Engineering Professors Play a Role in Strengthening Teaching in Public Schools
09/09/2009
“Science and Engineering in the Kitchen” is not a class assistant professor of mechanical engineering, Eric Dufresne, regularly teaches. However, it may have proved the perfect way for him to share his expertise and hone creative teaching methods with local elementary, middle school and high school teachers.
Since 1978, the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute has provided an educational partnership between Yale University and New Haven Public Schools designed to strengthen both teaching and learning in local schools. Each year, Yale faculty members join with local school teachers to explore a myriad of topics – from history to biology. During the months of March through July, participating teachers or “fellows,” expand their knowledge base and develop curriculum to take back to their own classrooms.
Dufresne’s unique way of exploring science and engineering through items commonly found in the kitchen was an attempt at connecting, what is often viewed as abstract and highly conceptual, to the real world. “The kitchen is basically a lab,” says Dufresne. “You’re doing science every time you cook.” From microorganisms, such as yeast, to the laws of physics, Dufresne’s class developed activities that leveraged common household items.“He simplified the complex chemistry and physics concepts in such a way that participating teachers will be able to thoroughly engage young learners,” says Waltrina Kirkland-Mullins, a third-grade teacher at Davis Street School in New Haven. Ms. Kirkland-Mullins, who plans to use her unit to incorporate science into the study of geography, said the unique slant individual teachers brought to the development of their curriculum provided for units ranging from science and engineering’s impact on food processing, to using the scientific method to understand the creation of lollipops, cookies, and marshmallows, to her own unit on the science of the Korean dish, kimchi (fermented cabbage).
While this is Dufresne’s first year participating in the Yale-New Haven Teacher’s Institute, chair of biomedical engineering, Mark Saltzman, recently completed his fourth consecutive year with the program – a true testimony to his dedication to the Institute. Saltzman has presented on various topics in health and engineering over the past four years, including most recently, “The Brain in Health and Disease,” which was part of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute’s National Initiative.
The Yale National Initiative, launched in 2004, is an expansion of the Teachers Institute, linking institutions of higher education with urban and rural schools across the country. With equal emphasis placed on increasing knowledge base and developing teaching strategies that will be effective with students, the Institute approach “enhances teacher quality in precisely the ways that are known to increase student achievement,” states a new report released by the Yale National Initiative that evaluates Teachers Institute experiences. In addition, the report finds that participation is strongly linked to teacher retention in urban public schools. In New Haven, fellows are nearly twice as likely as non-participating teachers to remain in the school district.“The unique format of professional development generates a broad spectrum of ideas, approaches, and guidance that supports the design of curriculum units that specifically focus on the needs of our individual classes,” says Carol Boynton, first-grade teacher at Edgewood School in New Haven. As an elementary school teacher, Boynton found Saltzman’s seminar gave her a chance to push herself beyond her comfort zone, expanding her knowledge and taking on the challenge of bringing the complex subject content of the function and structure of the brain down to a first-grade level.
The benefit of participation is felt on both sides. Saltzman, who acknowledges that teaching college and graduate students has always been the most exciting part of his job as a university professor, says that the Teachers Institute gives him the chance to expand and reach new groups of students. “It is rewarding because the teachers who come to Yale have a real eagerness to learn and create new materials for their classrooms,” says Saltzman, “and it is exciting because I get to indirectly bring the things that I know about to students of all ages – first grade to high school.”
Saltzman is a member of the University Advisory Council for the Teachers Institute, appointed by President Levin. In addition, both he and professor of chemical engineering, Gary Haller, are members of the Council's Executive Committee. Haller, a longtime member of the Council, is currently one of its Co-Chairs.
Engineering faculty members have a long history with the Teachers Institute. In recent years, colleagues with engineering appointments who led Institute seminars include Alessandro Gomez (2004) and Dan Prober (2003). In addition, John Tully and Bill Mitch, as well as Gary Haller and Mark Saltzman, have given talks in the Institute's lecture series.
“In these years, I am awestruck by the dedicated commitment of the Yale faculty in creatively adapting material for the audience of public school teachers, the passionate abandon with which they introduce us to their subjects and their facilities, and the determined resilience that they demonstrate in helping us to adapt and modify our ideas for curriculum units that will motivate our students,” says National Fellow and Pittsburgh science teacher, Eric Laurenson. Like many others, Laurenson describes his participation in the Teachers Institute as “empowering” and key to getting through the difficult early years of teaching. “In the end, it is an intensive and rewarding process that establishes camaraderie among the participants and a renewed commitment to enrich our public school students’ experience by crafting personally meaningful curriculum. My students are excited by these curriculum units, I believe, because of the passion and depth that I bring to them.”