fellowship - Fund for Teachers

Anne as an Exemplar

Fund for Teachers — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 14:59:32 +0000

Sculpture outside the Anne Frank House

[minti_dropcap style=”circle”]T[/minti_dropcap]ara Holmin is a Learning Disabilities Special Education Teacher in Saint Paul, MN. In order to help her high school students mainstream into “regular” classes, she also co-teaches English 11 in the general education setting. The majority of her special needs students read and write between two-to four-years below grade level and one of her goals is to show them that writing can be a therapeutic and positive outlet for anxiety and frustration.

Just as it was for Anne Frank.

To introduce her students to Anne’s life and legacy, Tara designed a fellowship to research the young woman, as well as author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, in The Netherlands, Germany and Poland. The itinerary included the Anne Frank House (where Tara took the above photo) and National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam; The Holocaust Memorial, Reichstag and Topography of Terror Museum in Berlin; and Auschwitz in Krakow, Poland. The driving motivation throughout her learning was to increase personal knowledge on the Holocaust and lead students in the recording of their own stories on the school district’s podcast.

Prisoners shoes at Auschwitz

“I am passionate about having my students connect to others in history who have gone through hard times and used writing to help them cope,” said Tara. “Previously, my students considered writing a chore, but now it’s not just a task assigned in school, but a tool that can be used to express themselves and to get their story out of personal struggles and triumphs.”

Tara’s students accomplished this by first writing, then voicing, their stories using iPads and Anne’s example.

“While reading The Diary of Anne Frank in class, my students journaled every other day – improving their writing and self-expression skills,” said Tara. “By the end of the unit, they created podcasts on a snippet of their lives based on the journals they wrote. After interviewing people for their particular stories, they then created, edited, narrated and produced their stories, even adding music and side effects using their iPads.”

Anne Frank died of typhoid seventy-four years ago today in the Bergen-Belsen death camp, but her legacy continues in the lives and learning of students around the world, including Tara’s. They are the embodiment of Anne’s quote:

“The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!”

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Tara (pictured at right on the Amsterdam leg of her fellowship) teaches Fusion Reading to students who have a learning disorder in the area of reading and writing. She has taught this course for five years and helped create the curriculum for the 3rd year of the program that did not exist previously.

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Tips from the Pros (aka Fellows)

Fund for Teachers — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 17:06:18 +0000

Two weeks ago, Fund for Teachers opened the 2019 grant application. Have you been thinking about where you want to go and what you want to learn? For a little inspiration, today we share excerpts from a piece produced by the Stamford (CT) Education Association highlighting the learning of FFT Fellows from the area. Maybe you’ll see yourself in them and be inspired to start your online application, due January 31, 2019.

Kristin Baldovin above the Theatre of Dionysis at the Acropolis.

[minti_dropcap style=”normal”]”I[/minti_dropcap] wanted to travel to a place I had not been before to expand on my world view, and I wanted the location to be relevant to curriculum for my fourth graders. Our first literacy unit of study centers around Greek mythology, so going to Greece seemed like a natural fit. I also noticed that my students often struggled with some of the historical context that I knew I could gain going to Greece myself.

Do it! Apply! I would highly suggest submitting a proposal if you are interested in furthering your knowledge and learning as an educator or person in general. Choose a place and/or topic you’re passionate about. When you have passion, it makes the writing/work easy.

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Diane with founder of Rainbows Within Reach.

[minti_dropcap style=”normal”]”M[/minti_dropcap]y main goal in applying for an FFT grant was to improve how I teach writing to English Language Learners. Thanks to Fund for Teachers, I was able to attend the I Teach K! conference in Las Vegas. I attended a variety of sessions on writing, guided reading, and helping ELL students, as well as those with behavior issues. Now, more than a year later, I still refer to the strategies and techniques I learned.

I would urge anyone who has a desire to learn and explore to take a chance and submit a proposal. You just might get some exciting news in April!

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Sarah spent the day interacting with 35 orphans living at a children’s shelter in Atenas.

[minti_dropcap style=”normal”]”I[/minti_dropcap] chose this experience because, very simply, I realized that I could be far more effective in my work with families if I could speak basic conversational Spanish. I spent two weeks in Grecia, Costa Rica, attending Academia Centroamericana de Espanol’s program specifically designed for social workers. Through classes and living with a host family, I developed a small sense of how some of our families must feel when they can’t advocate for their children due to a language barrier. I am much more mindful of this now and also have found that if I make an effort to speak Spanish, parents are often willing to try a bit of English. Just making an effort opens a lot of doors.

