Penn GSE dean Pam Grossman and peers argue in a new book that project-based learning, a method of instruction that identifies a project or problem that students work on, should be at the center of American public education.
Betsy Smith joins the Right Question Institute as executive director
COURTESY OF RIGHT QUESTION INSTITUTE
The Cambridge-based Right Question Institute, or RQI, announced that Betsy Smith has joined the organization as executive director.
Smith brings more than 30 years of experience as a nonprofit director and educator and will take over executive leadership from Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana, RQI’s co-founders and long-time co-directors. Though stepping down from their executive roles, Rothstein and Santana will remain at RQI as co-directors of the institute’s Democracy-Building Program.
Prior to joining RQI, Smith spent 14 years as executive director and president of EqualityMaine, a LGBTQ advocacy organization, where she helped lead successful statewide campaigns for marriage equality and non-discrimination protections. She previously served as executive director of the Boston-based Citizens for Participation in Political Action (CPPAX). In addition, Smith has worked
A: Thank you for calling attention to this foundational point of the book. The history of higher education contains a steady trajectory of infusing race and supporting racism in and through colleges and universities without necessarily calling attention to the everyday reality of these perspectives and operations. For example, the histories of early college life show that while white men from well-connected families were trained to take over family business, enter medicine or pursue a life as clergymen, higher education was also weaponized to perpetuate the slave economy and promote genocide of Indigenous communities. Since these early days, race has been a central feature of how universities form policies, procedures and what is taught in classrooms and laboratories across historical eras.
Bill Penuel is a Distinguished Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development in the School of Education and Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. He designs and studies curriculum materials, assessments, and professional learning experiences for teachers in science. He works in partnership with school districts and state departments of education, and the research he conducts is in support of educational equity in three dimensions: (1) equitable implementation of new science standards; (2) creating inclusive classroom cultures that attend to students’ affective experiences and where all students have authority for constructing knowledge together; and (3) connecting teaching to the interests, experiences, and identities of learners. His research employs a wide range of qualitative and quantitative research methods, including an approach his colleagues and he have developed called design-based implementation research (http://learndbir.org).
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