Jefferson City’s first STEM school partners with ISP to become STEMcapable

Roller coasters are fun, but for safety’s sake, they must be designed, built and maintained by mechanical engineers. It’s a STEM career path that Adrianna Koty has enjoyed discussing recently with the fifth graders in her class at Thorpe Gordon STEM Academy in Jefferson City, Missouri. “Giving students real-world problems to solve and think about […]

Pener Selected To Lead STEM Teacher Quality (TQ)

V. Barbara Pener has been selected to serve as program director for STEM Teacher Quality (TQ), an immersive year-long STEM professional learning experience that has equipped 1,071+ and impacted 35,000+ students throughout the Greater St. Louis region since 2011. Read more about Pener’s leadership of STEM TQ’s eleventh cohort.

Empowering teachers (Links to an external site)

In 2020, Washington University in St. Louis joined St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) in a bold new experiment to turn around two of the district’s lowest performing elementary schools, Ashland Elementary in North St. Louis and Meramec Elementary in South St. Louis. Only it wasn’t an experiment at all. Read about how teachers from these two […]

STEM equity champion Deb Holmes passes torch for teacher quality program with powerful message: Any Child Can Learn Anything

When teachers arrive for the first morning of STEM Teacher Quality (TQ) they know they’re in for something immersive and special. With support from their districts, they’ve just committed a full year of their time and energy to an experience that promises to boost their confidence and skills in the subjects of science, technology, engineering […]

ISP Partners with MilliporeSigma to SPARK passion for STEM learning worldwide

Jacky Bransome is neither a scientist nor a teacher. But she happens to know that fireflies aren’t the best way to explain chemiluminescence to students living in her part of the world. Turns out that fireflies aren’t a thing in Gillingham, UK. It’s one of many fun facts she’s picked up over the years through […]

ISP’s Lauren Ashman Recognized with WashU’s Emerging Leader Award

Lauren Ashman, program manager and instructional specialist for the mySci Program at The Institute for School Partnership at Washington University in St. Louis (ISP),  has been recognized with the Emerging Leader Award. The Emerging Leader Award recognizes a Washington University employee who positively influences and leads others at the university, in their community and in […]

ISP Showcase elevates ambitious, equitable math teaching with district partners

Creating environments that invite all students to engage confidently with ambitious mathematical learning is an aim best achieved working in tandem with peer professionals who want the same thing for their students. After three years of deep exploration into the most impactful ways to implement equitable math instruction, teachers, administrators and math coaches from Mehlville, […]

mySci Unit Awarded Design Badge from Next Generation Science Standards

Using Our Resources Wisely, a fifth grade science unit developed by the Institute for School Partnership’s (ISP)  mySci program has been awarded the NGSS Design Badge. The Badge is awarded to top-rated science units designed for the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Since 2017, only four other units, including mySci’s From Sun to Food, have […]

When encouraged to lead, teachers lean into what they know best: their students

Brittany Stephens was on the lookout for an old-fashioned rotary phone over the summer.  No stranger to kindergarteners or the classroom, Stephens is confident that having the clunky relic on hand will help kindergarten students in her classroom grasp the concepts of then and now.  “Being encouraged to think creatively and find the tools I […]

New partnership empowers principals to ‘dream big’ (Links to an external site)

SLPS Principal Redesign Fellows leverage existing strengths to improve outcomes Boost ninth-grade reading scores by two years at Vashon High School.   Introduce play- and project-based lessons at Shenandoah Elementary.  Improve assessments at Roosevelt High School. The principals at these schools and four others are poised to achieve big goals after participating in the inaugural cohort […]