Whatever program you design for yourself, you need to make a strong case for how your fellowship will benefit students, their families, and/or your school community. If you want to know more about my fellowship, visit my blog at https://costaricasarahblog.wordpress.com.”

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Jenna Cinelli developed a global network of peers during her fellowship.

[minti_dropcap style=”normal”]”I[/minti_dropcap] had the amazing opportunity to attend the Hawaii National Great Teachers Seminar in Hilo. This was unlike any other conference I’ve attended: Gone were the rows of desks, teachers on laptops and lectures. It was just 60 teachers from around the world meeting together in small groups to talk about education, the issues we face as educators and how to become that “great teacher” our students need. By deciding what learning would be best for your teaching, you are in control of your own growth. No one dictates what you are learning or how you should take it back to your classroom. I was able to decide what I was going to learn and what I was going to take away from it.”

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Connie in the Boyne Valley with a Neolithic monument built in 3,200 B.C.

[minti_dropcap style=”normal”]”I[/minti_dropcap] kept it simple and didn’t try to see 10 cities in 10 days, but was still able to explore 9,000 years of Irish landscape, mythology and culture through the country’s national treasure of storytelling. I experienced UNESCO World Heritage Sites and the largest Anglo Norman castle, attended evenings of music and storytelling and learned that storytelling is not only just active for the teller, but also the listener. If you are going to apply, first read about other people’s fellowships. There are some amazing ideas! Then start your dream. You do not have to leave the USA. The trip is about YOUR personal growth as an educator!”

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Passport to Learning – Part IV

Fund for Teachers — Mon, 27 Aug 2018 17:05:31 +0000

[minti_dropcap style=”normal”]A[/minti_dropcap]s part of the “follow up” portion of an FFT fellowship, grant recipients complete a Passport that documents their learning and where they plan to go from here. Teachers answer brief questions in three categories:

Personal and Professional Growth
Impact on Your Classroom, School & Community, and,
Imagining the Future.

During the month of August, we’ll share some of our Fellows’ Passports to get us all in the “Back to School” mode. Today, we’re proud to share the reflections of Nolan Hanson, teacher at Oscar F. Mayer Elementary in Chicago, IL. He described the threefold nature of this fellowship in his grant proposal:

“The funding for our art program was eliminated two years ago leaving a gap in our ability to provide our students a well rounded education. Furthermore, for the past two years our school has had a continuous improvement goal of strengthening our social emotional learning curriculum for both students and staff. To this end we hope to develop and foster a personal awareness and sense of self in all of our community members to increase our abilities to manage our emotions, practice empathy, establish and grow positive relationships and make responsible choices. Spanish, art and social emotional learning are not phrases that are often strung together. Yet focusing on them while at a professional development workshop with a group of colleagues I came to the focus of their intersection: Pablo Picasso.”

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Fellowship Description

Complete an immersion study experience in Paris, Barcelona, Málaga and Madrid to contextualize the environs that influenced and impacted the life and art of Pablo Picasso.

Personal & Professional Growth

Shopping for paints at Sennelier, where Picasso purchased supplies.

The knowledge and insights I gained into the cultures and environments that impacted Picasso’s life and art have grown immeasurably as a result of my fellowship. Coupling this with my newfound knowledge of him as a person and an artist, as well as the complexity of his background, provided me with an understanding of how each of these elements are displayed in his work. I now feel capable of presenting these characteristics and experiences to my students and school community effectively.

First and foremost, my capacity to teach art in Spanish now exists, which it previously did not (except on a superficial level) as a result of: 1) the instruction I received from multiple museum staff members on art creation, appreciation and analyzation; and 2) having now observed, analyzed and appreciated the art of so many Spanish and Latin artists. Where I previously included art in my instruction, I will now be able to embed art in my instruction as a means for dialogue and inspiration.

Living for a month in Spain has to be the greatest personal accomplishment of my fellowship. During the writing of my proposal, I regarded being a Spanish teacher who had never been to Spain as a personal and professional deficiency. I can now state that deficiency has been satisfied with incredibly memorable experiences and professional growth. The fact that the entire fellowship was centered around the study of one of my Spanish heroes enhances the richness of each experience.

Impact on Your Students, School & Community

On a walking tour of Picasso’s Paris, at the St. Germain studio where he painted “Guernica.”

I will now be able to provide my students with the opportunity to use art in their weekly Spanish instruction. The authentic resources I was able to collect during my fellowship will provide them with quality enrichment tools to better connect with the experiences of Picasso and the culture of Spain. Using all of these resources together will allow us to create a positive social emotional learning environment that up to this point has been challenging to build within a language classroom.

