Chuck James – Travel to Germany to study Environmental Issues
The preservation of our
environment is one of the biggest global challenges of our time. The only way
to maintain our habitat over the long term is by working together to balance
the needs of nature and humankind.
Earth Science contains
a large emphasis on environmental studies that systematically study human
interactions with the environment. Our studies in Earth Science examine mining,
sustainable energy, water resources, the built environment and the
relationships between them all.
Just
as we want the thinking of our students to be broad and interdisciplinary, so,
too, must the instruction around environmental issues be encompass substantive
real world models and examples. This summer grant studies
Germany as a comprehensive model for a nation’s
engagement around environmental issues and uses this example for comparison and
contrast with the United States’ own environmental policies.
Mike
Davila – Travel to Cuba to study literary works and authors’ inspiration.
Research for potential student trip to Cuba
Mike Davila will travel to Cuba this summer in an
effort to, “gain first hand knowledge and understanding of Cuba and its
influence on American writers and artists, such as Ernest Hemingway and Carmen
Agra Deedy.”
Mr. Davila’s courses read works by Hemingway such
as “The Old Man and the The Sea,” so this grant will allow him an opportunity
to study up-close the old haunts of the late author.
“By visiting these places and gathering on site
materials as well as taking relevant photos, I may, with a more personal touch,
bring these places and works alive for my students. As I have done with The
Odyssey in 9th grade, my SAPA supported grant to Greece and Crete
enabled me to create a Powerpoint Presentation on the various
historical/mythological sites detailed in Homer’s Epic.”
The trip will also serve as a scouting visit for
a potential future student trip to Cuba in March or June of 2012, if there is sufficient
student interest.
Ritchie
Porter – Travel to New York, Improve St. Andrew’s Theater Productions
In the summer of 2008,
Ritchie Porter received a SAPA grant to see theater while visiting London with
my family. He also used some of the money to see some shows in Washington, D.C.
The exposure to these productions was a huge inspiration, and allowed him to
attend some shows he otherwise could not have afforded. This summer, Mr. Porter
will visit Manhattan and take in a variety of theatrical offerings – in
particular Wicked. Locally, he will
also check shows at the annual Capital Fringe Festival in July. With this
grant, Mr. Porter hopes to gain continuing renewal and knowledge of his field,
and perhaps find future shows for the stages of St. Andrew’s.
Says Porter: “Watching
the work of others always informs my own process, and broadens as well as
deepens my own work as a director and as a teacher.”
Tracey
Goodrich – Smart Board Training Session
Mrs. Goodrich has worked over the past year to
make sure that she incorporates a smart board lesson for each and every section
of the algebra textbook. This summer she hopes to expand on what she has
mastered and what her colleagues have taught her by attending a one-day smart
board training session and/or participating in multiple smart board on-line
instruction classes. “All of this will enhance my content and help promote
better learning,” she said.
Joan Kowalik - Counseling Institute in August
Ms. Kowalik will attend
the Stanley H. King Counseling Institute from August 2-7. The program is an
intensive and transformative experience through which she hopes to learn to
help her and her students navigate the adolescent passage. In her role as
health teacher, advisor, coach and athletic director, the program will allow
her to deepen her relationships between students and herself.
Natalie Adams – Reshaping Intermediate school’s Language Arts
Program
Teacher’s College’s
Reading Institute is designed for educators “who are committed to turning
classrooms into richly literate reading and writing workshops.” Using the
Reading Institute as a foundational shared learning experience, fourth and
fifth grade teachers will work as a team to reshape the Intermediate School’s
Language Art’s program. Skills that children are developing in fourth grade
will be continued and expanded when they move to fifth.
Scott Corkran & Morgan Evans – Developing the 6th Grade Humanities curriculum
Mr. Evans and Mr. Corkran will be
teaching “6th Grade Humanities” next year, which will encompass elements of Language Arts, History, Geography, and Social Studies. Over the summer they will develop the curriculum for this course, and will focus on creating units and lessons that combine the aforementioned disciplines in ways that will reach a variety of learning styles and allow students to practice skills such as reading comprehension, expository and creative writing, critical thinking, and responsive listening. This is an exciting opportunity to help students see and benefit from the myriad connections between Language Arts and History.
Gregg
Ponitch – Plan out AP Statistics course, curriculum
St. Andrew’s math department will add AP
Statistics to its course offerings starting in the 2011-12 school year. Mr.
Ponitch plans to teach, create and plan out this new course. The overview of
the course is described below.
The
purpose of the AP course in statistics is to introduce students to the major
concepts and tools for collecting, analyzing, and drawing conclusions from
data. Students are exposed to four broad conceptual themes: exploring data,
sampling and experimentation, anticipating patterns and statistical inference. Students
who successfully complete the course and exam may receive credit, advanced
placement, or both for a one-semester introductory college statistics course.
David
Brandt – Revamping “A History of Non-Violent Resistance in the 20th
Century”
History Instructor
David Brandt was recently awarded a one week SAES grant in order to help revamp
the senior elective A History of Non-Violent Resistance in the 20th
Century. With the help of the grant, Brandt plans
to design a unit on the very fluid
changes that are happening in the Middle East and help students have a clearer
understanding of an exceedingly important part of the world.
In particular, Brandt will focus on the role that
non-violence played in Egypt in helping to depose longtime leader Hosni Mubarak
while looking at the catalyst that the Tunisian uprising provided to other such
movements in the Middle East and North Africa. Brandt also plans to show
students how history, religion, language (music, poetry, grafitti, and the
written word), art, and the new social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)
have all intersected in a major way in the Middle East to make it a place
fertile for continued rebellion.
Evan
Brooke & Susheela Robinson – Life Long Skills, Art and Public Speaking
This dual-purposed
grant intends to teach students life-long skills. By increasing confidence in
public speaking, students will be better prepared for a variety of speaking
opportunities throughout their academic and professional careers. Additionally,
by infusing more art in our units, teachers will be able to reach a wider range
of students more effectively.
Chantal
Cassan-Moudoud & Maria Diaz – Revamping French and Spanish language
curricula
As the College Board
(CB) is implementing a new format for the Language Placement Examinations, the
French and Spanish Language curricula (Level IV and AP) need to be reviewed and
adapted to the new requirements. The College Board is changing its focus from a mainly grammar driven curriculum
to a curriculum aligned with national standards, and with a strong focus on
proficiency in the three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive
and presentational). Even though several of the changes recommended by the
College Board are already integrated in St. Andrew’s programs, the new
guidelines, which adopt a thematic approach, require the creation of new
material in order to better prepare our students.
The new AP program is
quite ambitious and cannot be covered in one year. The CB itself recommends
that students be familiarized with the different themes as early as possible. Furthermore,
as 10th graders are becoming the main group in level IV, the
material and the activities St. Andrew’s language teachers have used until now
need to be adapted to their needs and interests. At this point, this grant will
allow these two teachers to update the curriculum of the level IV and AP in order
to offer our students a well balanced program which would be intellectually
stimulating and challenging as well as in full compliance with the new College Board
expectations.
Amanda
Freeman – AP European History for Sophomores
The Advanced Placement
European History course is an exciting opportunity for sophomores who love
history and love to read to delve into the sophisticated concepts of European
history. Ms. Freeman will spend the grant period not only studying texts and
planning out reading assignments, but also finding outside primary and
secondary sources to enhance the text (The
Making of the West by Lynn Hunt). She will study her extensive notes on the Norton series on
the development of Europe from 1460 to the present. By the end of her two week
project, she will have readings and assignments planned out from September to
May when the students take the AP exam.
Lauren
Cook - Visual Arts on the Web
/Freshman Art Studies
Websites and web-based tools are now ubiquitous
tools for instruction in schools. Visual Arts department chair Lauren Cook will
spend time over the summer assessing the department’s experience over the last
two years with several platforms for web-based instruction. This work will
result in a restructured and user-friendly interface to web-related services
for art faculty, students and St. Andrew’s families.
Mrs. Cook will complete the development of an
exciting visual art program for freshmen new to St. Andrew’s. Drawing on
curriculum development and instructional experiences in various divisions of
our school, Mrs. Cook hopes to develop an empowering gateway course that helps new
high school students appreciate the visual arts and that helps inform their
choices for future art courses while at St. Andrew’s. Lauren anticipates that
this course will include a blog, as well as fun and interesting 2D, 3D and
digitally-based art projects that build on one another.
Kris Mohlman, Gary Wyatt, Chuck James, Ian Kelleher, and
Lauren Cook – Expanding the role of design in science and visual arts.
Members of the visual arts and science
departments will collaborate to blend the existing design work being done in
these disciplines as well as to
create a unified set of skills for design in all disciplines at St.
Andrew’s.
Drawing on the best elements of existing
curricular work and our knowledge of brain-based teaching we hope to strengthen
existing design curriculum and broaden the focus of design learning in our
community.
Ritchie Porter, Dan Mellitz, Roxie Thomas – Reorganizing
supplies, props and costumes for performing arts program.
Dan Mellitz, Ritchie
Porter and Roxie Thomas plan to work during the summer to reorganize the
Performing Arts costumes and props. The accomplishment of this goal will make
our spaces neater, cleaner and more efficiently used. Costumes and props will
be kept more secure and in better condition.
Gary
Wyatt – Interdisciplinary Visual Art Program for Incoming Fifth Grade Class
.
Drawing on curriculum development and instructional experiences in
various divisions of our school, Mr. Wyatt hopes to develop vibrant signature
art projects for this new class as well as theme-based units for each trimester
that reinforce and expand on the concepts and “big ideas” these students will
be exposed to through their visual arts lessons as well as studies in other
disciplines.
The Rev. Betsy
Gonzalez – Developing Religion Curriculum for Kindergarten through Grade 6
This grant will allow Rev.
Gonzalez to work intentionally and with focus on the least-developed grades in
St. Andrew’s religion curriculum, namely kindergarten through sixth grade. We
will be able to study the entire arc of our religion curriculum and to employ
our beloved spiral ideas to these important grades. We will also be able to
develop major curricular units inside each grade level in order to put our best
foot forward into the new school year.
Troy
Dahlke – Travel to Vietnam to study the human impact of adoption and the
formative influence of world religions
With the help of SAPA
funds, Mr. Dahlke will accompany a friend, Ben Lane, to Vietnam. The ultimate
goal is for Ben to meet his biological mother, from whom he has been separated
since April1975. Sharing a long
friendship and lives touched by adoption, Mr. Dahlke will have the opportunity
to witness a momentous encounter: the reunification of a mother and son
separated by the contingencies of war, politics, and blood. The experiences
gained will season Mr. Dahlke’s teaching by providing greater insights into the
nature of adoption – a theme common to biblical religion – and by witnessing
first-hand the formative influence of Buddhism, Catholicism, communism,
emerging capitalism.
Pre-Kindergarten Team: Peggy Best, Sung Hee Kim, Liz Moses,
Sherry Craig, Jody Widrick, Agnes Timbol. Dale Kynoch, and Christine Lewis.
The Preschool team
plans to enhance the Language Arts program to transition more fluidly into the
Elementary division.
The goal is two-fold: 1) to revise, enhance, and
comprehensively describe the Preschool Language Arts program and (2) to better
meet the learning needs of individual students in terms of both handwriting and
reading readiness. This will give teachers the opportunity to deepen their
thinking about how to challenge and support Prekindergarten learners in developmentally
appropriate ways. Additionally, it will provide Preschool II teachers the time
to reflect and plan with their Prekindergarten colleagues in defining what
Language Arts skills and concepts should be implemented at their grade-level.
Overall the summer grant will allow Lower School teachers to restructure the
Preschool curriculum to more directly prepare a diverse group of learners for
the successful Good Habits, Great Readers Program that formally begins in
Kindergarten and moves through 3rd grade.
Christine Lewis, Dale Kynoch, Lisa Anzelone, Timika Tyson –
Revising Lower School Social Studies Curriculum
A team of Lower School
students will revise the social studies curriculum so that it flows more
sequentially between grades and meets Social Studies national standards. The
team plans to create essential questions based on the social studies
department’s theme of citizenship.
The team also plans on
writing curriculum programs based around the following geographic areas:
Kindergarten – Me and the Family
First grade – Community
Second grade – Washington, D.C.
Third Grade – Maryland