| Programs | |||
| African Studies Institute | |||
One of the IAP’s curriculum development projects, the African Studies Institute assembles faculty in arts, language, literature, history, social science and environmental science to teach courses on environment and culture, technology and progress, and family and nation. This project emphasizes the diversity of cultures and issues that characterizes the continent. From 1999-2001, the ASI sponsored a five-week program of short courses, research and writing that took place on location in Africa for the first half of the program and in Andover for the second half. The Institute has enrolled a balance of students from Phillips Academy, AKES schools in East Africa and the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. ASI also sponsored conferences for secondary teachers in 1997 and 1998. |
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| English |
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| The
IAP offers two avenues for professional development in the teaching
of English. Communication and Composition is the IAP’s newest
venture, to be launched in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in August 2004. The
workshop is designed to help teachers develop skills and strategies
for teaching critical reading and expository writing. Participants
explore a variety of non-fiction writing formats, including the business
letter, news journalism, persuasive essay, and literary analysis.
They examine modes of paragraph and essay development and the use
of detail and figurative language. The workshop considers the relationship
between language and audience and navigates the path between convention
and originality. Teachers learn to incorporate more writing assignments
into their curricula and to make those assignments engaging and engaging
for students. In a joint effort with the Andover Bread Loaf Writing Workshop, the IAP has welcomed some 38 AKES teachers to the Phillips Academy campus for a two-week seminar on teaching writing and literature, using technology in the classroom, and conducting teacher research. Workshop participants come from American inner-city schools as well as AKES schools. Cultural differences notwithstanding, these teachers collaborate to confront the similar challenges they face in inspiring their students to read and write creatively. The IAP has also sponsored reunions for ABL alumni in Africa and Asia, where past ABL participants gather to share their successes, discuss their challenges, and revisit the initiatives built during the workshops. |
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| Global Economics | |||
| The IAP offers both curriculum and professional development in the discipline of economics. The Global Economics Curriculum Project has created primary and secondary school curriculum that develops economics skills by drawing on examples from the international economy. In the creation of these lessons, Phillips Academy teachers work with AKES field consultants in Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Pakistan and Tanzania, as well as with a variety of American, Canadian, Australian and British consultants. A curriculum of 100 lesson plans, designed for students ages 6-17, is posted on PA's website: www.andover.edu/aep/. In addition, a complete 12th grade economics course, covering economic theory at the Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and A-Levels, includes materials drawn from activities of the Aga Khan Rural Support Project in Pakistan and Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development in Kenya. The Global Economics Teachers’ Workshop introduces teachers to student-centered methods of teaching the principles of basic economics: scarcity and choice, markets, money and trade. Working from the GECP curriculum created by teachers from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, workshop participants adapt these lesson plans to their own syllabi, applying local resources, ideas and activities. The workshop also familiarizes participants with techniques for using the World Wide Web in their classrooms to advance their curricular goals. |
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| Information and Communications Technlology |
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| The Information and Communications Technology Workshop explores the integration of technology with curriculum across disciplines. In addition to data manipulation and word processing, "technology" includes discipline-specific software and Internet resources that can help accomplish curricular objectives. The workshop introduces humanities teachers to the use of ICT in research, and it alerts math and science teachers to specific software and Web sites. Participants are invited to develop, with guidance, ICT tools appropriate to their own disciplines and syllabi. | |||
| Islamic Cultural Studies | |||
Development of an Islamic Cultural Studies curriculum has been a core program since the IAP’s inception. Drawing upon the Aga Khan Development Network’s wide range of institutional and scholarly resources, the ICS project seeks to explore the power of the faith, the significance of Islam in global history and culture, and the complexity and diversity that characterize Muslim communities around the world. The ICS project has supported significant curricular change at Andover and in the AKES network of schools. Since 1998, all PA ninth-graders study Islam in depth as part of their world history course, and IED has developed a six-week course on Islamic Cultural Studies as part of its M.Ed. program. Course planners now hope to develop a broad set of materials to be field tested in 2004 in select AKES Kenya, AKES Pakistan and Texas public schools.
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| Mathematics |
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| Is it possible to have more than one right answer to a math problem? Absolutely, according to Andover Institute in Mathematics instructors. AIM introduces new material to math teachers and exposes them to a variety of problem-solving techniques. Workshop leaders provide demonstrations of concrete methods by which to teach mathematics so that students struggling to master the material can understand its application. The workshop emphasizes collaborative learning in the context of discovery projects, reinforcement assignments and real-world problems. | |||
| Science | |||
| The Science Project Workshop considers hands-on, problem-solving approaches to science, and it seeks to integrate disciplines within the sciences (biology, chemistry, physics) to discuss local and global environmental issues. Leaders devote part of each workshop to improving knowledge and to creating research projects for each participant’s classroom. The workshop emphasizes project work as a means to achieve the teachers’ curricular goals, and specific sessions focus on sources of information, integration of technology, collaboration and assessment. | |||
| Teacher Exchange |
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In addition to workshops, the IAP offers other opportunities for professional development through its teacher exchange program. World Teaching Fellows have worked at AKES schools for one year after a year at Phillips Academy, offering those schools sustained contact with energetic, technologically literate young teachers familiar with American models of education. In turn, AKES teachers (and, occasionally, students) are welcomed to Phillips Academy’s Summer Session and to MS2. MS2 is a math- and science-intensive summer program designed for minority students. Veteran Phillips Academy teachers have gone overseas, and experienced AKES teachers have traveled to Andover, to observe different teaching styles and to examine different curricula. Visiting teachers survey a variety of classes in their own and related disciplines and have a chance to see firsthand the pace and tenor of student life in other parts of the world. In a recent collaboration with the Wellesley College Center for Work and Service, the IAP is helping to facilitate exchanges for college students to intern at AKES schools. |
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| Teaching About HIV/AIDS | |||
| The IAP sponsored a workshop, among the first of its kind, entitled "Teaching About HIV/AIDS," in Nairobi, Kenya, in April 2002. Internationally renowned experts provided participants with up-to-date information about the epidemic from medical, social, educational, and legal perspectives. Teachers discussed how to present the material to their students, how to move sensitively beyond taboos and how to counsel students affected by the disease. | |||
| Theatre Arts |
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| The Theatre Arts Workshop introduces drama to teachers of the English language, primarily to provide an alternative method for improving fluency and proficiency in applied English. Participants learn to use theatre-related exercises to make the teaching of language and literature more interactive and immediate. They also develop strategies and skills for the production of high-caliber plays, a process that encourages improvement in oral and physical presentation skills. | |||
