Faculty Summer Professional Development

8/30/2016

Brimmer faculty participated in a wide range of professional development this summer.

"To ensure the maximum growth of our students, the professional development of our faculty is a significant priority for the School. Each time our teachers return from studying abroad or participating in workshops, they inspire their students and infuse new energy into their classrooms. Here, teachers model for the students what it means to be life-long learners."
—Judy Guild

Joshua Neudel (Head of Upper School) was a guest lecturer at Brandeis University for a Pedagogy course for prospective secondary science teachers in the MAT program. He also taught a class on Engineering Education at the high school level.

Assistant Head for Academic Affairs Joe Iuliano and Head of Middle School Carl Rapisarda Vallely attended the Folio Collaborative Leadership Institute in Washington, D.C. The week included workshops on adaptive leadership, teacher supervision and evaluation, and ways to enhance the use of Folio Collaborative at Brimmer.

Nicole Rudolph (World Languages Department Chair, Middle and Upper School French Teacher) and Mirna Goldberger (Middle and Upper School Spanish Teacher and Northlands Student Exchange Program Coordinator) traveled to Buenos Aires to explore an opportunity to establish a student exchange program with Northlands School. They visited its two campuses, Olivos and Nordelta, and met with the head of schools and the program coordinator, Benedit Quinn.

They toured the Nordelta branch, outside of the city in an area called Tigre. It is located at the delta formed by the Rivers Paraná and Uruguay as they converge into the Río de la Plata. Mirna reports, "The infrastructure and curricula of the school is in keeping with a progressive global and intercultural education in mind.”

Mirna shares, "The short but very useful trip enabled us to represent Brimmer abroad as we begin to connect our students biannually in an exchange program. Students from Brimmer will host students from Northlands for three weeks beginning in January of 2017, and in turn Northlands will place up to 10 globally minded Brimmer students for the same amount of time in a full-immersion experience at the end of June 2017. We anticipate enthusiastic participation and look forward to a very rewarding and long-term relationship with this exceptional and world-renowned school. As an alumna of such a school, it is my pleasure to share this opportunity with the Brimmer community."

Nicole Rudolph (Middle and Upper School French Teacher, World Languages Department Chair) In addition to traveling to Buenos Aires with Mirna Goldberger to facilitate an exchange program with Mirna’s alma mater, Nicole worked on her Ph.D. thesis.

Jen Kunkel (Assistant Director of Technology) attended a two-day workshop related to early childhood robotics at the DevTech Research group at Tufts. One day's focus was on ScratchJr, and the other was on working with KIBO robots.

Rachel Wolf-Heyman (Lower School Drama Teacher) participated in the CFG (Critical Friends Group) training in June and is so excited to bring the fantastic communication protocols back to campus in the fall. She also participated in an online Mindful Schools training and attended the American Alliance for Theatre Education (AATE) National Conference.

Jill Iuliano (Middle and Upper School Math and Science Teacher) was chosen to be in a focus group for a project called "What is Missing?" Jill says, "We were a virtual focus group that was asked to ‘meet’ with Maya Lin (Vietnam Memorial designer) and have a virtual tour of a collaborative project that she is doing with WGBH and PBS. Our group had a week and a half to explore her site, and then we came back together and answered several questions and provided general feedback. For Brimmer, I could see this being an interdisciplinary project for the Upper School students potentially in biology, environmental science, history, or art."

She also attended an AP Environmental Science Institute at the Schoodic Institute in Acadia National Park and got tips on how to best teach our new AP Environmental Science course.

Sara Murray (Grade 1 Teacher) went to a film screening and panel discussion at the Children's Museum and was very inspired.

As part of the summer Power of Play series, the Museum featured three screenings of the award–winning short film The Land created by Vermont filmmaker Erin Davis. The Land (2015) is a documentary film that shares its name with a playground in Wales, U.K., and explores the nature of play, risk, and the possibilities of unstructured play.

“[We are] deeply involved in the critical discussion about how play has changed, what has been lost, and how we can all support children’s play in everyday life,” states Anna Housley Juster, Ph.D., Senior Director of Child Development at the Museum. “The film is a catalyst for a robust community conversation guided by experts in the fields of child development, museum education, and play.”

In July, Kelly Neely (Director of Global Studies, Humanities Department Co-Chair) traveled with Primary Source and a group of teachers from the East Coast to Southern Spain and Morocco. The purpose of the trip was to study the history and culture of the Islamic society that lived in that region—Al-Andalus—from the eighth through the fifteenth centuries. Sites they visited included the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, the Alhambra in Granada, the "blue city" of Chechouen, the Jewish quarter and medina of Fez, and the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca. Kelly states, “Having taught about this civilization in European History, I gained so much from being able to see where such a forward thinking seat of knowledge, plurality, and multiculturalism took place in Europe and North Africa during the medieval period.”

Frank Van Atta (Middle and Upper School Music Teacher, Choral Director) attended the Massachusetts American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Summer Conference held at Smith College in July. Frank had the opportunity to attend lectures by choral conductors from around the country, including headliners Josephine Lee, President and Artistic Director of the Chicago Children's Choir, and Dr. John Dickson, Director of Choral Activities at Louisiana State University. In addition to repertoire sessions on middle school choirs, global music, and concert programming, Frank also heard choirs from around Massachusetts, including an evensong offering by the choirs of Trinity Copley Square. The concert concluded with a combined performance of "Dona Nobis Pacem" from Bach's Mass in B Minor.

