Public School Teachers Named Yale National Fellows

Lead Development of Teachers Institutes for High-Poverty Schools

The national seminar on "Microbes Rule!" July 2014. (From left to right: National Fellow Vanessa Vitug, San José; seminar leader Paul E. Turner; National Fellows Valerie J. Schwarz, Richmond; and Jolene R. Smith, Diné Nation.)

Sixty-three public school teachers from sixteen school districts in eight states and the District of Columbia 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®.

Forty-nine of the teachers, named 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, AZ and NM; the District of Columbia; Pittsburgh, PA; Richmond, VA; San José, CA; and Tulsa, OK. Other National Fellows come from existing Teachers Institutes located in New Castle County, DE; New Haven, CT; and Philadelphia, PA. Overall, nearly two thirds of the National Fellows are participating in national seminars for the first time.

The purposes of the 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 fosters 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 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 2016 seminars, which begin on April 29 and conclude in mid-August, are:

  • “Contemporary American Indian History,” led by Ned Blackhawk, Professor of History and American Studies;
  • “Energy Sciences,” led by Gary W. Brudvig, Professor of Chemistry;
  • “Why Literature Matters,” led by Janice Carlisle, Professor of English;
  • “The Number Line in the Common Core,” led by Roger E. Howe, Professor of Mathematics;
  • “ ‘Over the Rainbow’: Fantasy Lands, Dream Worlds, and Magic Kingdoms,” led by Joseph R. Roach, Sterling Professor of English and Professor of African American Studies, of American Studies, and of Theater Studies; and
  • “Making Sense of Evolution,” 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 11 and 22, 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 28-29.

One National Fellow will serve as the Coordinator for each seminar. The Coordinators are: Carol P. Boynton of New Haven, Connecticut; Barbara A. Prillaman of New Castle County, Delaware; Sara Stillman of the Bay Area, California; Valerie J. Schwarz of Richmond, Virginia; Vanessa Vitug of San José, California; and Krista B. Waldron of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The Yale National Initiative to strengthen teaching in public schools, now in its twelfth year, is a long-term endeavor to influence public policy on teacher professional development, in part by establishing exemplary Teachers Institutes for high-poverty, high-minority schools in states around the country. These Institutes follow the approach developed in New Haven and implemented in other cities.

Teachers Institutes are educational partnerships between universities and school districts designed to strengthen teaching and learning in a community’s high-need public schools. 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.

Yale National Initiative®, Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute®, and League of Teachers Institutes® are registered trademarks of Yale University.