Grant Projects
CFI Grants
Developing the Scarsdale Teachers Collaborative (ST@C)
John Calvert, Shoshana Cooper, Sue Luft, Carole Phillips, Paul Tomizawa, and William Yang
The current national emphasis on teacher accountability and high-stakes testing has led to a narrowing of skills within a limited number of subjects, promoting a more rigid, standardized curriculum. These influences have affected teachers at the elementary level as they find fewer opportunities to take risks and be creative with new ideas in teaching. The purpose of this project is to counteract those influences by finding ways to deliberately inspire creativity and innovation. The team will work to establish a Teacher Innovation Network, which will support the study of inquiry-based innovative practices through online professional learning communities, and the development of Collaborative Innovative Classrooms - classrooms or learning spaces in the elementary schools devoted to research, experimentation and the transformation of instruction to further student learning.
Click here to read CHAPTER 4 of the published report of the Grant in the Center for Innovation eJournal
What COULD We Do with Room 18?
Marilyn Blackley, Edgewood, 4th Grade Teacher Matthew Fitzpatrick, Edgewood, K-5 Art Teacher Lisa Forte, Edgewood, K-5 Music Teacher Paul Tomizawa, Edgewood, K-5 Technology Teacher, and William Yang, Edgewood, Assistant Principal
What Could we do with Room 18? It’s what we’re asking of Edgewood students and teachers. Take an empty classroom and contemplate the use of space. Remove the classic classroom structures and redesign the room to encourage contemporary thoughts on learning and teaching. Room 18, which was formerly used as a classroom, has become our laboratory for experimental thinking on instructional redesign. Our goal is to use this space to springboard ideas that seek to re-envision existing classrooms and prompt thinking on how space impacts teaching and learning. Room 18 is an environment that will provide flexible learning spaces and materials to help us develop collaborative and problem solving skills. It’s where, through the principles of Design Thinking, we can research and tackle problems, whether they are located globally or in our own classrooms. It’s where teachers and students can imagine the potential inside their own classrooms.
Teachers are perpetually intrigued with reconfiguring their rooms, for the sake of igniting student activity, but the exercise of moving and removing pieces of furniture, often leaves teachers faced with the dread of eliminating the structures that support a longstanding curriculum. Our hope is that Room 18 becomes the antidote to that dread, providing a sandbox for redesigning classroom space and curriculum experiences, while better meeting the needs of today’s diverse learners. Our hope is that this space is where teachers and students will come to be inspired, using the tools and materials they will need to some day contemplate the question: “What COULD we do with our own classroom?”
