Supporting Educators

Some 60 area teachers gathered at WashU for mySci Summer Institutes, a professional development opportunity designed for teachers new to mySci, as well as mySci veterans. “As a teacher, there are still a lot of things I don’t know, but I don’t need to be that giant teacher who knows all,” teacher LaWesha Bush said. “mySci takes away a lot of that stress, and it’s great for engaging not only students, but teachers. I appreciate that.”

The principals at seven local schools are poised to achieve big goals after participating in the SLPS Principal Redesign Fellowship, a bold new partnership between St. Louis Public Schools and the Institute for School Partnership at Washington University in St. Louis.

mmer Teacher-Researcher Partnership, an innovative initiative from the Institute for School Partnership. The teachers will work in university labs, where they will participate in faculty research and develop lessons for their classrooms.

Victoria May, executive director of the Institute for School Partnership, works with local educators to create high-quality, equitable education for all students. Last week, May was among seven members of the university community honored with a Virgil Ethic of Service Award.

Classmates at Ritenour Middle School have been testing their tolerance for struggle during math classes led by a  teacher who is presenting math concepts with a high-level task approach that gives students a newfound ownership of their learning and an invitation to reach the right answer with thinking that makes sense to them.

Spearheaded by the Institute for School Partnership (ISP), the STEMpact District Immersion project is energizing math teaching teams in the Ritenour, Mehlville and Maplewood Richmond Heights School Districts. 

The Math Coaching pilot provides ISP an opportunity to connect more deeply with teachers beyond the traditional professional development model. The feedback thus far has been a thumbs-up from teachers, who demonstrate a will to power through despite COVID-19.

Early childhood math skills are important predictors of later academic achievement, but opportunities for young children to engage in math learning are extremely limited in preschool. With support from the Institute for School Partnership at Washington University in St. Louis (ISP), the JGECEC teaching team is making sure their new mud kitchen and curriculum throughout the building are planned with early math learning in mind.

Douglas Chalker, professor of biology, received a collaborative award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support the ASSET program, which incorporates Tetrahymena, a ciliated protozoan,  into elementary science. Chalker, in collaboration with the Institute for School Partnership (ISP), plans to expand the program’s reach in St. Louis and incorporate more mathematics and computational thinking into program’s hands-on lessons.

Instructional specialists with WashU’s Institute for School Partnership (ISP) and Michael Wysession, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences and an expert on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), partnered with middle and high school Earth and Space Science teachers from Ritenour School District to design and develop new science courses.