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Harvard Teacher Fellows Program Hires Three Master Teachers

HGSE's new program for Harvard College undergraduates entering teaching careers welcomes three noted educators to its team.

The Harvard Graduate School of Education has announced the hiring of three faculty members — Noah Heller, Sarah Leibel, and Victor Pereira Jr. — for its new Harvard Teacher Fellows (HTF) Program. They will join eight other newly appointed faculty members at the Ed School this fall.

“I am thrilled with the team we have assembled,” said Eric Shed, director of the HTF Program. “Given our faculty's talent, passion and experience, I am completely confident HTF will be a phenomenal program.”

  • Noah Heller has been named a lecturer on education and master teacher in residence (mathematics). He joins HTF from Math For America where he mentored new math teachers and directed the development and expansion of a professional development program for more than 700 K–12 "master teachers" of math and science in New York City. His research focuses on ninth-grade students’ identification with mathematics in regard to how they see themselves as math persons. A founding teacher of the New York Harbor School, a public high school in Brooklyn, Heller has also taught courses in secondary math methods at Hunter College and calculus at Pratt Institute. He earned his Ph.D. in urban education with a focus on science, math, and technology from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. 
  • Sarah Leibel has been named a lecturer on education and master teacher in residence (English). An instructor of English language arts and academic writing, she has been teaching and mentoring new teachers since 2011. Throughout her teaching career, Leibel has focused on urban education, teaching English language arts in Providence and Pawtucket, Rhode Island public schools and administering a school-based mentoring program for high need middle school students in San Francisco. At Brown University, Leibel was a lecturer and the visiting director of elementary education. She currently serves on several education-related advisory boards including that of 360, a Providence public high school designed collaboratively with students, community members, parents and teachers that will open in the fall of 2015. She earned a B.A. in comparative literature and an M.A.T. in secondary English from Brown University.
  • Victor Pereira Jr. has been named a lecturer on education and master teacher in residence (science). For the past 14 years, he has served as a teacher, coach, and mentor at Excel High School in the Boston Public Schools. In 2012, Pereira won the Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence, an honor recognizing science educators who have demonstrated an outstanding ability to inspire student success. Since 2004, Pereira has worked in HGSE’s Teacher Education Program as an instructor, as well as in aiding student teachers in the practica and mentoring teachers during the Cambridge-Harvard Summer Academy. He earned his B.S. and M.A.T. degrees from Boston College.

Launching in spring 2016, the HTF Program will provide an innovative new pathway for Harvard College undergraduates to enter a teaching career. This selective program offers free, world-class teacher preparation for Harvard College seniors to become middle school and high school mathematics, science, history, and English teachers.

The HTF Program was created in response to the growing interest in education among Harvard undergraduates. It is also designed to respond to the need for more well-prepared teachers by drawing Harvard undergraduates into the teaching profession. HTF will prepare teachers in three distinct ways. It will train students to teach specific subjects, prepare students to be competent teachers through field-based training from their first day on the job, and provide continued resources and supports necessary to enable students to remain in teaching.

The HTF Program begins with eight months of intensive, field-based preparation, starting in January of the senior year through August. Training includes both coursework and mentored teaching. Fellows continue on to one academic year of part-time, field-based training in districts and charter networks across the nation, during which they continue to receive intensive coaching and training from HGSE faculty. Following the training, fellows return to HGSE where the program culminates with an additional summer of coursework, mentored teaching, and the ability to earn initial teacher licensure. Students then enter the teaching profession with the skills and dispositions to become effective and successful teachers while receiving continued coaching and training from HGSE. In addition, fellows interested in continuing their studies may apply their HTF coursework toward a master’s degree at HGSE.

Harvard College students interested in learning more about the program should visit gse.harvard.edu/htf.

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