Strengthening education
Delaware Teachers Institute expands its reach to Kent, Sussex
2:15 p.m., Sept. 29, 2015--The Delaware Teachers Institute, a one-of-a-kind partnership between the University of Delaware and several public school districts in the state designed to strengthen teaching and learning, has expanded to include districts from southern Delaware for the first time.
Nine teachers from Delaware participated in a program of intensive, content-based seminars during the summer, creating curriculum units to be implemented during the school year.
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The institute is part of the renowned Yale National Initiative to Strengthen Teaching in Public Schools, which brings participating teachers to New Haven, Connecticut, each July to take part in seminars led by Yale University faculty members. The program aims to build teachers’ content knowledge and improve teaching methods, particularly for those working in underserved, high-needs schools.
Other institutes from around the United States affiliated with the Yale initiative involve partnerships between one university and a single school district. Delaware’s is unique in its partnership with multiple districts.
The Delaware Teachers Institute (DTI) began in 2011 when UD partnered with five school districts in New Castle County. Part of the College of Arts and Sciences, DTI offers seminars to K-12 teachers on subjects that teachers have requested in the sciences and humanities.
“Teachers in the school districts select topics that they feel are necessary to improve teaching in their classrooms, and professors from UD design and deliver content-based seminars based on teacher needs,” said John Bartley, DTI’s interim director and an associate professor of biology in the Associate in Arts Program.
The teacher-fellows who take part in either the local seminars in Delaware or the national ones at Yale publish their work on the Yale National website and on the DTI website, Bartley said.
During summer 2015, five of the nine Delaware teachers who were fellows at the national seminars were from Kent or Sussex counties. Support for DTI’s expansion was provided by the state Department of Education.
The 2015 national fellows and their districts are: Barbara Prillaman and Michelle Hilbeck, both from Red Clay Consolidated; Joseph Parrett, Colonial; Elizabeth Terlecki, Christina/Colonial; Quinn Jacobs and Corryn Nicodemski, Cape Henlopen; Melissa Grise, Indian River; and Ray Ott and Teresa Rush, Polytech.
Three UD professors also participated in the intensive summer session at Yale, learning how to conduct the local seminars based on the national model. This school year, four UD faculty members are offering seminars to more than 60 teacher fellows from the New Castle County districts, many of them UD graduates, with support from the University, the districts and the state education department.
The seminars are: "Things That Happen in Fiction," taught by David Teague, professor of English in the Associate in Arts Program; “Varieties of Censorship" by Eric Rise, associate professor of sociology and criminal justice; "Organisms — Adaptations for Survival in Aquatic Environments" by Bartley; and "Mathematical Proof and Reasoning" by Jinfa Cai, professor of mathematical sciences.
Because of DTI’s unique design and rapid expansion, the institute has been selected to make a panel presentation at a national gathering of educators, district superintendents and university presidents and provosts at Yale at the end of October, Bartley said.
Because the institutes target districts with schools that have significant numbers of underrepresented and low-income students, he said, representatives from the White House will also attend.
Article by Ann Manser
Photo courtesy of the Yale National Initiative to Strengthen Teaching in Public Schools