News – Teachers Institute of Philadelphia

Seminar Leader Howarth on the Ohio Train Derailment

TIP seminar leader and University Advisory Council (UAC) member Marilyn Howarth was recently quoted in Vox on the effects of the train derailment in Ohio. Earlier this month, 100,000 gallons of dangerous chemicals spilled into the air and water of East Palestine, Ohio after a Norfolk Southern train was derailed. Today, as residents of East Palestine return home, they are raising concerns about the long-term effects of the disaster. Some individuals have already reported smelling…

Units Posted from Fall Curriculum Lab

The curriculum units for the 2022 Fall Curriculum Lab seminars are now posted under 2022 Curriculum Units. The 2022 Fall Curriculum Lab seminars were Global Environmental Challenges and Potential Solutions; Social Justice, Monuments, Museums, and Heritage; and What Makes Something a Number. Global Environmental Challenges and Potential Solutions, taught by Earth and Environmental Science Professor, Reto Giere, covered several topics around our environmental footprint and ways to lower our consumption of resources in pursuit of…

Seminar Leader Reto Gieré Featured in Penn Today for Research on Charcoal

Reto Gieré, fall 2022 seminar leader, was just featured in Penn Today for his research on the charcoal supply chain and how it can be made more sustainable. At TIP, Gieré, Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science, taught a seminar titled “Global Environmental Challenges and Potential Solutions.” In this course, participants analyzed current global waste streams and ways they can help diminish environmental and climate impacts of daily life, agriculture, manufacturing, and…

The Celebration of Writing and Literacy 2022

On Saturday, October 15th, the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia in conjunction with The Philadelphia Writing Project and the Penn Museum, hosted the annual Celebration of Writing and Literacy focusing on teacher research and knowledge. This year’s theme was Teaching Environmental Justice, where educators in all disciplines explored how they can teach their students the effects of climate change and environmental contamination and ways to take action on these issues. Keynote speaker, Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished…

TIP Fellows Inspire climate action through storytelling

10 Philadelphia teachers have been working with TIP seminar leader and founder of the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities(PPEH) Bethany Wiggin to bring climate education into their classrooms. Six of those teachers are current/former TIP fellows. Workshops began in late June and as teachers planned their curriculum, their commitment to teaching their students civic engagement and climate literacy grew stronger. Prof. Wiggin plans to use the curriculum this group of teachers creates as a model…

TIP fellows attend International Robotics conference

TIP seminar leader Cynthia Sung took fellows enrolled in her Soft Robots seminar to the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) this summer. The annual conference “brings together the world’s top researchers and most important companies to share ideas and advances in the fields of robotics and automation.” Fellows visited the conference’s exhibition hall where 96 robotics-related companies had large booths to show off their products and recruit. To learn more about the conference…

TIP Fellows Present at District-wide Professional Development Sessions

This spring, three TIP fellows conducted workshops at the School District of Philadelphia’s “Tune-Up Tuesday” sessions in March and April. The twice-monthly, peer-led events enable teachers from around the District to improve their knowledge of both content and pedagogy. These sessions are organized by the District’s Office of Teaching and Learning and are held virtually on Zoom. TIP presenters led sessions on their curriculum units from various seminars. On March 8 and 22, Robert Amezola-Rivera…

TIP Teacher Helps Create a South Philly Mural

Teachers Institute of Philadelphia (TIP) fellow and Philadelphia public school teacher Lisa Yau and her students helped mural artist Shira Walinsky create a vibrant addition to South Philadelphia’s streetscape. One of many projects Yau has undertaken that link the arts to literacy, the mural Routing for You is an example of how TIP teachers inject interdisciplinary thinking and cultural diversity into the School District of Philadelphia curriculum. Routing for You, which adorns a wall opposite…

TIP FELLOW MONICA ROWLEY honored

This year TIP Fellow Monica Rowley received a $1,475 Dixie Goswami Bread Loaf Teacher Network Action Grant from Middlebury College. She will use the funds to build and diversify her classroom library at Julia Reynolds Masterman School. Monica is an 8th grade English Literacy teacher. Last June Rowley was also honored by Northwestern University for her personal and professional commitment. She was nominated as a Distinguished Secondary School Teacher by one of her former students,…

TIP Seminar Leader Karen Redrobe speaks with “new books network”

TIP Seminar Leader Karen Redrobe spoke with the New Books Network about a book in film she and coeditor Jeff Scheible wrote called Deep Meditations. Their book includes 18 essays that argue the notion that “depth” is multivalent in the field of the humanities. Deep Mediations brings together the work of leading scholars who collectively navigate the legacies of depth models of thought and vision, particularly in light of the “surface turn” and as these models…

