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The Delaware Teachers Institute in New Castle
County (DTI) is an educational partnership between the University of
Delaware and five New Castle County school districts: Christina,
Colonial, New Castle County Vocational-Technical, Appoquinimink and Red Clay
Consolidated. The Institute is designed to strengthen teaching and
learning in the community's public schools. DTI is situated in the
College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Delaware, and is led
by a University faculty group and a committee of teacher leaders. The
Institute is coordinated and administered by a director.
DTI offers seminars on subjects that school
teachers request in the humanities and sciences, and which best fit
contemporary needs among the student population.
Following a rigorous application process, K-12
teachers are admitted into small seminar groups organized around the
content topics. In seminars, university faculty members contribute their
knowledge of and expertise in a subject, while teachers apply their
knowledge of elementary and secondary pedagogy, their understanding of
the students they teach, and their grasp of what really works in the
classroom.
Successful completion of a seminar requires that
teachers, under the personal guidance of university faculty leaders,
each write a curriculum unit to be used in their own classrooms and to
be shared with other teachers in both their home schools and across the country through both print and electronic publication.
By developing teacher leaders in individual schools serving high-need student populations, DTI strengthens the schools' learning environments.
DTI is also part of a national network of teacher institutes from New Haven, Connecticut; Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Charlotte, North Carolina; and
developing sites in Richmond, Virginia; Chicago, Illinois; Tulsa, Oklahoma; the Dine
Nation of Arizona and New Mexico; and several locations in the San Francisco area.
