C1 Cover_S06.qxd - Penn GSE - University of Pennsylvania

Penn Alexander Partners
The Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander University of
Pennsylvania Partnership School (PAS) is a PreK-8
neighborhood public school that was created through a
partnership formed by Penn, the School District of
Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Federation of
Teachers.
While GSE has taken the lead in this work, Penn’s
presence is felt in every grade at Penn Alexander.
Following is a sample of the breadth of the Penn commitment—not
including professional preparation, curriculum
development, research, and professional development
for teachers, all of which engage faculty from many
different schools.
• School of Engineering and Applied Science/GSE
SPARK! program for math, science, and technology
enrichment [For more on SPARK!, see page 13.]
• Penn Archives/GSE Sadie Mossell Tanner Alexander
project, to celebrate the school’s
namesake
• Kelly Writers House Creative Writing Program, an
after-school club for young writers
• Penn Bookstore Storybook Reading Program
• School of Veterinary Medicine’s first-grade
curriculum units on animals
• School of Medicine’s Kids Judge! Neuroscience Fair,
where PAS students evaluate activities developed by
Penn neuroscience students
• Pennvelopes, a student pen pal exchange between
Penn and PAS students
• Penn Music Mentors’ individual lessons for
grades 3-8
• School of Dental Medicine dental screenings for
kindergartners through grade 3
• Weiss Tech House Physics Club, an after-school program
for grades 3-8
• Penn Presents reduced-priced tickets for all grades
• Penn Music Department performances
for all grades
• Penn Athletics Sports Clinics
• WXPN’s KidsCorner, featuring
PAS writers of all grades
• University Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology
visits for grades 6-8
• School of Law students’ Social
Justice Seminar for grade 7
• Penn student tutors for all grades
Penn Alexander Music Teacher Robin Muse's
eighth-grade class uses computers to
research composers and hear their music.
14 | Penn GSE | Fall 2007
COURTESY OF PENN ALEXANDER SCHOOL
Collaboration: Research
Penn GSE’s strong research orientation gives it the ability to
forge significant cross-campus partnerships. At the heart of
all the projects lie eminently practical goals—from improving
practice to enhancing knowledge in the field.
For Associate Professor Janine Remillard, collaboration
is a way of life. As one of the lead researchers of
MetroMath: The Center for Mathematics in
America’s Cities, she’s partnering with Penn colleagues,
with scholars in three other universities, and with practitioners
in four school districts in Philadelphia, New York,
and New Jersey.
Knowing that large numbers of urban students fail to
attain important mathematical skills, Remillard and the
MetroMath Center conduct research on how best to
improve students’ understanding of math. That research
builds on the project’s extensive professional development
work in graduate seminars and teacher leader programs. As
Remillard explains, “We’re making connections between
research and professional development. The idea is that
you have to address the problems from every angle.”
At Penn, Remillard is joined by colleagues from Urban
Studies and the Institute for Research in Cognitive
Science. Rutgers and the City University of New York are
the other university partners in the project.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute
of Education Sciences, the Pre-Doctoral Training
Program in Interdisciplinary Methods for Fieldbased
Research in Education (PIMFER) is designed to
produce the next generation of
education researchers. Directed
by GSE Professor Rebecca
Maynard, the program recruits
doctoral students from throughout
the university and trains
them in applied, field-based
education research. This year,
three PIMFER fellows have
been recruited from outside
GSE—two in economics and
one in sociology.
Dionissi Aliprantis, from the
economics department, is modeling
how environmental factors
affect educational outcomes,
while his colleague, Eleanor