Barnes Exhibition Displays Art Discussed in TIP Seminar

The Barnes Foundation exhibition Water, Wind, Breath: Southwest Native Art in Community, co-curated by TIP seminar leader Lucy Fowler Williams, is showcasing the work of Southwest Native Americans covered in her fall 2021 TIP seminar Southwest Native American Art and Culture. Fowler Williams is Associate Curator and Jeremy A. Sabloff Senior Keeper of American Collections at the Penn Museum. She organized the exhibition with Tony Chavarria, Curator of Ethnology at the Museum of Indian Arts…

Seminar Leader bethany wiggin develops tools for watershed activism

2019 TIP seminar leader Bethany Wiggin spoke with Penn Today about her collaboration with the Independence Seaport Museum (ISM). Prof. Wiggin is the founding director of the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities (PPEH) which fosters interdisciplinary environmental collaboration and scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, and beyond. This year PPEH and ISM have issued a call for proposals to search for tools that “might be used by inhabitants of the Delaware river watershed…

TIP Seminar Leader Rogers Smith Weighs in on Capitol Riot

Political scientist, seminar leader and TIP founder Rogers M. Smith was interviewed by Penn Today on the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2020. He said that it was “part of a concerted effort to overturn the election results,” and the most serious such attempt in U.S. history. Smith also noted that since the insurrection, supporters of former president Donald Trump have been spreading false claims about what happened, saying the rioters were peaceful, that they…

Teachers Share their units at fall plenary session

This fall’s cohort of Teachers Institute of Philadelphia (TIP) fellows will bring new ideas and new inspiration to their students when they enter the classroom in January 2022. During TIP’s 10-week fall curriculum lab, these TIP fellows gained cutting-edge knowledge from Penn and Temple professors and turned it into curriculum units that they will teach to their students during the spring term. On Wednesday, December 22 at 4:30pm, via Zoom, the group will present their…

TIP Fellows Present at the Celebration of Writing and Literacy

Eight TIP Fellows presented at the annual Celebration of Writing and Literacy (COWL) on October 16-17, 2021. Most shared curriculum units they’d written during TIP seminars and used in their classroom. This year’s theme, Making Stories Visible, invited participants to bring to light what had been obscured during a year of pandemic and political turmoil. TIP presenters were: Cancer: Examining Scars of Inequity Chris Sikich, Philadelphia High School for Girls Catherine Michini, Philadelphia High School…

Spring 2022 Seminars

The Teachers Institute of Philadelphia (TIP) invites teachers from around the School District of Philadelphia to participate in its 15-week seminar program in 2022. Led by professors in the humanities, arts, social sciences, and STEM fields, the seminars enable participants (called fellows) to write original curriculum units based on the material they have learned. Participation in TIP helps teachers build their content knowledge and improve results in the classroom. Fellows develop creative ways to teach…

2021 Fall Program Launch

On Tuesday, September 14th, the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia will launch its Fall Curriculum Lab with an orientation reception at 4:30pm. As in the spring program participants (called fellows) will engage in content-based professional development over the course of a semester, but with more flexible scheduling. Fellows will acquire cutting-edge knowledge from university professors and write original curriculum units based on the material they have learned. They will develop creative ways to teach material required…

2021 Annual Celebration of Writing and Literacy

The Teachers Institute of Philadelphia is partnering with the Philadelphia Writing Project for the 5th time to present A Celebration of Writing and Literacy(CoWL). CoWL is an annual two-day conference presented by and for Philadelphia educators. The focus is teacher research and knowledge. This year’s theme, Making Stories Visible, invites participants to bring to light what has been obscured during a year of pandemic and political turmoil. The conference will be held on Saturday-Sunday October 16-17,…

TIP Seminar Leader Carol Muller Receives Award, in Partnership with West Philadelphia High School

Penn Provost Wendell Pritchett and Netter Center Director Ira Harkavy have named Dr. Carol Muller, Professor of Music in the School of Arts and Sciences, and her partners at West Philadelphia High School, recipients of the 2021 Provost/Netter Center Faculty-Community Partnership Award. Carol Muller, PhD, is Professor of Music and Director of the Minor in Jazz and Popular Music Studies. She was recognized for her exceptional work on projects that use music and the arts…

TIP 2021 Spring Celebration

On Wednesday, May 26th we held the 16th celebration of the completion of the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia seminar program, honoring 53 School District of Philadelphia teachers who attended 15 week long professional development seminars. Teachers shared what they learned and the curriculum units they are writing. The participants, called fellows, will implement their curriculum units in the fall of 2021, reaching hundreds of students throughout the School District of Philadelphia with new knowledge. Click…