Faculty News

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Investing in Agnes Irwin Teachers

Summer Growth Grants provide financial resources to faculty for the purpose of growing as practitioners and developing new ideas for teaching practice, enhancing student outcomes, and advancing the AIS mission. Eighteen teachers undertook the following projects to build upon their teaching methods.

Thematic Approach to 11th Grade U.S. History

UPPER SCHOOL HISTORY TEACHER KATHERINE NICKOLS

A thematic approach enables students to see the historical roots of contemporary events, adds relevance to the material being covered, and brings the past alive in a way that the chronological approach fails to do, shared Nickols. “Students’ capacity for historical inquiry should not be underestimated. A thematic approach gives students the opportunity to engage in civil discourse about topics we see today so that they can practice being respectful of differing opinions and understand that questions do not necessarily have correct or final answers,” she said.

Making Global History Global

UPPER SCHOOL HISTORY TEACHER KRYSTA ZADROGA

“My goal is to build up our coverage of the whole globe!” said Zadroga. In an effort to evolve past a mostly-Eurocentric view of global history, she encourages using a lens that is more geographic than chronological.

Rethinking 5th Grade English and History

MIDDLE SCHOOL HISTORY TEACHER LAUREN MAYER SWEETSER ’08

“I often feel like it is a mad dash at the end of the school year even to get to Greece,” said Sweetser. “My work centered on creating a framework that would allow a more comprehensive study of ancient civilizations that is focused on patterns and themes.”

Wellness Curriculum and Mission

WELLNESS TEACHERS MEGHAN HALBERSTADT, MICHELE KANE, LAURA SHERBONDY

To stay on pace with current wellness needs of girls and young women, the team conducted a comprehensive audit of wellness offerings to ensure continuity across divisions. The mission was also updated: “The PE and Wellness Department is designed to ensure all students learn and embrace healthy habits to achieve balance and happiness in their present and future lives.”

Unpacking “New” ELA Methodology

LOWER SCHOOL TEACHER AUDREY SIKDAR

Sikdar attended the Columbia University Lucy Calkins Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. She is using the skills she learned to guide students’ work in storytelling. The mission of the PE and Wellness Department is to ensure all students learn and embrace healthy habits to achieve balance and happiness in their present and future lives.

The Agnes and Sophy Dallas Irwin Enrichment Fund

The Agnes and Sophy Dallas Irwin Fund, established in 1916, provides opportunities for faculty to travel and conduct research.

2021-2022 RECIPIENT: MURRAY SAVAR, VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS CHAIR Forty-six years at Agnes Irwin

“The purpose of my trip was to improve my linguistic skills in the six languages that I speak. I spent three glorious weeks in Europe visiting Dublin, Munich, Berlin, Budapest, and Vienna practicing German, Hungarian and, believe it or not, a smattering of Spanish, Hebrew, and French along the way. I visited a former synagogue in Budapest that now houses the Hungarian Holocaust Center. I also revisited a cathedral in Vienna where I sang a choral concert in the late 1980s. I am so grateful to have received this award.”

Ethical Scholarship Grades 5th-12th

MIDDLE AND UPPER SCHOOL TEACHERS PATRICK BEASOM, JULIE DIANA, JAKE STEIN GREENBERG, LYDIA TRAILL, AND ROSANN WESTMEYER

Ethical scholarship is about producing work that is honest, reliable, and free from plagiarism. The team designed a sequence of skills for grades five to twelve intended to foster excellence in note-taking, differentiating types of sources and texts, use of citations in various disciplines, paraphrasing, and selecting scholarly sources.

Building Quantitative Reasoning Skills in Math Classrooms

MIDDLE SCHOOL MATH TEACHER JOY CONNELLY

In order to enhance students’ abilities to apply mathematical concepts and skills to real world problems, Connelly adapted lessons to create ways for students to interpret and analyze data, identify and use different methods to solve problems, learn to estimate to ensure the reasonableness of results and solutions, and to more effectively communicate solutions by including more classroom collaboration.

Notice and Wonder™

MIDDLE SCHOOL MATH TEACHER JENNIFER HAHN

Hahn applied the Notice and Wonder™ (Annie Fetter) strategy to help encourage students to gather information about a figure, photo, or chart. “It sparks curiosity and calms anxiety when solving word problems,” said Hahn.

Students practicing the Notice and WonderTM method

LEADERSHIP

Three Questions with Elizabeth Rossini, Assistant Head of School

What have you learned about Agnes Irwin as a school in your time here so far?

Agnes Irwin has an amazing history that is alive and well! We are a mission driven school that works hard to ensure that we approach teaching, learning and planning through a girlcentered lens. The skills learned from AIS Core Values, Leadership Toolkit, Leadership Keys, and Portrait of an AIS Graduate are vital to the development of our students as they progress through their academic and athletic programs and experiences.

What have you learned about Agnes Irwin students?

Agnes Irwin students are kind, inquisitive, and love mints! They care about their school and are very engaged.

What are your top initiatives?

My goals are to deeply understand Agnes Irwin and our community, support the strategic planning process, understand the curriculum across PreK-12 in order to develop coherence within and across disciplines, support engagement with the Portrait of an AIS graduate, and to continue our DEIB work as an important lens through which we examine our programming.

9th Grade English: Foundations of Storytelling

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT CHAIR LYDIA TRAILL AND UPPER SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHER COLBERT ROOT

“We are working on creating a more global approach to literature by bridging the crossover between what students are reading in English and what they are studying in history. We will see times when the narratives clash and deconstruct what that means,” said Traill.

Sharon Rudnicki Writing Center Programming

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT CHAIR LYDIA TRAILL

Programs in the Writing Center have expanded — twenty-eight trained studenttutors rotate to help students in all divisions with writing, plus there are extended hours with staff to help support writing, more outreach to the Middle School, new opportunities for writing competitions, a speaker series, and writing workshops.

Inventory and Audit of the Lower School Library

LIBRARIANS SAM HERRON AND MELISSA JOSEF

“A comprehensive inventory is how we ensure the library collection is wellorganized, easy to navigate by students and staff, and curated to meet their needs, interests, and goals. It’s the difference between a library and a room full of books,” said Josef.