Uncategorized – Teachers Institute of Philadelphia

Professor Karen Detlefsen featured in Penn Today

Professor Karen Detlefsen, TIP seminar leader and advisory council member, was recently recognized in Penn Today for teaching Philosophy to 5th grade students at the Comegys Benjamin School, a Pre K – 7 school in southwest Philadelphia. She developed students’ critical thinking skills by ‘helping them understand that some questions are hard to fully understand and encouraging them to change their minds when faced with reasons to do so’. This is Detlefsen’s fourth time teaching…

TIP Fellows Present at Celebration of Writing & Literacy

Local educators met online for two days of learning, reflection, and joy as they shared innovative and topical curriculum ideas on the theme of “Educating for Justice in the Digital Age”! 2020 was the 19th consecutive year that the Philadelphia Writing Project hosted the Celebration of Writing and Literacy and the fourth year of The Teachers Institute’s cosponsorship of the event. The Penn Museum also joined us this year as a cosponsor and presented the…

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…

TIP Fellows Present at Penn Ethnography Forum

TIP Fellows Amanda Schear and Charlie McGeehan participated in The University of Pennsylvania’s 40th Ethnography in Education Research Forum, February 22 – 23, 2019 at the Graduate School of Education. This year’s theme, “The Future of Ethnography and Education: Methodologies, Equity, and Ethics” covered a wide range of topics in educational research, both local and international. The conference featured a full day of presentations and workshops led by educational practitioners. Amanda Schear led a session entitled: “When…

TIP seminar leader Rogers Smith shared his post-election thoughts with CNN

CNN political commentator Tara Setmayer, who is a former GOP communications director, spoke with constitutional scholar and TIP seminar leader Rogers Smith about the 2020 election’s impact on the identity of the Republican Party. The event was part of the Andrea Mitchell Center’s Race and Politics series. They discussed the power struggle taking place within the GOP between “Trump-apologist Republicans and more traditional Republicans.” Though Smith and Setmayer agreed that Trump will dominate the Republican…

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…

Join TIP for our Annual Spring Gathering!

The Teachers Institute of Philadelphia (TIP) is pleased to invite you to our annual Spring Gathering, which will be held on May 30, 2017, 4:30-6:00 PM in the Golkin Room of Houston Hall at the University of Pennsylvania. At the Spring Gathering, the TIP…

TIP Teacher Lisa Yau Publishes book of poems on depression, features work of 5th grade students

Kirkbride Elementary teacher and TIP Teacher Representative Lisa Yau created a book of her 5th graders’ poems entitled Demystifying Depression: 29 Voices to Normalize Crazy Goodness. The book stemmed from a project in which Yau’s students researched depression, then wrote and made art on the subject. Yau’s work in the 2019 TIP seminar “Modern & Contemporary U.S. Poetry” taught by Professor Al Filreis, inspired her to use poetry to teach about this important and difficult…

TIP launches 2021 seminars

On Wednesday, January 20th TIP launched its 2021 program with a virtual orientation reception. We heard a brief overview from each of the seminar leaders of the topic they will present to teachers over the course of the next 16 weeks. Members of our teacher and university governing bodies also shared how the program has improved teaching in the public schools and strengthened relations between university and community. We warmly welcome TIP’s 2021 cohort and…

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…

TIP Fellows Samuel Reed, Monique Henry and Cristobal Carambo Receive the Lindback Award

TIP Fellows Sam Reed, Monique Henry, and Cristobal Carambo are being recognized for excellence in education by the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation…

Freda/Frankie Anderson wins 2019 Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching

TIP Teacher Freda/Frankie Anderson, won the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching this summer. Anderson teaches a community activism class to high school sophomores and juniors at the U School. “She comes up with ideas for her class by researching topics she is passionate about, borrowing some from Date, the previous teacher, and receiving input from other people. This includes not only her students, but also organizations such as Youth United for Change and Teaching Tolerance, more…

TIP Seminar Leaders produce UN Report on Lead

TIP seminar leaders and University Advisory Council members Reto Giere and Marilyn Howarth along with Richard Pepino of the Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology co-authored a new publication for the United Nations Environment Programme. The publication calls for the eradication of lead paint worldwide to prevent lead poisoning. The use of lead paint is still permitted in 60% of all countries globally and lead poisoning is the cause of more than a million deaths…

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…

TIP Fellow Bonnee Breese Receives the Overbrook High School Legacy Award

Longtime TIP and Yale National Initiative Fellow Bonnee Breese has been awarded the Overbrook High School Legacy Award. Breese taught English for many years at Overbrook, and also received the Lindback and Teachers as Heroes awards for her outstanding contributions to teaching. She currently teaches at Science Leadership Academy/Beeber. Congratulations Bonnee!

TIP Fellows Present their Units at Annual Educator Convening

TIP fellows contributed enthusiastically to the Celebration of Writing and Literacy (CoWL) on Saturday, October 12, 2019, an annual convening that brought teachers and scholars from around the region. It was the third year TIP will partnered with the Philadelphia Writing Project on this event, in which teachers share self-authored curricula and research. Presentation sessions by TIP fellows showcased materials from 2019 seminars in Philadelphia and at Yale, and included “Intercultural Storytelling,” “Lead and Health,”…

TIP Fellow Sally O’Brien Featured in the artblog

TIP Fellow and Kensington Health Sciences Academy teacher Sally O’Brien collaborated with Artblog contributor Candy Alexandra Gonzalez on a poetry and book arts project called “Imagining Our Future Through Visual Poetry and Book Arts.” Together they applied for the Picasso Project Teacher-Based Grant, which supports innovative teacher-driven arts projects and in December, received news that their project had been funded. Their project has exposed Sally’s senior students to “book binding, word and image centered practices,…

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,…

Join TIP for our Annual Spring Gathering!

The Teachers Institute of Philadelphia (TIP) is pleased to invite you to our annual Spring Gathering, which will be held on May 22, 2018, 4:30-6:00 PM in Room 108 of the Arch Building at the University of Pennsylvania. At the Spring Gathering, the TIP community will reflect on a successful year of teaching, learning, and leading. Five Fellows will speak to their experiences in Spring 2018 seminars: “Data Visualization”; “Philosophy, Science and Society”; “Robots in Healthcare”; “Origami…

National Teacher of the Year Award Winner Speaks at Yale National Initiative

Rodney Robinson, a three-time fellow at the Yale National Initiative (YNI) Summer Intensive program, was named Teacher of the Year by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). He addressed Yale’s Annual Conference on Saturday, October 26th, where Teachers Institute fellows from around the country had gathered to celebrate the completion of their unit-writing process. He explained the challenges of his former role teaching in a juvenile detention facility in Richmond, Virginia, and described…