Making Learning Joyfully Rigorous for Students

Dear friends,

The past three months at Center for Inspired Teaching have been full of growth, presenting the Inspired Teaching staff with new challenges, opportunities to learn, and reasons to be excited!

Recently, we’ve been developing, piloting, and evaluating a family engagement curriculum for teachers in a partnership with the Flamboyan Foundation. A strong body of research confirms the importance of family engagement in ensuring students succeed in school and in life. With Inspired Teaching’s family engagement curriculum, teachers are becoming more skilled at effectively involving parents in their children’s education – and more than 200 teachers have been involved to date. 

As teachers in our programs pilot this new curriculum, they are also beginning new coursework in their respective professional development programs. For the 2010 Inspired Teaching Fellows and Residents, winter courses began last week. Early Childhood and Elementary Education Fellows are learning how to provide age-appropriate, fun lessons in math for young learners. We’ll post pictures of their Math Dance activities—used to teach important concepts like length and congruence—very soon! Meanwhile, our English Language Arts certification candidates are learning the Art of Teaching Writers to boost literacy and provide students with a productive outlet to express their creativity.

In addition to all of these exciting classrooms, Inspired Teaching is in the process of developing several unique curricula for our Professional Development Partnerships at local schools. Our current partners include: Orr Elementary School, Arts and Technology Academy, IDEA Public Charter School, and Thurgood Marshall Academy. The Professional Development Partnerships provide customized training to each school based on its needs including: mentoring, collaborative lesson studies, coaching, retreats, and coursework.

Creating new material to share with teachers and principals has been an extremely rewarding process—our program participants show confidence in their abilities to master content and boost student success.  For example, one of Fellow Bri Zika’s students with a profound love of music struggled to learn geography. Bri worked with her to put the names of each country in South America into a song, and with this mnemonic device, the student mastered all of the content and excelled on the next test. Teachers like this are one of many reasons why I, and Center for Inspired Teaching, appreciate your support. YOU have made this important work possible.

Best,

Aleta Margolis

Executive Director

PS- Chocolate Inspiration will be at the Canadian Embassy on February 24, 2011. Join us for a night of delicious confectioneries and thoughtful conversation about education!

Dear Friends,

Can you recall the last movie you watched about a teacher or our schools?

Most likely, the story follows a heroic individual working with challenging students, surrounded by a bureaucratic administration and apathetic peers. The teacher will go to extraordinary efforts to get through to the students, gain their trust, and educate them. By the end of the movie, the teacher will have managed to reach these formerly-unengaged students, and ultimately make a difference in their lives.

While uplifting, these types of movies send the wrong message: that excellent teachers are necessarily uncommon; that only heroic teachers will be able to reach all students. Center for Inspired Teaching challenges this storyline. We envision a future in which every teacher provokes students to think, create, ask questions, and play; a future in which every teacher is transformational.

Imagine walking down the hallway of a school, and peeking in the doorway of each classroom to see what’s happening….what do you see? Do you see fractions on the blackboard, and students sitting quietly in their chairs completing a worksheet? Or do you see students playing an active, whole-body math game? Imagine an entire school filled with classrooms where learning was fun, imagination was valued, and educational opportunities were created with everything from play dough to nature walks. This is the Inspired Teaching School!

In April 2010, the Inspired Teaching School received conditional approval from the DC Public Charter School Board. Beyond preparing children to be inquisitive learners, creative problem solvers, and thoughtful citizens, the Inspired Teaching School will create a professional community where master teachers work with teacher residents to supply a diverse group of students with a great education and increased chances for future success. Renowned education advocates and community leaders have partnered with Center for Inspired Teaching to launch the school.

At full capacity, the school will offer Pre-School–8th grade. In school year 2011-2012, Inspired Teaching School will provide inquiry-based curriculum for age 3 to Grade 3. Each year, the school will add one grade level until reaching full capacity in school year 2016-2017 with the addition of 8th grade. The Inspired Teaching School is already searching for an exceptional Principal and Executive Director to lead the school, teachers, and students to high achievement.

It is an honor to share this exciting news with you as your support has helped Inspired Teaching reach this immense opportunity for growth. I look forward to having more inspiring stories to share about our work and the work of the Inspired Teaching School.

Warmly, Aleta Margolis Executive Director