The Tarrant Institute provides a variety of services to help schools transition to more responsive practices.

Leadership & Planning

Each of our partner schools establishes a teacher-led leadership team to help us craft a comprehensive professional development strategy that meets the demands of meaningful school change and addresses the needs of the faculty. In collaboration with these teams, we help schools and districts confront obstacles to change and develop systems that foster ongoing teacher learning. This is our first step toward creating a school leadership culture capable of sustaining ongoing and strategic innovation.

Professional Development

At the heart of our work is embedded and sustained professional development customized to the unique goals, strengths and challenges of our partner schools. Our professional development coordinators design and lead intensive summer in-service weeks and customized strands at the Middle Grades Institute to launch initiatives at our partner schools. We facilitate faculty meetings, in-service days and consult during team common planning time throughout the school year to help teachers develop technology-rich skills, curriculum, and pedagogy in collaboration with their colleagues. We also offer a graduate course.

Research

Our research and dissemination program provides scholarly deep dives into the complicated work unfolding across a wide range of Vermont schools. We’ve produced more than 200 journal articles, papers, chapters and presentations about students and teachers creating more engaging, responsive, student-directed classrooms.

Publications & Presentations

We regularly publish about our research and other work in academic journals and education magazines. We present to statewide, national and international audiences. We also collaborate with our partner teachers to publish and present their work to colleagues around Vermont and beyond.

Online tools & resources

We maintain an active blog and YouTube channel reflecting the work of its staff and partner teachers. We host an online tools and resource library, distribute a monthly e-newsletter and constantly update our twitter feeds with emerging ideas and opportunities.

We are interested in speaking with you about your teaching team, school or district's needs on an ongoing basis.