Outreach

The Listening Project

The Listening Project is an ambitious effort funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Initiative for Inclusive Excellence. It focuses on introductory science courses at Tufts, based on the idea that a key part of supporting inclusion and excellence is instructors' recognizing and engaging with the diverse strengths and productive intellectual resources students bring to their studies.

Social Emotional Learning for Equity & Civic Teaching (SELECT) Faculty Fellows Program
Associate Director: Deborah Donahue-Keegan

This is a year-long Faculty Fellows program aimed at integrating social-emotional learning into core teaching, research and education activities at Tufts. The SEL initiative was launched in early 2017 thanks to a generous gift from David T. Zussman, A53, J80P, and his family through the Zussman Fund for Social and Emotional Learning.

The group meets monthly, and the program aims to help Tufts faculty develop:

1. A deep understanding of the vital role of social-emotional learning to cultural competence and civic engagement;
2. A strong commitment to integrate SEL into their Tufts courses; and
3. The social-emotional skills needed to engage in and promote constructive dialogue with students and colleagues, both for faculty members' professional development and for the benefit of student learning in the classroom.

Tufts University Behavioral Health Enhanced School-based Training (BHEST) initiative

The School Psychology program has been awarded a four year training grant from the United States Health Resources and Services Administration. The grant (an award of $533,000) will fund the Tufts University Behavioral Health Enhanced School-based Training (BHEST) initiative. BHEST proposed a unique supervisory model for behavioral health training in schools that places school psychology interns in integrated behavioral health training positions in underserved communities in the Greater Boston area. Over the next four years, 30 BHEST interns will work in schools in Boston, Lawrence, Cambridge, and Lowell, and will participate in a collaborative training model with field-based school psychologists and school nurses, and with Tufts School Psychology faculty. The grant will be used to support the interns through stipends, and to provide professional development and support for behavioral health initiatives.

Global Partnerships for Education
Linda Beardsley

Since 2008, Distinguished Senior Lecturer Linda V. Beardsley has been working with the Maranyundo Initiative, a group of Boston area women in collaboration with the Benebikira Nuns of Rwanda to build and develop the Maranyundo School in Nyamata, Rwanda. Colleagues at the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach and in the Education Department worked with the teachers at the school on using video and technology to enhance their teaching - have also been involved in this ongoing work.

Journal of Museum Education
Cynthia Robinson

Museum Studies program director Cynthia Robinson is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Museum Education, keeping in touch with museum educators all over the country, informing her teaching, and allowing her in turn to help shape the field.

SPARC
Scott Greenspan

SPARC (School Psychology Awareness and Recruitment Committee) is a student committee in the school psychology program designed to raise awareness and educate our campus and community about school psychology as a viable career in education and schools. The committee is composed of current students, usually in the first and second year, who meet on a regular basis to plan activities and events for the academic year, such as the school psychology open house/student panel, School Psychology Awareness Week, and interview day.

The committee also serves as the liaison between the program and Tufts Graduate Student Council. Student volunteers are also available to discuss career options in school psychology as well as talk about their experience in the Tufts School Psychology program.

Student-Centered Teaching at Tufts
David Hammer, Phil Gay and participating faculty

With Professor David Hammer in the interviewer seat and videographer Phil Gay behind the camera, Tufts University faculty members from across disciplines and departments are captured on video while teaching in their classrooms, and later interviewed as they observe themselves in real time and reflect on specific moments of interaction with their students.

Students Write at Malden High School

Sean Walsh, lead teacher of the English department, and several other faculty at Malden High School developed a space for students interested in writing called the Writer's Den. The Tufts Education Department supported setting up the space by sharing resources and creating an internship for a Tufts Senior to work closely with teachers and students to promote literacy activities and publish student work. Larry Evans, the first Writer's Den intern, describes the space as one in which "young writers are not judged at first by their grammar usage. All writers, including ELLs, need a place where they feel a sense of acceptance and the importance of self-expression."

Urban Mathematics and Science Teacher Collaborative - (Noyce)
Todd Quinto, PI Phase I; Bárbara Brizuela, PI Phase II

We have been awarded two Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program grants, through the National Science Foundation. In Phase I, the department and project partners prepared two cohorts of math and physics teachers, who are now working in middle and high schools around the country. Phase II Teaching Fellows will be working in the Malden Public Schools in math, science, and elementary teaching. Both projects include community and professional partnerships as well as ongoing professional development for several years after graduation. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. DUE 1035342 and DUE 1439880. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed here do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.