifth-grades expressed an interest in developing
it with their students in the next school year. The Institute’s web site
was also demonstrated at a workshop during April at this school. In 1999
Davis hopes to extend use of the Center to teachers from neighboring schools.
At Jackie Robinson Middle School, two fifth-grade teachers and one seventh-grade
teacher designed and planned an extended day program from October 1997
to May 1998. The goal was to help improve students’ learning by using curriculum
units that were related to the Curriculum Framework document. The teachers
used parts of curriculum units to work with students on their reading and
writing, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. As a result, members
of the School Planning and Management Team designed a ten-day summer program
for fifth-grade students to continue their work on their literacy skills.
A summer academy was also planned for eighth-graders who would be attending
Hillhouse High School but was cancelled because of renovations at Hillhouse.
(picture available in print form)
Fellow Jeanne Z. Lawrence with her student in the Davis
Street Magnet School Institute Center for Curricular and Professional Development.
At Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School the focus of the Center
was upon interdisciplinary work in the arts, humanities, history, and mathematics.
In April the Institute’s web site was demonstrated in a workshop at this
school. Coop faculty received a grant to plan during summer 1998 a number
of activities: a week-long Open House demonstrating selected curriculum
units; Multi-Cultural Days with a series of events involving several academic
and arts departments; a formal assessment process; and the identification
of African-American and Latin American units for history teachers to integrate
into their World Cultures course, including student projects that would
enable art teachers and history teachers to work together in this course.
A school-wide “Hispanic Cultures Week” was held in November, 1998. Institute
curriculum units were part of the planning for classroom activities, which
featured Latin American cultures, histories, foods, literature, inventions,
and scientific discoveries. The Multi-Cultural Days will also include “Renaissance
Days” and “African-American Celebration Days,” and a celebration on an
Asian or Native American theme in the spring of 1999. Mini-grants were
awarded to Coop teachers for efforts to identify and use Institute units
on writing biography and for the development by arts and academic faculty
members of interdisciplinary curricula. A team from academic areas and
the arts met regularly through the fall to identify existing curriculum
units that integrate arts and academics and develop ways to support teachers’
efforts to use these units. The entire staff has also benefited from interdisciplinary
seminars held during the fall of 1998 at the Yale Repertory Theatre, the
Yale Art Gallery, the British Art Center, and the Peabody Museum.
At Edgewood Magnet School, a new Center will support the continued use
of Institute curriculum units as primary resources for teacher-based research
and curriculum writing. As part of the process of planning the Center,
teachers from Edgewood were brought to the Electronic Classroom for a workshop
on the use of computers. Though only two teachers at this school have been
Fellows, all teachers are now consulting Institute units and using the
Center collaboratively to plan curricula for a new program, “What if .
. . Dual Perspectives on History.” A group of twelve Edgewood teachers
and their assistant principal used Yale’s Electronic Classroom to research
Institute curriculum units online for this program. Based on Howard Gardner’s
theory of multiple intelligences, it will give students the opportunity
to explore, through literature, dance, drama, storytelling, music, and
writing, different cultures that have experienced a radical event that
changed history. The goal of “Dual Perspectives on History” is to improve
students’ ability to understand, appreciate, and celebrate cultural difference
and improve their critical thinking skills.
At East Rock Global Studies Magnet School, a new Center being planned
hopes to offer after-school workshops for teachers and Saturday Academies
for students, parents, and community members. Although there was no large-scale
Summer Academy in 1998, the curriculum developed for the 1997 Summer Academy
has been refined and is being used in classrooms and extended day programs
in several schools.
The planned Center at Wilbur Cross High School is located in one of
New Haven’s two comprehensive high schools, which has a large faculty,
most of whom have not been Institute Fellows. There is a need here for
teacher professional development. The goal of this Center for 1999 is to
introduce the teaching staff to Institute resources and to give them opportunities
to research, write, and implement curriculum based on those resources and
geared to the interests, abilities, and needs of their students. Members
of Wilbur Cross’s Coordinating Team are beginning a two-year process of
assessing areas where teachers’ interests intersect with Institute curriculum
units. In the fall of 1999, a member of the Coordinating Team plans to
interview each special education teacher and then research and print appropriate
units. Interviews with all science teachers will follow. As a first step,
the Center at Wilbur Cross will conduct workshops, department by department,
to ensure that every teacher is familiar with Institute resources they
might use in their teaching.
|
In Centers, teachers use Institute resources to implement
school plans that address district goals.