In collaboration with the humanities teachers at my school we developed an interdisciplinary unit to cover the life and times of Picasso. Students will research and discuss the major world events that parallel Picasso’s lifetime in tandem with a micro focus on specific events that happened to Picasso. We will then combine these into an evaluation of his work and what influences we can see in his choice of subject, color, technique and message before students begin making their own artwork.

Imagining the Future

I envision celebrating my students learning by highlighting their work to peers, families and school community. This will be achieved in multiple ways, including classroom and hallway displays, submittingstudent work in our monthly International Baccalaureate and Montessori newsletters and posting them to my school community Instagram account.

Where I intend to look for solutions or build greater connections is through the social emotional learning aspect of the unit I developed using the knowledge, resources and tools I have gained from this experience. Employing my skills and capabilities to help students better understand and express themselves through art and writing and, in turn, build their capacities and skills to interpret and empathize with the messages communicated by their peers, thus building better relationships.

To a grant funder I would start by telling them thank you. To a friend I would tell them to apply now. There is no substitute for travel, experience, learning and growth. This fellowship provided me with the opportunity to fulfill multiple personal and professional goals. Fund for Teachers gave me a refined focus and a renewed passion. I’ve elevated my expectations for my students to be proficient communicators, while also including a space for them to build connections through creativity and Picasso.

Don’t forget to check out the previous three posts in our Passport to Learning series, featuring fellowships about British literature, African culture and biophilic design.

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Nolan Hanson (pictured with Picasso) is a pre-K through 8th grade Spanish teacher at Oscar Mayer Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois. For the past 5 years he has built his classroom around the idea that every child has a unique background and learning style that should be fostered to embrace diversity and global citizenship. When he is not teaching in his classroom, he is committed to completing service learning projects with his middle school students, who have been honored at WE Day for the past 3 years. Enjoy more of his fellowship photos on Instagram.

The post Passport to Learning – Part IV first appeared on Fund for Teachers.

Passport to Learning – Part III

Fund for Teachers — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 19:23:14 +0000

Personal and Professional Growth
Impact on Your Classroom, School & Community, and,
Imagining the Future

During the month of August, we’ll share some of our Fellows’ Passports to get us all in the “Back to School” mode. Today, we’re proud to share the reflections of Carly Connor and Jill Padfield, teachers at Franklin School of Innovation in Ashveille, CT. They described the purpose of the fellowship in their grant proposal:

Students view our school as a place they have to be, and despite our “leave no trace” school norm, they don’t take ownership or pride over the spaces in which they learn. Part of this is most certainly due to the fact that our school is currently a collection of trailers–a temporary campus while we work toward funding for our permanent building. We have tried small improvements to make the campus more visually appealing, but these have not changed the students’ habits of kicking holes in the thin walls of the classrooms, writing on bathroom stalls, and leaving trash all over campus. We desperately need a culture change, especially as it comes to students owning school as their own space.

This fellowship will lead to a project that will allow students to have a voice in biophilic and sustainable features that could be added to our new school building. Research shows that buildings incorporating biophilia, a person’s innate biological connection with nature, can not only reduce stress, but also improve cognitive function and creativity. We will task the students with incorporating both biophilic and sustainable ideas into a real, physical structure in our new school building for the benefit of everyone in our school community.

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Fellowship Description

Research in New Zealand, Australia and Singapore sites pertaining to biophilic and sustainable design in architecture and in schools to inform a math-driven proposal created by sophomore English and Math students on construction of a new school building.

Personal & Professional Growth

Sun Pipes filter sun into classrooms and offices with no windows at Dover Court International School in Singapore.

Throughout our fellowship, my partner and I were challenged with digging into a project that was predominantly science-based. As Math and English teachers, we knew this project would propel our students and our community forward toward more project-based work, but we were going to have to do a LOT of learning first! Our fellowship gave us the knowledge, the experiences, and the connections that we needed in order to lead a meaningful, collaborative project.

Due to the science focus of the project and the many components that will go into it, our 10th grade team will be forced to collaborate in a way that we haven’t before. This project cannot happen in only one of our classrooms, but if we had focused on only our content during the fellowship, I don’t know if we would have had the same kind of ownership that we do now. Therefore, this fellowship helped changed our instructional practice by helping us connect to new content in a meaningful way.