Frank also attended the Oxford Choral Conducting Institute at Oxford University. This program is a collaborative venture between Oxford University and Westminster Choir College. Throughout this two-week course, he had the privilege of conducting the Grammy-nominated Westminster Voices as well as attending and performing in services at Christ Church, Magdalen, and Merton Colleges and St. Stephen's House, among others. He also participated in plenary sessions led by the world's foremost conductors including Dr. James Jordan, Dr. James Whitbourne, Dr. Stephen Darlington, and Dr. Edward Higgenbottom. Frank's studies focused on chant, conducting technique, choral repertoire, and music history.

Brent Ridge (Middle and Upper School Art Teacher) was elated to be chosen among very stiff competition to be awarded a studio art residency in July at the Vermont Studio Center. Part of the residency experience was an exploration of mindfulness—meditation as an activity to clear the mind—and a discussion of what it means to be away from the clutter of digital interference (as well as other kinds of interrupting anxiety). The residents came from as close as Boston and as far as Australia, and all shared dedication to their craft and respect for its academic output. Artist residents became friends through the experience and exchanged ideas and techniques across the boundaries of craft.

Brent shares, “We presented our art in a lecture format to each other through slide presentations and opened our studios twice to the public for Open Studio events. The Center also runs a visiting artist program where artists present their work to the Center. Artists shared their inspirations and outlooks on the world of craft.

Michael Sconce (Head Chef, Assistant Kitchen Manager) and his fiancée, Kaitlin, were married in July at a small vineyard called Mesa Del Sol California and then honeymooned in Peru. Michael reports that the trip "took us from fine dining in Lima to over 16,000 feet in the Andes, and of course to Machu Picchu.”

Kristin Sammeta (Director of Academic Services, Lower School Reading) took the course Research-Based Comprehension Strategies You Can Use: Teaching Content in Grades 3-8 at Columbia University Teacher's College. The goal of the two-day workshop was to provide educators with insight, practices, and well-researched comprehension strategies that can be used for students in grades 3 to 8.

Lower School Teachers Deb Castro, Geraldine Naddaff, Sara Murray,

Molly Serventi-Gleeson, Gemma Kevaney, Nikki Atkins, Kim Woods, Rachel Wolf-Heyman, Jen Kunkel, and Hali Hellmuth, along with School Nurse Beth Escobar, Director of Counseling Services Beth Meister, and Registrar/Lower School Diversity Coordinator Janeata Robinson, took a Mindfulness Fundamentals online course. The course aimed to give participants the tools necessary to continue mindfulness practice after the course was completed. "The practice of mindful awareness has a variety of well-documented impacts, including a reduction in toxic stress, an increase in emotion regulation, and an improvement in sustained attention, focus and executive functioning."

Kyla Graves (Humanities Teacher, Grade 8 Dean) completed two professional development opportunities over the summer. The first was the Institute for Middle Level Leadership, a conference attended by roughly 120 middle school educators from around the country who came together to gain tools, lessons, and connections for bettering their middle school programs. She shares, “I took away valuable ideas about ways to integrate technology and make better use of our 1-to-1 iPad program, ideas for more meaningful advisories, and received access to a wealth of information specific to middle school programs through AMLE (Association for Middle Level Education).”

She also took an eight-week online course through Facing History and Ourselves titled Holocaust and Human Behavior. The curriculum focused on the rise of Nazi power, the Holocaust and aftermath, memorials and memory, and on how to create and make change in the world today.

Brian Purcell (Middle School Humanities Teacher, Dean of Seventh Grade) completed a 4,700-mile road trip from Anchorage, Alaska, to Columbia, South Carolina. He traveled with a friend across Western Canada and dropped into the U.S. in North Dakota, visiting White Horse (Yukon Territory) and Banff (Alberta). He says, “I'd never driven across the country, let alone the whole continent of North America. There was a lot of wildlife—bears, bison, moose, bighorn sheep).”

Thomas Bergeron (Instrumental and General Music Teacher, Director of After-School Music Program) spent the majority of the summer in Amsterdam, where he curated and produced a mixed-media performance event at the artist co-op Plantage Doklaan. He performed with his hybrid jazz/classical chamber ensemble at the Wonderfeel Festival (in collaboration with Holland's Ragazze String Quartet). Thomas also played for Radio 4, which was broadcast across The Netherlands. In August, he hosted a two-week intensive brass chamber music seminar at Northeastern University in Boston: The Atlantic Brass Quintet Seminar. It was the 24th year of the seminar—the largest of its kind. Fifty students (college, graduate, post-grad, and high school) and 10 faculty spent two weeks developing and performing the world's most advanced brass quintet repertoire, and participating in master classes, open rehearsals, and public performances (including a flash mob at Copley Square).

Bethany Shannon (Middle and Upper School Science Teacher) spent a week at NuVu Innovation Academy delving into the messiness of the creative process and exploring ideas for open-ended problems to present to her students.

Sarah Abrams (Lower School Librarian) attended the American Library Association's annual conference in Orlando. She attended many workshops and informative sessions and had an opportunity to meet fellow librarians and many great authors. She also worked on a Lower School Library/Design Lab renovation.

Megan Dolan (Director of the Middle and Upper School Library, Supervisor of the Library Program Pre-K-12) received a 200-hour yoga teaching certification from the New School of Yogic Arts at Coolidge Corner Yoga. She shares, “It was a spectacular training and will allow me to deliver studio-quality instruction this winter to Middle and Upper School students in yoga class.”

Faculty and Staff from Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools (Andrew Beal, Meghan Ship, Nikki Atkins, Elizabeth Wooster, Rachel Wolf-Heyman, Janeata Robinson, Geraldine Naddaff, Jessica Christian, Mirna Goldberger, and Ina Patel) participated in a five-day training that covered the role of Critical Friends Groups in a learning community and explored various faciliation protocols that enhance both classroom practices and organizational effectiveness.

Faculty Summer Professional Development

Brimmer and May School