The Institute and the New Haven Public Schools view
the establishment of Institute Centers as a vital component of curriculum
reform efforts system-wide .
A Center is a way of bringing teachers together, and
a function of the mutual presence of Yale in the schools and the schools
in Yale.
A lively discussion among the teachers occurred at
each Forum, with many details about plans and practices being exchanged.
The goal established by the new Center last year was
to adapt Institute curriculum units to curricular areas identified as important
by the school’s new “curriculum map.”
The goal was to help improve students’ learning by
using curriculum units that were related to the Curriculum Framework document.
A new Center will support the continued use of Institute
curriculum units as primary resources for teacher-based research and curriculum
writing.
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Preparation for the Program in 1999
From June through August the Institute identified and approached the
60 teachers who would serve during the 1998-1999 school year as the 20
Representatives and 40 Contacts for their schools. (70 teachers had served
in these ways during 1997-1998.) Representatives were selected according
to recommendations of the teachers who served as seminar Coordinators and
conversations they had with persons who had served as Representatives in
the past, with other Institute Fellows, and with some school principals.
Because the Representatives who served in 1997-1998 were widely regarded
as effective, we sought a high degree of continuity of Representatives.
In 1997-1998, the Representatives and Contacts were well distributed
across New Haven schools with 33 (47 percent) representing elementary schools,
17 (24 percent) representing middle schools, 15 (21 percent) representing
high schools, and 5 (7 percent) representing transitional schools. For
1998-1999, there was a rather similar distribution, with 26 (43 percent)
representing elementary schools, 15 (25 percent) representing middle schools,
15 (25 percent) representing high schools, and 4 (7 percent) representing
transitional schools. Whether or not they had a Representative, all schools
had one or more Contacts to serve as a conduit for information to and from
the Institute throughout the school year. Representatives attend meetings
every other week from September to March, receive an honorarium for this
work, and agree in advance to participate in the program they are planning.
Contacts perform many of the same functions but are not required to participate
in biweekly meetings or to commit themselves to Institute participation.
Through the Representatives and Contacts, the Institute ensures that all
teachers throughout the school district may have an effective voice in
shaping a program of curricular and staff development in which they will
then have the opportunity to take part.
(picture available in print form)
School Representatives meeting. (Left to right: Fellows
Luis A. Recalde, Mary Stewart, and Susan L. Norwood.)
The Representatives held their first meeting of the new school year
on September 22, 1998, and thereafter met twice monthly with the Director.
On September 29, the Institute held a reception for Representatives and
Contacts, so that they might become better acquainted with one another
and might discuss plans for 1998-1999. That meeting set the stage for another
productive year of their work together. Between meetings, the Representatives
communicate by phone and through school visits with the Contacts for whom
they serve as liaison to the Representatives’ committee. In these ways,
their meetings compile information from, and distribute information to,
teachers throughout the New Haven elementary, middle, and high schools.
By the end of December the Representatives had approved the following
seven seminars for 1999: Laura M. Green, Assistant Professor of English,
“Women’s Voices in Fiction”; J. Michael McBride, Professor of Chemistry,
“How Do You Know? The Experimental Basis for Chemical Knowledge”; Mary
Miller, Vincent J. Scully Professor of History of Art, “Art and Identity
in Mexico, from the Olmec to Modern Times”; Rogers M. Smith, Professor
of Political Science, “Immigration and American Life”; John P. Wargo, Associate
Professor of Environmental Risk Analysis and Policy, “Human-Environmental
Relations”; Robert G. Wheeler, Harold Hodgkinson Professor Emeritus of
Engineering and Applied Science, “Electronics in the 20th Century”; and
Robin W. Winks, Randolph W. Townsend, Jr., Professor of History, “Detective
Fiction: Its Use as Literature and as History.”
