East Boston Resident and
Teacher Honored with Science Teaching Fellowship
(Boston, MA. September 10, 2010) - - Nicole Ruttan,
a resident of East Boston, was one of only 18 recipients of a
year-long Fellowship in Science Education by the Boston Science
Partnership. Ruttan teaches as the Umana Middle School.
The Science Education Fellowship was given to only 18 science
teachers across the Boston Public Schools and recognizes their
outstanding contribution to the education of Boston students and the
potential for the teachers to expand their own talents and those of
their peers. The Fellowship comes with a $10,000 stipend for the
work they will do during the year above and beyond their normal
teaching duties.
The Science Education Fellowship is a
Boston Science Partnership
program and funded by the National Science Foundation. These
teachers will participate in a comprehensive set of activities
designed to improve teachers’ own science knowledge and the
knowledge of how to best teach science. They will focus on
increasing achievement in science for all students from kindergarten
through 12th grade, especially by expanding access to excellent
teaching in schools where students are currently underperforming.
The goals of the program are to build and support a corps of urban
teacher leaders; to institute a culture of continuous improvement of
instruction; and to increase student achievement by making
connections between subjects and between grades so that learning is
connected. Fellows will accomplish this by meeting in small groups
with their grade peers, their subject peers and as a whole group.
She begins the Fellowship work with the start of the school year.
The Boston Science Partnership, an NSF-funded, is an 8-year project
among three core partner institutions: the University of
Massachusetts Boston, The Boston Public Schools and Northeastern
University. Its goals are to increase the science achievement of
students across the city from kindergarten through college.