A primary personal accomplishment developed during the planning stages of our fellowship. We started our proposal with a completely different idea that was English and Math-based. However, the thoughtful, probing questions in the application forced us to REALLY think about what we wanted to collaborate on and what we would need in order to make that happen. The actual fellowship was putting those big ideas into action and realizing that we made the right choice.

Impact on Your Students, School & Community

Student-run gardens at Brentwood Secondary College in Melbourne, Australia.

Before this fellowship, we led student projects that were interesting, but they always seemed to fall short of truly authentic. Projects rarely included a service component and never positively affected our community. This fellowship and resulting project will be the start of helping students to connect their learning to their community in a meaningful way.

This project will require collaborative work in order for it to be successful. My partner and I plan to get the rest of the 10th grade team on board on our first day back by telling them about our learning, our project idea, and getting them to feel as excited as we feel. We are already organizing all of our photos and creating a presentation for the students, but we both feel like we can’t move forward at this point without the rest of our team, since the project will live in all of our classes.

Imagining the Future

Our project centers around our new school building, and our students will be creating new green-design features to be incorporated into the building. This may take a few years, but it could then include several grades that as part of this long-term, collaborative project. Most importantly, this project will help give any student who works on it more ownership of the new building and their community.

Part of the focus of our fellowship was to positively impact the environment that our students learn in. The best way to do that is to not only make them more accountable for their waste and their habits, but to give them a space to study that is green and healthy and productive. Lack of such spaces is a huge problem in many of our schools today, and our students are going to be at the forefront of changing this in our state.

I don’t think anyone would have guessed that two high school Math and English teachers would be able to create a meaningful, collaborative project about Science! It was not easy, but the opportunity for this fellowship pushed us to think beyond our own classrooms and our own content to what we thought our students and our community really needed. This fellowship took us from a subject-focused perspective to a student and community perspective, and now the possibilities seem endless!

Don’t forget to check out the previous two posts in our Passport to Learning series, featuring fellowships about British literature and African culture.

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Carly Connor is a 10th grade English teacher and soccer coach who believes deeply in creating a safe, educational space for students to learn how to struggle with content, develop a global perspective, listen to opposing ideas, find a unique voice, and correctly use commas. Jill Padfield is a high school math teacher who previously taught at an International School in the Dominican Republic. In her free time, Jill enjoys playing ultimate frisbee, scuba diving, hiking and playing with her class-pet guinea pigs, Fib and Nocci.

The post Passport to Learning – Part III first appeared on Fund for Teachers.

Water They Doing to Support UN Goal #6?

Fund for Teachers — Mon, 07 May 2018 18:39:49 +0000

As part of Sara Damon’s AP Geography curriculum, students at Stillwater Junior High School in Stillwater, MN, read They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan. Sara arranged for one of the authors to visit her class, which led to a fundraising project that raised $5,000 for an initiative of “Lost Boy” Salva Dut called Water for South Sudan. Students’ thirst for more service inspired Sara to then design a Fund for Teachers fellowship that took her to Kenya with the nonprofit H2O for Life, where she analyzed the impact of water wells.

“I met with administrators, teachers and students personally impacted by the fact that they now have clean water and toilets at school. “I saw and heard about the health, economic and educational effects of access or lack of access to improved water and sanitation in the school setting as well as in urban and rural home settings,” said Sara. “I shared stories and pictures with my students, staff and school community as testament to how water changes everything.”

Sara started the following school year with a new curriculum she created called “Ripple Effects: The Impact of Water and Sanitation on Standard of Living.” She also created a Story Map that summarized her experiences and demonstrated the WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) needs of Kenyan students. Then her students took over.

They hosted a school-wide Walk for Water and raised money through sponsorships and pledges for each lap around the track carrying two gallons of water, simulating the journey many in the world make on a daily basis. A student leadership team established awareness and fundraising goals and brainstormed activities, which included presentations to the Lion’s and Kiwanis clubs, Penny Wars, Chipotle fundraisers and film screenings.

Students’ determination to help meet the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal #6 (ensuring water and sanitation for all by 2030) resulted $80,000 raised to drill nine safe water wells in partnership with H2O for Life and Water for South Sudan.

“What I was able to see, hear and reflect upon as a result of the Fund for Teachers fellowship in Kenya allowed me to create new teaching content and to share in a compelling way the real life impact of WASH projects,” said Sara. “I reinvigorated my desire to continue the hard work of motivating my geography students and the school community to translate geographic awareness into geographic action.”

The post Water They Doing to Support UN Goal #6? first appeared on Fund for Teachers.