In-Service Teachers

Teachers on Sabbatical

Contact: Mrs. Lenore Vazquez (718) 982-2325

Each semester, the Discovery Institute's Teachers on Sabbatical Program at the College of Staten Island provides opportunities for teachers to enrich their own and their students' experiences and to rejuvenate themselves as members of the teaching profession. We offer two courses that are designed specifically for teachers and are taught by College faculty who are committed to developing new approaches to teaching. As a whole, the program highlights interdisciplinary and engaged teaching and learning. Not only does it connect each course to the other courses in the program, but it also connects the courses to practical applications in the teachers' own classrooms.

Teachers on Sabbatical (TOS) are required to complete 8 credits per semester.  At this time we are offering the following two courses:

Course Offerings - 2007-2008

*EDD 806: Curriculum Technology I (4 hours/credits)
*EDD 807: Curriculum Technology II (4 hours/credits)
The purpose of this course is to develop the subject matter of teachers' other departmental TOS course (see below) into practical curriculum materials for use in the classroom. Teachers first learn basic computer skills such as Microsoft Word and Excel, and progress to become comfortable with online research and development of topics specifically related to their accompanying TOS course. As the culminating project of the TOS program, teachers design and create an interdisciplinary, standards-based, technologically focused classroom project for their students.  This project also incorporates the content for which they are responsible in their second departmental TOS course.

ENL 265: Journal Writing I (4 hours/credits)
ENL 370: Journal Writing II (4 hours/credits)
Each student keeps a journal during the semester in which he/she responds critically and imaginatively to various personal, domestic, social, environmental, and cultural situations. A writing course suited for teachers in any discipline, teachers will learn and apply basic standards of descriptive and analytic thinking and writing across the curriculum to their own writing and communication and to that of their students. The second semester focuses on interdisciplinary exploration -- on the areas where ideas in literature, psychology, and historical biography overlap with introspective writing typified by the self-reflective journal. Teachers on sabbatical will be asked to develop for their students a project that incorporates these methods of analysis and critique -- methods of thinking and expression that are required as basic skills for success in all academic disciplines.

*Note: Teachers on sabbatical are NOT obliged to enroll in the Discovery Institute's TOS Program. If a teacher chooses not to take any one of our courses, The Discovery Institute will be happy to help him or her select from a variety of courses the college has to offer.