|
Through the Representatives and Contacts, the Institute
ensures that all teachers throughout the school district may have an effective
voice in shaping a program in which they will have the opportunity to take
part.
|
Local Advisory Groups
Steering Committee
The Steering Committee, composed of school teachers who have played
leading roles in the Institute at various times since its inception, has
responsibility for long-range planning and the implementation of pilot
and other new activities of the Institute. Members of the Steering Committee
are selected by the Institute Director. A Steering Committee member must
be—and must intend to continue as—a teacher in one of New Haven’s public
schools. By agreeing to serve as a Steering Committee member, a teacher
accepts the following responsibilities. Each member:
1. Exerts leadership and participates actively in one or more
of the following areas: establishment and development of Institute Centers
for Professional and Curriculum Development in specific schools; preparation
of system-wide curricula drawing on Institute curriculum units; development
and use of electronic resources and communications; planning and conduct
of after-school, Saturday, and summer Academies for teaching Institute
units to New Haven students; conduct of interdisciplinary or intergrade
teamwork in specific schools; and organization and provision of technical
assistance to Teacher Institute demonstration sites in other cities.
2. Attends and comes prepared to meetings twice monthly and takes professional
days when needed to carry out these responsibilities.
3. Participates as an Institute Fellow in the spring and summer following
selection as a Steering Committee member.
During the first half of 1998 the Steering Committee consisted of Peter
N. Herndon, Carolyn N. Kinder, and Jean E. Sutherland. At mid-year, when
Kinder moved to an administrative position, Pedro Mendia and Mary Stewart
joined the committee. The Steering Committee constituted itself as teacher
leaders for each sphere of Teachers Institute work. It also assumed responsibility
for leadership of the Centers. It decided that Centers should have Coordinating
Teams rather than individual Coordinators. It dealt with the documentation
of Center use and activity, the relations with the school district and
with principals, and the strategy for locating the next three Centers.
It considered applications to renew or establish Institute Centers, and
it planned the two Forums for the Centers that were held in April and December.
It also took on the important responsibility of reviewing teacher leadership
across the board—reviewing all former Fellows to identify leadership potential
for specific roles.
The Steering Committee provided very important assistance in planning
and carrying out the July Intensive for those sites awarded planning grants
in the National Demonstration Project. It served as an admissions committee
for the National Seminars and as contacts with the National Fellows before
arrival; and it met with the National Steering Committee in July. It also
assisted in planning the January 1999 orientation for those sites awarded
Implementation Grants. It canvassed teachers at the demonstration sites
for their seminar choices for the July Intensive and planned for topics
to cover in the January Orientation Session and for teachers to present
those topics.
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The Steering Committee has responsibility for long-range
planning.
The Steering Committee provided important assistance
in planning the July Intensive for sites in the National Demonstration
Project.
|
University Advisory Council
Yale faculty members advise and assist the Institute through the University
Advisory Council and its Executive Committee, both appointed by the Yale
President. The Advisory Council guides the general direction of the program
and acts as a course-of-study committee so that the Institute can certify
Fellows’ work to institutions where they may be pursuing advanced degrees.
The Council also advises the Yale President on the Institute and, more
generally, on matters concerning the University’s involvement with the
schools locally and with public elementary and secondary education nationally.
The University Advisory Council meets once each year; the Executive
Committee meets twice or more each semester. The co-chairs of the Council
meet and communicate frequently with the Director between meetings. Members
of the Executive Committee and the Steering Committee meet jointly from
time to time to share information about their respective activities and
to explore appropriate ways of working together.
(picture available in print form)
University Advisory Council meeting. (From left: Richard
C. Levin, Sabatino Sofia, H. Catherine W. Skinner, Traugott Lawler, Gary
L. Haller, Brigitte Peucker, Bryan J. Wolf, Rogers M. Smith, Robert A.
Burt, Jules D. Prown, James R. Vivian, Thomas R. Whitaker, Gilbert M. Joseph,
Jon Butler, Mary E. Miller, and Patricia Pessar.)
