Institute for School Partnership

WashU alumni are partnering with their alma mater to improve teacher quality and retention.

The Institute for School Partnership at Washington University in St. Louis has launched a comprehensive COVID-19 curriculum. The free unit can be adapted for both synchronous and asynchronous learning and helps middle school students understand the history of infectious disease, the nature of COVID-19, the power and limitations of modeling and the importance of scientific literacy.

The Institute for School Partnership at Washington University has launched new programs and partnerships and created new curriculum. Efforts include a new COVID-19 curriculum for middle school students and distributing materials for at-home STEM projects.

Stagnant scores, frustrated students, daunted educators — such is the state of math education across the nation and in the region. That’s why the Institute for School Partnership at Washington University in St. Louis is introducing Math314, an innovative program that will improve math instruction and boost students’ enthusiasm for the subject.  

More than 230 students from the St. Louis region will launch their balsa wood gliders at the 11th annual Boeing Engineering Challenge at Washington University. The competition follows months of designing, building and testing at elementary, middle and high schools across the region, where Boeing engineers have volunteered as mentors.

High school students need computer science skills, but who will teach them? The Institute for School Partnership is addressing Missouri’s desperate shortage of computer science educators through the Code.org professional learning program, which prepares educators with no coding experience to lead computer science classes. The need is urgent: only one-third of Missouri high schools offer computer science.

David L. Kirk, former professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, died Nov. 1, 2018, in St. Louis after a long illness. He was 84. Kirk spent a lifetime teaching and researching developmental biology and, in retirement, worked to improve the way evolution is taught in K-12 schools.

The National Association of Biology Teachers has awarded Chuck McWilliams, co-director of the Master’s in Biology for Science Teachers Program through the Institute for School Partnership and a teacher-leader for the Maplewood Richmond Heights School District, the 2018 Outstanding Biology Teacher Award for Missouri.

Good teachers make for engaged students and stable schools. That’s why Washington University is partnering with the St. Louis Teacher Residency program to address two of the most vexing problems facing high-needs schools: teacher turnover and teacher quality.

The Josh Seidel Memorial Foundation recently awarded the Institute for School Partnership at Washington University in St. Louis funds to support the creation of mobile makerspace kits to be used in classrooms in the University City School District.