The Cambridge-Harvard Summer Academy is a partnership between the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and the Teacher Education Program at Harvard University. Remedial and enrichment courses for high school students are taught by teaching teams that include a veteran mentor teacher and 2-4 teaching interns from the Teacher Education program.
Each morning for six weeks during the summer, teacher education students teach one 2-hour class to high-school students in the Summer Academy and engage in planning and debriefing sessions with mentors. In the afternoons, interns explore teaching in a variety of graduate level courses, including introduction to teaching methods, issues in urban education, adolescent development, special education, and second language learners.
The Summer Academy focuses on personalized instruction to meet students' needs and pays special attention to students with Individualized Educational Plans (IEPs).
During summer 2005, courses are being held in the following:
"Teaching at CHSA in the summer throws you into the fire to see what this urban teaching is all about. Then you have experiences to talk about and questions to ask in your Harvard education classes. Don't worry, there is a 'mentor teacher' paired with several interns to teach each class at CHSA together. It's just a great place to get a reality-check of what it's really like in the classroom and be able to see methodologies played out in real life."
— Tally Briggs, TAC '05
"The Summer Academy experience was so exciting and helpful. We were working mostly with students who had failed in the past, and seeing them succeed helped teach me that all students can do it — some of them just need someone to stop and help them. It really got me geared up to go back to the high school in the Fall."
— Becki Norris, TAC '05