Public School Teachers Named Yale National Fellows

Sixty-one public school teachers from seventeen school districts in nine states have been chosen to participate in national seminars and an Intensive Session as part of the Yale National Initiative to strengthen teaching in public schools®.

Thirty six of the Yale National Fellows are from school districts that are planning or exploring the establishment of a new Teachers Institute for the Bay Area, CA, Chicago, IL; the Diné Nation; Richmond, VA; San José, CA; and Tulsa, OK. Other National Fellows come from Teachers Institutes that are members of the League of Teachers Institutes® located in Charlotte, NC; New Castle County, DE; New Haven, CT; Philadelphia, PA; and Pittsburgh, PA. Overall, half of the National Fellows are participating for the first time.

The purposes of the national seminars are to provide public school teachers deeper knowledge of the subjects they teach and first-hand experience with the Teachers Institute approach to high-quality professional development. This increases their leadership in an existing Teachers Institute or prepares them to lead the development of a new Teachers Institute. Each teacher writes a curriculum unit to teach his or her students what they learn about the seminar subject and to share with other teachers in their school district and, over the Internet, with teachers anywhere. The curriculum units implement academic standards of the teachers’ school districts and assist the teachers in engaging and educating the students in their school courses.

The 2014 seminars, which begin on May 2 and conclude in mid-August, are:

• "Understanding History and Society through Images, 1776-1914," led by Timothy J. Barringer, Professor of History of Art;
• "Playing with Poems: Rules, Tools, and Games," led by Langdon L. Hammer, Professor of English;
• "Immigration and Migration and the Making of a Modern American City," led by Mary T. Y. Lui, Professor of History and of American Studies;
• "Eloquence," led by Joseph R. Roach, Sterling Professor of Theater and Professor of English, of African American Studies, and of American Studies;
• "Place Value, Fractions, and Algebra: Improving Content Learning through the Practice Standards," led by Roger E. Howe, Professor of Mathematics; and
• "Microbes Rule," led by Paul E. Turner, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Participants in the two-week Intensive Session in July, who live on the Yale campus, will include not only the Yale National Fellows but also college and university faculty members who have led or may lead local Teachers Institute seminars at partner colleges and universities around the country. Between July 7 and 18, Fellows will attend daily seminar meetings and will confer individually with their seminar leader. Superintendents and other local school officials will accompany the National Fellows when they return to Yale for the Annual Conference on October 31-November 1.

One National Fellow will serve as the Coordinator for each seminar. The Coordinators are: Carol P. Boynton and Crecia Cipriano of New Haven; Sydney H. Coffin of Philadelphia; Barbara A. Prillaman and Nancy Rudolph of New Castle County, Delaware; and Valerie J. Schwarz of Richmond, Virginia.

The Yale National Initiative to strengthen teaching in public schools, now in its tenth year, is a long-term endeavor to influence public policy on teacher professional development, in part by establishing exemplary Teachers Institutes for high-need schools in states around the country. Following the approach developed in New Haven and implemented in other cities, it builds upon the success of a four-year National Demonstration Project.

Teachers Institutes are educational partnerships between universities and school districts designed to strengthen teaching and learning in a community’s high-need public schools. The League of Teachers Institutes is an alliance that advances their work locally and nationally. Evaluations have shown that the Institute approach exemplifies the characteristics of high-quality teacher professional development, enhances teacher quality in the ways known to improve student achievement, and encourages participants to remain in teaching in their schools.