During 1998 the Executive Committee met in February, April, May, October,
and December. These meetings concerned priorities and plans for the Institute’s
work locally and nationally. The following issues received most attention:
a continuing effort with the assistance of the Yale President to complete
an adequate endowment for the Institute; strategies for building an adequate
science endowment for the Institute; and the establishment of the National
Demonstration Project. The Executive Committee also approved the Institute
seminars for 1998. The Executive Committee also spent a good deal of time
thinking about appropriate new members for the University Advisory Council.
(picture available in print form)
President Emeritus Howard R. Lamar and President Richard
C. Levin at the University Advisory Council meeting.
On April 22, the full University Advisory Council held its fifth annual
meeting with President Levin. The 5-year terms of the members are staggered;
but because at this time many initial 5-year terms had expired, more new
members were added than usual. The new members are: Bruce D. Alexander,
ex officio; Scott B. Bennett, ex officio; Murray Biggs; Edward
S. Cooke, Jr.; Shelia de Bretteville; Margot Fassler; Susan Hockfield,
ex officio; Frederic L. Holmes; J. Michael McBride; Leon B. Plantinga;
Jock Reynolds, ex officio; Deborah G. Thomas; Gerald E. Thomas;
Robert J. Wyman; Michael E . Zeller; and Kurt W. Zilm.
Co-chair Jules D. Prown opened the meeting by welcoming the members
and saying that, after a brief Director’s report on the progress of the
Institute in New Haven and the establishment of the National Demonstration
Project, the meeting would focus on two topics: a report by Thomas R. Whitaker
on the Request for Proposals that had been mailed to twenty-nine colleges
and universities representing fourteen potential demonstration sites and
on the planning grants to be awarded in 1998 to five or six sites; and
an Executive Committee report offered by Jules D. Prown on financial planning
for continuing the New Haven Institute at an undiminished level.
James R. Vivian, in reporting on the progress of the Institute in New
Haven, summarized the placing of the Institute’s resources on the Internet,
the renewal of four Centers for Professional and Curricular Development
and the opening of three new Centers, the conducting of the third summer
Academy, and the continuing high interest by teachers in the Institute’s
core program of seminars and curriculum unit development. (These matters
are set forth in greater detail in the Annual Report for 1997.) He also
summarized the planning grant awarded in 1997 by the DeWitt Wallace-Reader’s
Digest Fund that allowed the Institute to examine the feasibility of, and
develop criteria for, a four-year National Demonstration Project. He reported
that the Fund had announced on March 24 that they were awarding Yale $2.5
million to carry out the project. He emphasized the Institute’s concern
that the National Demonstration Project should strengthen, not lessen,
its effectiveness in New Haven. He also outlined the process now underway
through which certain institutions would receive Planning Grants for the
National Demonstration Project. (These matters are set forth in greater
detail in the second part of the Annual Report for 1998.) “In short,” he
said, “after twenty years in operation, the Institute has completed a six-year
phase of intensifying its efforts in New Haven and is now on the threshold
of a four-year project to demonstrate how its approach may be adapted to
establish similarly effective university-school partnerships in other cities.”
(picture available in print form)
University Advisory Council meeting. (From left: Jon
Butler, Mary E. Miller, and Patricia Pessar.)
Thomas R. Whitaker then presented the Request for Proposals for demonstration
sites. He noted that this document was recently presented to the National
Advisory Committee, which had expressed pleasure in the progress being
made and had discussed most fully the question of how to select the appropriate
sites. He then invited the Council’s advice for the National Panel, which
will be making these recommendations. Discussion focused on the costs and
potential benefits to the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, and on the
outcomes to be demonstrated by any selected sites.
Jules D. Prown then reported for the Executive Committee concerning
its recent meeting with President Levin on fund-raising and the need for
maintaining seven seminars in the local program. These questions received
vigorous discussion from members of the Council, who affirmed the importance
of maintaining at least seven seminars each year and offered a number of
suggestions for seeking funding from corporations in the area.
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“After twenty years in operation, the Institute has
completed a six-year phase of intensifying its efforts in New Haven and
is now on the threshold of a four-year project to demonstrate how its approach
may be adapted to establish similarly effective university-school partnerships
in other cities.”
