Teachers as Scholars

Project manager:

Brodie Miles

Email:

bmiles@winchesterps.org

School:

High School

Telephone:

781-721-7020

Additional applicant:

Name:

N/A

School:

N/A

Telephone:

N/A

Type of Grant:

Collaborative

Curriculum:

Art

Tranning date:

Provided throughout the school year.

Grant proposal

Summary:

Teachers as Scholars is designed, “to invigorate teachers & inspire their classrooms. TAS’s professional development program reconnects teachers to their intellectual lives, and they return to their students inspired by the power of ideas.” Their seminars are able to provide highly regarded faculty, “from such institutions as Harvard, Boston University, MIT, Brandeis, Dartmouth, Tufts, Williams, and Babson. The seminars provide teachers with the opportunity to discuss and reflect on scholarly issues with their colleagues and to reconnect to ideas, reminding them of the excitement of learning, the reason many became teachers in the first place.” This ability to ignite passion in teachers and to reinvigorate them is what is special about TAS. We routinely have to run a lottery as demand for spots in the program is so high, because teachers feel that the courses are worth investing their time in. Teachers get a high end educational experience, akin to a mini-university level class, where the ideas involved can be inspiring, and where the value is very practical in the sense of what they can bring back to the classroom. TAS has been, and is an innovative leader in professional development. Usually, most professional development is done over the course of two hours, while TAS courses allow for two full days of discussion and enrichment allowing teachers to fully immerse themselves in the ideas and topics of their class.

GRANT DETAILS

Educational Issue:

The diversity of courses offered by TAS is its strength. It provides content specific courses, for English, History, Math and Science, taught by experts in their field, rather than generalized professional development offered by the district. Content and approaches to subjects have moved forward since most teachers were in college, and having professors from leading universities who are on the cutting edge of thinking about their subjects is beneficial to classroom teachers and support staff. TAS addresses multiple district goals: establishing and sustaining regular collaborative meetings of educators, sharing effective and innovative practices, focusing on inquiry, and creating respectful, inclusive learning spaces. The range of topics is inspiring for educators, allowing them to explore subject matter through a new lens. Just this year teachers from Winchester took classes on:

Women, Work, and Success in American Film
Seven Wonders: Finding Ourselves in the Universe
Using Young Adult Literature for Teaching Social Justice
Race, Citizenship, and the “Making” of American History
Geospatial Explorations: Learn to Map Data with GIS
Bringing Horticulture to the Classroom
The Evolution of the Mind
Thinking Through Art at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The Graphic Novel
Women and the Supreme Court
Behind the Scenes at the Huntington Theatre
Sports Analytics in the Mainstream: What’s Established, What’s Emerging, and the Relationship to Legalized Sports Betting
Sketchbook Journaling: Mixed Media Painting and Drawing Techniques

Goals & Outcomes:

Teachers routinely use what they learn in their seminars and bring teaching techniques, ideas for lessons, and sometimes entire works to their classes. Inspired by TAS, the entire English Department has attended the Thinking through Art seminar at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and implemented their concept of Visual Thinking Strategies into the classroom, as have (of course!) our art teachers who have attended the seminar.

One teacher this year has stated, “I teach the only theater classes at Winchester High School, and it is so valuable for me to be able to stay relevant on how theaters are operating in 2024, especially post-COVID. These performances have inspired me to talk with my students about theater careers and encourage them to attend theater as well.”

Another stated, “My Spanish 5 class learns language, culture, and history from watching films, so this prepared me to be able to look critically at the portrayal of women in the Spanish-speaking world and the reality of their daily life.”
Another is inspired to teach the play Fat Ham alongside its inspiration, Hamlet. This past year, the novella Binti was introduced to the WHS English curriculum in The Hero’s Journey class at WHS because of a teacher attending TAS, as was material for the new Women’s Studies course.

This kind of professional development is focused on ideas, scholarly topics, and issues, the kinds of things that feed a teacher’s eagerness to develop new lessons and introduce new ideas and ways of thinking into their classrooms. Teachers in the past have also created district/departmental professional development from what they have learned at TAS seminars. Last year, Paul Hacket, a WHS art teacher, took the TAS Graphic Novel seminar and adapted his experience to lead a professional development course of his own for the WHS English Department Graphic Novel course. The idea that teachers are taking material and inspiration from professional development to run their own district development is a fantastic opportunity that exists with every TAS class.

Activities:

As stated above, TAS coursework is wide-ranging. Teachers are being exposed to both contemporary teaching strategies and works of science, literature, film, psychology, mathematics, history, etc. New lenses to see through and teach through keep teachers engaged.

Teachers were surveyed about if the classes had a direct impact on their teaching this past year (responses are limited as about half of the teachers’ seminars are in the spring). However, here are some of the responses thus far:

“Absolutely. It did help the subject I teach as I realized that I should incorporate even more social justice topics into my teaching. The last play dealt with the challenges of immigration, a topic we actually teach/discuss in class.”
“This course gave me much more than just an appreciation for art. The questions they gave us ‘Tell me what you see’ and ‘Tell me why you think that’ can be used for all subjects. When reading a textbook we can ask those same questions – what is this about – why do you think that? Also – remembering to give wait time. This was a FABULOUS Teachers As Scholars Course and I will recommend it to everyone!”
“[The course] made me think about collage as a form of political and historical commentary. It also made me think about ways students can express their learning through visual expression. I plan to have students create a collage as a mid-term reflective on their learning experience in US History 1.”
“Yes absolutely – especially in discussing how women lost the right to vote and how state constitutions specifically restricted this right for women over time. We do a whole Supreme Court unit in 8th grade and there is material and primary source information that was given in the class that I can use.”
“This class is excellent for any teacher who wants to learn how to look at, analyze, and talk about art as a springboard for introducing subject-specific ideas.”

IMPACT

Reputation:

About Teachers as Scholars: https://teachers-scholars.org/about/
Why Teachers as Scholars exists: https://teachers-scholars.org/about/our-history/
Teachers as Scholars Seminars for 2023-24: https://teachers-scholars.org/our-programs/seminars/

Timeline:

Fall of 2024-End of School 2025.

Evaluation:

We conduct regular annual surveys on teachers’ reactions and take-aways from their TAS seminars, as well as ideas they are implementing in their classes inspired by the classes they took.

Budget and Explanation

Tuition and fees

Tuition for 25 middle and high school teachers

$15625

Total Tuition:

$15625

Total

$15625

Minimum Budget:

$15625

Description:

School districts need to be partners with TAS. With a smaller budget fewer teachers would be able to attend. We always have a greater demand than the 25 spots allotted to us.