TC Today - Teachers College Columbia University

TC
Keeping
Campus News
up with people, events and other news from Teachers College
Mitra (center) received the 2011 Klingenstein Leadership Award.
TC Honors
Sugata Mitra
TC’s Klingenstein Center
for Independent School
Leadership has presented
its annual Klingenstein
Leadership Award to Sugata
Mitra, Chief Scientist
Emeritus at NIIT (the Indian
information technology giant)
and Professor of Educational
Technology at the School of
Education, Communication
and Language Sciences at
Newcastle University in the
United Kingdom.
Mitra is the originator
of the “Hole in the Wall”
experiment, a computer
project that has increased
learning among children in
some of the world’s poorest
slums. His efforts served as
the inspiration for the book
that went on to become the
Oscar-winning film Slum-dog
Millionaire.
Klingenstein Center
Director Pearl Rock Kane
called Mitra “an inventor,
researcher, polymath, philosopher,
humanitarian and catalyst
for education reform.”
New Hope for
Teaching Math
A
new
report, “Learning
Trajectories in
Mathematics: A
Foundation for Standards,
Curriculum, Assessment, y
and Instruction,” co-authored
by Teachers College-based
researchers, details current
work in one of the most
promising areas for improving
K–12 mathematics education.
Learning trajectories
are sequences of learning
experiences hypothesized and
designed to build a deep and
increasingly sophisticated
understanding of core concepts
and practices within
various disciplines. They are
based on empirical evidence
of how students’ understanding
actually develops in
response to instruction and
where it might break down.
The report was released by
the Center on Continuous
Instructional Improvement
(CCII), a TC-based arm of
the Consortium for Policy
Research in Education.
The report, which
discusses the relationship
between trajectories and
A New Leader at IUME
Ernest Morrell has been named the new
director of TC’s Institute for Urban and
Minority Education (IUME). Morrell, a
faculty member at the University of
California at Los Angeles (UCLA), succeeds
IUME founding director Edmund
W. Gordon. • Morrell has done research
and teaching in the fields of literacy, critical pedagogy,
cultural studies, urban education and ethnic studies. As
Associate Director of UCLA’s Institute for Democracy,
Education, and Access (IDEA), he has worked with high
school students in Los Angeles on in-school and outof-school
literacy instruction, cultural studies and civic
involvement. • IUME was created in 1973 on the premise
that, in order to succeed on par with their wealthier peers,
urban minority children need excellent teaching and extra,
out-of-school supports to compensate for deficiencies in
their environment. During the 1980s, IUME was the largest
research and development unit of Teachers College, taking
in substantial federal and private dollars. • To see a video
interview with Morrell, go to http://bit.ly/fsqebF.
4 T C T O D A Y l s p r i n g 2 0 1 1
photograph (Bottom) by lisa farmer