NOTES FROM
ACADEMIA
A Quarterly Newsletter from the Office of the Assistant Head of School for Academics
Fall 2016
FWCD Summer Fellows The biggest movies this summer seemed to be about workplace dynamics: Ghostbusters, Captain America: Civil War, Star Trek: Beyond, the list goes on. To believe what Hollywood presents, coworkers squabble non-stop unless they need to come together to save the world. Why then, would about a third of FWCD faculty apply to return to campus in the middle of the summer to collaborate on curricular projects? Because they’re awesome. In the inaugural year of the FWCD Summer Fellows Program, teachers were given the opportunity to propose a curricular topic on which they wanted to collaborate with their peers. Sixteen projects were approved for up to three days of funded, on-campus work. As much as we learn at conferences, the efficiency of turning this work into results is hard to beat. The ideas they generated during the summer are already playing out in new lesson plans and improved instruction during the school year. In Lower School, several grade-level teams and Lower School Learning Specialist Teresa Hoppe worked on preparing the rollout of Everyday Math 4. Middle School English teachers discussed grammar alignment, while Upper School English teachers audited their use of writing assignments and the practical use of writing portfolios. Additional projects included: • Killian Philipson and Chesley Cunningham working on “gamifying” (no, really, it’s a thing) a unit in A House on Mango Street. • Colin Douglas ’06 and Brian Farda developing project-based learning for World History. • Kathr yn Sohne, Theresa Fuss, and Kathy Roemer developing cross-divisional collaboration for proactive counseling programs. • Ravi Pillalamarri, Chloe Bade Anderson ’05, Hester Burdman, and Andreanne Annis developing cross-divisional inclusivity and multiculturalism programming. • Heather Peace and Chuck Kraus merging mathematics and music theory into a project for students. • Kathy Roemer and Kendall Davis working to use photography to promote healthy selfimage through a project they’re calling “Redefining Beauty.” • Sara Teegarden and Christy Alvear connecting forensic science and government classes by tying the study of a murder scene in one class to a mock trial in the other. • Chuck Maddux, Tara Finn, and Chesley Cunningham digitizing the sixth-grade geography passport project. • Sara Teegarden, Colin Douglas ’06, Maggie Philpot, and Christy Alvear studying design thinking. The last project on this list, the design thinking study, was part of a larger effort on campus this summer, one detailed in the rest of this newsletter. Enjoy!
Bradley S. Philipson, PhD Assistant Head of School for Academics