—James R. Vivian
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Local Program Documentation and
Evaluation
Many evaluations of the Teachers Institute demonstrate that it assists
schools in specific ways, and that the results are cumulative. (See especially
A Progress Report on Surveys Administered to New Haven Teachers, 1982-1990
[New Haven: Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, 1992].) In the fall of 1998,
the Institute updated its ongoing study of New Haven teachers who have
been Fellows in terms of the proportion of eligible teachers from each
New Haven school and department who have participated, the number of times
Fellows have completed the program, and whether Fellows have remained in
teaching in New Haven. This study showed that, of the 407 New Haven teachers
who have completed the program successfully at least once between 1978
and 1998, three-fifths (61%) are currently teaching in New Haven. An additional
thirty-five (8%) have assumed full-time administrative posts in the school
system. Thus more than two-thirds (69%) of all Fellows since 1978 are currently
working in New Haven Public Schools. These statistics are particularly
encouraging because of the Institute’s determination to involve individuals
who will continue to serve students in our urban school district. As we
noted earlier, the increasing presence of former Fellows in administrative
positions has rendered the Institute more visible and has encouraged other
teachers to participate in its program.
Table 2
Institute Fellows as a Percentage of Eligible
New Haven Elementary School Teachers
Kindergarten |
5%
|
Grade 1 |
11%
|
Grade 2 |
9%
|
Grade 3 |
13%
|
Grade 4 |
15%
|
Grade 5 |
19%
|
Total K - 5* |
15%
|
*Includes non-graded arts and special education teachers
and
librarians and curriculum coordinators.
As Table 2 shows, a considerable number of current elementary school
teachers (15 percent) have completed successfully at least one year of
the Institute. (Elementary school teachers were first admitted in 1990.)
As Table 3 shows, 35 percent of New Haven high school teachers of subjects
in the humanities and sciences, 22 percent of transitional school teachers,
and 34 percent of middle school teachers have also done so. A number of
teachers have participated for two to nineteen years. Of those Fellows
still teaching in New Haven 35 percent have participated in the Institute
once, 36 percent either two or three times, and 29 percent between four
and twelve times. On the other hand, of those Institute Fellows who have
left the New Haven school system, 58 percent completed the program only
once, and 30 percent took part two or three times. Only nineteen Fellows
who have left (12 percent) completed the program four or more times. Thus,
the Institute’s cumulative influence in the New Haven school system and
its likely effects upon retaining teachers are indicated by the fact that
it has worked in the most sustained way with those who have chosen to remain
teaching in New Haven Public Schools.
Table 3
Institute Fellows as a Percentage of Eligible
New Haven Secondary School Teachers
|
Middle Schools |
High Schools |
Transitional Centers |
Overall |
English |
45%
|
35%
|
0%
|
37%
|
History |
33%
|
35%
|
0%
|
31%
|
Language |
18%
|
24%
|
0%
|
21%
|
Arts |
39%
|
29%
|
0%
|
35%
|
Math |
17%
|
30%
|
40%
|
26%
|
Science |
50%
|
27%
|
20%
|
34%
|
Grade 5* |
4%
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
4%
|
Grade 6 |
17%
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
17%
|
Grade 7 |
27%
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
27%
|
Grade 8 |
27%
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
27%
|
Total** |
34%
|
35%
|
22%
|
34%
|
*Grade 5 teachers are included here only for middle schools; grade
5 teachers in elementary schools are reported in Table 2.
**Includes teachers of interdisciplinary and other subjects.
n/a = not applicable
In 1996 members of the National Advisory Committee suggested that the
Institute engage in fuller documentation of its work beyond the seminars
themselves, and of the wider effects of its program in the school system.
They believed they were hearing from teachers and staff about many valuable
results of the Institute’s work that should be documented in forms that
could be made more widely available. The Institute is therefore now documenting
more fully the work of teams in the schools, the activities of the Centers
and Academies, and the development of electronic resources. This documentation
has been summarized in earlier sections of this report. |
More than two-thirds of all Fellows since 1978 are
currently working in New Haven Public Schools.
The Institute has worked in the most sustained way
with those who have chosen to remain in teaching in the New Haven Public
Schools.
|
© 1999 by the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute |