Around the pOnD
Around the pOnD
fellowship, Collaboration, Innovation
m Taft’s teaching fellows, from left: Kerry Bracco, David Brundage, martin aspholm, micaela DeSimone, rosy cohane-mann, matthew mullane, Theresa albon, Dylan Procida, and Baptiste Bataille. PeteR
iN 2013 TafT JoiNEd eight of the nation’s top boarding schools and the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education in pioneering an innovative, two-year teacher fellowship training program. Established in 2012, the Penn Residency Master’s in Teaching
FRew ’75
(PRMT) is both unique and progressive: It allows fellows to live, teach, learn, and thrive in the boarding school environment while earning a master’s degree in education. At Taft, the program builds on a highly successful teaching fellowship program that has been in place for
more than 40 years; it was shepherded for the past 20 by Steve Schieffelin. “Taft’s program always provided strong mentoring and training in the many aspects of boarding school teaching,” notes Dean of Faculty Linda Saarnijoki. “The addition of the master’s
in teaching through Penn rounds out the program and adds more formal training in education as a discipline—education theory, history, and philosophy.” The movement from an independent program to a collaborative cohort seemed a logical next step for Taft. In partnering with Deerfield, Hotchkiss, Lawrenceville, Loomis Chaffee, Milton, Miss Porter’s, Northfield Mount Hermon, and St. Paul’s, Taft and Penn offer teaching fellows a one-of-a-kind educational experience, with a curriculum built around knowledge and skills specific to boarding school education. The program is built from the ground up and on the tenet that effective teacher training is anchored in both theory and practice. The process begins with a week of intensive study at Penn’s Philadelphia campus in June and continues with ongoing online work throughout the academic year, as well as a few weekend cohort/faculty workshops and classes. Fellows also engage in weekly online sessions with fellows from similar disciplines at other schools, and in discussions facilitated by online mentors and faculty members. There is mentoring on the Taft
b TafT’S annual cum lauDE SOciETy induction “is a way we celebrate the leading scholars on campus,” noted Headmaster willy macmullen ’78 in opening this year’s ceremony. The Society is a national organization honoring scholarship and scholastic achievement at the secondary school level, comparable to Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma xi in colleges and scientific schools. a maximum of 20 percent of the senior class may be elected into membership in the cum laude Society. The 14 students inducted at Taft this fall represent the top 8 percent of their class. Taft’s new cum laude Society members, pictured here with academic dean Jon willson ’82 and Headmaster willy macmullen ’78, are: (back row, from left) Jacqueline Harriet Tyson, Bohan gao, Ezra wojtyla levy, Sung Jun Kevin won, rory Joseph ronan, yiran Bob Meng, Madison faye Haskins, srinidhi sriram Bharadwaj; (front, from left) alicia Shirley wang, nifei (Jennifer) Zeng, Sun Ho (Kelly) Park, Sarah caroline laico, Pensiri naviroj, and Sae Eun (Eugene) lee. yee-Fun yin
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Taft Bulletin / wInter 2015
wHaT DO yOu call a largE grOuP Of rHinOS? Officially, a crash, and Taft rhinos crashed the campus in droves on a beautiful sunday afternoon in November to support the school’s teams on Taft-Hotchkiss Day. Students, alumni, parents, and friends got their rally on in celebration of this longstanding Taft tradition.
campus, as well, by faculty within academic disciplines, by coaches on the field, and by program director Eileen Fenn Bouffard ’98. “My role is to bring theoretical learning into closer alignment with daily life at Taft,” Bouffard says. “In that role I work closely with Associate Dean of Faculty Edie Traina, who manages professional development for the first- and second-year mentors. Together, we help our fellows translate their formal preparation into Taft’s expectations.” And Taft’s expectations are high: Penn fellows balance classroom teaching, coaching, and dorm assignments— the boarding school “triple threat.” “The biggest challenge is finding balance—balance and patience with the process,” says first-year fellow Rosy Cohane-Mann. “We’re given tremendous responsibility from the start and want to run with that.” In the second year of the program, Taft’s Penn fellows transition toward full faculty with an increased teaching load while writing their master’s theses. Baptiste Bataille teaches three sections of French language courses, while developing, recording, and interpreting data around
his thesis study of the use of technology to enhance student learning in fullimmersion, foreign-language classrooms. “The second-year shift feels like a very natural progression,” says Bataille. “Knowing the school culture, seeing expectations more clearly, and just an overall greater familiarity with Taft and its environment have allowed me to relax in a way that lets me simply concentrate on teaching, and teaching at a higher level. It is a win-win for me and for my students.” For both Bataille and Cohane-Mann, the advantages of a cohort program are clear. “The exposure and collaboration between fellows, the discovery through discussion that takes place across schools—these are the strengths of the program. They are things you cannot measure,” says Bataille, “but things that define the Penn program.” “I definitely see us as a true fellowship,” Cohane-Mann adds, “in every sense of the word.” j To learn more about the Penn residency master’s in Teaching Program, visit www.gse.upenn.edu/boarding