| |
|
|
The Center's three key areas of concentration are:
Redefining Teaching and Learning in Schools - An institution-wide
reevaluation of teaching and learning values, and an incorporation of
systemic change consistent with those values.
Offerings and strengths in this area include:
- Program, curriculum, and course design and evaluation
- Program, faculty and staff development
- Uses of technology
- Design, implementation, and evaluation of educational innovations
- Working with teachers and administrators to effect change
Providing Reflective Professional Development
- a process in which teachers investigate and critique their professional
and personal experiences to improve their teaching and, consequently,
to enhance their students' learning.
Offerings and strengths in this area include:
- Teacher observation and supervision
- Training of teacher trainers
- Teacher mentoring and peer coaching
- Teacher research
- Reflective teaching
- SIT TESOL Certificate Program
- Documentation of effects of teacher learning on student learning
Increasing Access to Second and Foreign Language
Learning
Offerings and strengths in this area include
- Second/foreign language teaching methodologies
- Adult Literacy
- Academic skills (EAP) and business and professional language
(ESP)
- Curriculum and materials design, development, and evaluation
Back to top
Below is a synopsis of some of our current and recent projects. For
more information on current projects, see the current
project page.
Redefining Teaching and Learning in Schools
- Tokyo Jogakkan Junior College -- designed an English Language
program with a proficiency-based curriculum which supports students
in developing strong speaking and listening skills. It combines core
courses, electives, residential intensives and short-term intensives
in the U.S. SIT-trained teachers are also implementing the new curriculum
on-site.
- Cultura Inglesa, São Pãolo, Brasil -- Provided technical
support to redirect teaching towards student learning through an emphasis
on reflective teaching
- The Brearley School Project -- Colloquium on Teaching Young
Women Second Languages: designed and conducted workshops and on-line
support for Modern Language Department.
- Northfield-Mount Hermon School, Northfield, MA -- designed
and conducted teacher development workshop on foreign language teaching
pedagogy
- Klingenstein Center at Teachers College of Columbia University,
New York NY -- designed and facilitated teacher development workshop
for beginning foreign language teachers
- MATSOL -- presented workshop to Massachusetts adult ESOL
teachers, demonstrating ways to develop and strengthen curricula through
standards framework.
Back to top
Reflective Professional Development
- The Teacher Knowledge Project
-- Implemented reflective professional development seminars for teachers.
Building state and national-level professional networks for exchange
and dissemination; Established a research institute to document impacts
of reflective professional development seminars on teachers and their
students
- World Bank, Washington, D.C. -- organized and ran staff
development seminars and site visits in "Best Practices in US Pre-service
and School-based Teacher Education."
- National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, Washington
D.C. -- developed a synthesis paper on national research of Professional
Development Schools and participated in the standards-setting process.
- The Windham Partnership for Teacher Education (a Professional
Development School collaboration between the School for International
Training and the schools in the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union)
Windham County VT--provided instructional support for teacher trainees
and seminars in reflective mentoring for teacher mentors as well as
support for outreach at the national level through Goals 2000 funding
from the State of Vermont.
- SIT TESOL Certificate
-- designed a one month intensive certification course for beginning
and practicing ESL teachers. Run, monitor, evaluate course worldwide
4-5 times annually, include training future course trainers.
- Jewish Vocational Service, Boston, MA -- designed and conducted
two workshops on approaches to learner assessment in workplace education.
- The Eisenhower Inquiry Project -- Conducted seminar-based
course on reflective professional development for K-12 teachers in
South East Vermont. Subsequently researched teacher and student learning
as a result of reflective development seminar.
Back to top
Supporting Access to Second Language Learning
- ASL Curriculum Design Project, The Hilltop-Austine School, Brattleboro,
VT -- advised in the development of a Montessori-based American
Sign Language curriculum for hearing children at Hilltop Montessori
School.
- Massachusetts Department of Education -- facilitated the
development of adult ESOL standards for the State of Massachusetts
through a collaborative process involving adult ESOL educators from
throughout the Commonwealth.
- Landmark College, Putney, VT -- the Foreign Language Project
at Landmark College, a three-year project funded by the Fund for the
Improvement of Post-Secondary Education and the US Department of Education,
inaugurated the teaching of Spanish to learning-disabled adults
- Windham Partnership for Teacher Education (a professional
development school collaboration between the School for International
Training and the schools in the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union)
Windham County, VT--designed and supported a series of community forums
on foreign language curriculum issues in an effort to build support
for French and Spanish curricula at the elementary school level.
- Rwanda Parliamentary EFL Training Project -- designed and
conducted project to train teachers in Kigali to teach EFL to members
and staff of the Rwandan Parliament
- University of Cambridge (UK) Local Examinations Syndicate
-- prepared a series of reports on accreditation issues for UCLES
on formal recognition of their teacher education credentials in the
United States and Canada.
Back to top
|
|
