Practitioner Fellowships
The Prospect School and Center for Education and Research Fund supports the Practitioner Fellowship Program, designed to encourage faculty, independent researchers, students, classroom teachers, principals, administrators, and other community members active in school affairs to benefit from the Prospect School and Center for Education and Research Archives.
Practitioner Fellowship Program
The Practitioner Fellowship Program taps the riches of the Prospect Archives by engaging fellowship recipients over a week-long program in study of the Archive of Children’s Works using Prospect’s Descriptive Processes as the method of inquiry. The broad purpose of a fellowship is to introduce the Prospect Archives, to make the Prospect Archives accessible to a wide audience, and to demonstrate the value of the Prospect Archives for educators and the community. This includes calling to the attention of the public and the schools the resources available within the Archives and through their study. A further aim of the Practitioner Fellowship program is to support the establishment of leadership for “communities of inquiry” within recipients’ own settings by showing how the Descriptive Processes developed at Prospect help people to think more deeply about their practice and current issues in education.
Special Collections will appoint a mentor to guide Practitioner Fellows throughout the program. The mentor will be knowledgeable about the Prospect’s Archives, its history and the resources it provides, and experienced with the Descriptive Processes, in particular, the Description of Children’s Works. The mentor will be paid a stipend of $2,500.
Recipients of the Practitioner Fellowship are expected to spend five and a half days of study at the Silver Special Collections Library. The 2024 Fellowship will take place from July 29 - August 2. Fellows are expected to create and present a detailed follow-up plan for implementing what they have learned in their own classrooms, schools, colleges, or other settings. Plans might include, but are not limited to: starting an archive of children’s works; launching an inquiry community using Prospect’s Descriptive Processes as a method of study; provisioning for materials and activities intended to expand children’s or older students’ opportunities for exploring their own interests; documenting children’s and older students’ activities and curriculum; implementing nonjudgmental observing, describing and record-keeping practices developed at Prospect School. The mentor will maintain supportive contact with recipients primarily via email and phone calls as they implement their follow-up plans.
Approximately three fellowships are to be awarded each year to school or college based practitioners such as classroom teachers (pre-k to high school) as well as counselors, principals and other administrators; school board members; parents active in school affairs; and teacher educators. The fellowship will be an award of $2,250.
Practitioner Fellowship Application
Questions about the fellowship programs should be sent to Chris Burns
Support the Prospect Fellowship program - http://go.uvm.edu/prospect