Teaching Fellowships

Candidates interested in full-time teaching positions should refer to Teaching Positions.

Boarding School Teaching Residency (BSTR) Program

Taft School is pleased to partner with the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education in offering aspiring or early career educators the opportunity to earn a master’s degree in education while completing teaching fellowships on our Watertown, Connecticut, campus. The innovative two-year program allows college graduates to explore a boarding school career through a cohort experience in a collaborative learning community.

Solidly grounded in both the theory and practice of teaching, BSTR is designed to integrate the expertise of professional educators from a host of leading institutions, drawing on the perspectives of scholars and practitioners alike.

BSTR fellowships span two academic years and include:

• One week of intensive course work at Penn each summer
• Online work with a cohort of 25-30 fellows from nine consortium schools
• One weekend per term attending BSTR Symposium
• Mentoring of an experienced teacher at Taft
• Weekly seminar with the Taft Director of Teaching Fellowships

Working closely with a mentor in the same discipline at Taft, fellows learn about curriculum, classroom dynamics, class preparation, assessments, and other fundamental aspects of the profession. The mentor is a readily available resource, offering information, advice, feedback and support. Because the fellow is solely responsible for his or her classes, the mentor assumes an unobtrusive advisory role designed to enable the fellow to succeed.

Fellows also participate in weekly seminars on topics ranging from pragmatic issues of teaching at Taft to more general pedagogical principles, to adolescent development and cognitive research. These seminars are pertinent to the fellow's immediate teaching experience as well as intellectually stimulating and philosophically provocative.

BSTR confers a Master of Science in Education (M.S.Ed.) and requires the completion of ten course units over two years. Fellows also complete an inquiry project and construct a final portfolio in their second year.

BSTR teaching fellows engage in all facets of boarding school life. Typically, a fellow:

• Teaches two classes
• Coaches or contributes to an extracurricular program in the fall, winter and spring
• Assumes residential responsibilities

As members of the faculty, Taft BSTR Teaching Fellows receive the following:

• A salary
• Financial support for their Penn degree
• Housing and board
• Medical benefits and other perquisites

The Taft School is fully accredited by The New England Association of Schools and Colleges. It is the policy of The Taft School to provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified individuals without regard to race, color, religious creed, age, sex, pregnancy, marital status, disability, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, veteran's status, genetic predisposition or any other legally protected status.

Questions

If you have any questions concerning the Fellowship Program, please contact Jillian Danaher at jdanaher@taftschool.org or 860-945-7931.