Inspired Teacher


Inspired Teacher (n.) – An educator who combines a deep knowledge of human development, content, and pedagogy with a deep appreciation for each child’s imagination, intellect, and inquiry so their classrooms are places where students achieve at high levels academically, socially, and creatively.

At Center for Inspired Teaching we believe teachers are the solution. That's why we've spent over a decade crafting programs designed to empower teachers to reach their full potential.

These are some of the ways in which you can get involved:

Courses

  • 2009-2010 Course Catalog - we offer a full year of courses ranging from 5-week seminars to 3-hour Saturday workshops. Explore the catalog and register for our courses online!
  • The Inspired Teaching Institute - a yearlong professional development program for teachers (preK-12) that rejuvenates them while strengthening their abilities to meet the challenges of teaching.

Mentoring

Our Mentoring Program pairs graduates of the Inspired Teaching Institute with an Inspired Mentor. Together, teachers and mentors work to implement Inspired Teaching's innovative and effective teaching strategies. Teachers and Mentors meet regularly to set goals, discuss specific classroom situations, and exchange feedback.

Teachers and mentors may focus on areas such as discipline, including teaching students to develop self-discipline; inquiry-based lessons and lesson planning; assessment methods, including authentic and performance assessment; and effective instruction in math, science, language arts, and history. Teachers learn-with direct support and encouragement from a mentor-to incorporate spontaneity, critical thinking, and creative problem solving into their teaching. Mentors visit classrooms at least 12 times over the course of the year and provide teachers with written narratives of each classroom visit.

If you are a current Inspired Teacher and would like to request a mentor, please click here for the Inspired Teaching Mentoring & Teacher Empowerment Program Application for the current academic year. (Please note mentors may not be available for everyone who applies and are assigned on a first-come/first-served basis.)

Resources

  • Visit the Inspired Teacher Blog for daily reflections, ideas, and insights from Inspired Teaching staff on the challenging, intellectual, enriching, and beautiful art of teaching.
  • Favorite Website of the Week:


  • Rethink Learning Now - Sponsored by a growing coalition of organizations (including the Forum for Education and Democracy), the Rethink Learning Now (rethinklearningnow.com) is a national grassroots effort to restore the focus of public education reform to its rightful place on learning, and on the core conditions that best support it.Aside from releasing three provocative public service announcements (watch them here), the campaigns first step is to invite people to recount powerful learning experiences and identify the attributes that made those experiences so successful. As the number of stories grows over time, the campaign is representing visually, via a tag cloud, the attributes that appear most often across peoples experiences. The purpose is to identify the core conditions that best support powerful learning so that all of us can be more prepared to ask our lawmakers to institute reforms based more clearly on what young people need in order to thrive and stay in school.Read more here.
  • Inspired Teaching Alumni Pages - Inspired Teaching Institute alumni can use their passwords to visit this section of the website containing the latest information for our alumni network, and an archive of Inspired Teaching activities, each fully described and complete with a list of applicable standards. Registered alumni can login at the top this page.