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Meshing academics and fun for a summer program like no other
gse student give a presentation in the front of a classroom

Most of the teachers recruited for the program had trained in some capacity with Penn GSE’s Philadelphia Writing Project and Responsive Math Teaching project, which enabled them to practice their craft and receive further coaching if they wanted.

Meshing academics and fun for a summer program like no other

An inaugural Projects for Progress award helped bring to light a Penn Graduate School of Education and Netter Center for Community Partnerships initiative that readied young learners returning to in-person school this fall, and boosted teachers’ confidence.

Lauren Hertzler

Building (and hiring) for the future at Penn Medicine’s new Pavilion
A group of people walking through the Pavilion wearing face masks, hard hats, and safety vests.

Before the Pavilion officially opens, staff have taken part in “dress rehearsals” and walk-throughs. (Image: Penn Medicine News)

Building (and hiring) for the future at Penn Medicine’s new Pavilion

In the months leading up to the Pavilion debut, a massive recruitment effort is underway to hire more than 600 employees.

From Penn Medicine News

  • Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences

    • Understanding the pandemic classroom

    In the latest episode of Penn Today’s ‘Understand This ...’ podcast series, Caroline Watts of the Graduate School of Education and Philip Gressman of the School of Arts & Sciences discuss the return to the classroom.
    Masked students at desks

    Welcome to the fall semester’s first episode of the “Understand This ...” series, a Penn Today podcast. This podcast series is designed as a journey to understand how to solve problems of the day—and of our time—by uniting minds from different disciplines. This episode is both a reflection on what students and educators have experienced in learning during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, plus an examination of how lessons from the pandemic can be applied to a return to in-person classroom settings.

    Joining for the conversation is Caroline Watts, senior lecturer in the Graduate School of Education and director of School and Community Engagement at GSE, as well as Philip Gressman, a professor of mathematics in the School of Arts & Sciences. Watts is team leader for GSE’s Project for Progress, addressing West Philadelphia students’ school readiness and teachers’ instructional capacity and mental health needs. Gressman, meanwhile, reshaped the teaching of calculus during the pandemic to fit the needs of students, with a focus on inclusive and equitable teaching. Together, they talk about their experiences as educators during the early days of the pandemic, lessons learned, and how the classroom might look and feel different in the coming months.

    6:56: Gressman discusses recognizing the scope of the problem at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, identifying the need for education to adapt, and time spent on adapting a calculus curriculum for remote learning.

    13:30: Watts talks about what worked well in the transition to remote learning and what didn’t—plus, new forms of feedback for instructors.

    16:18: Watts discusses the ongoing Project for Progress in West and Southwest Philadelphia summer schools, what we gained from the experiences of the past 18 months, and the “joy” of students and teachers being reunited.

    21:20: “Quote Break” 27:40: Gressman highlights the need to be accommodating in this extraordinary moment in teaching, as well as what to consider taking out of the classroom when balancing synchronous and asynchronous learning.

    31:58: Watts: “A model I’ve learned for life is to be prepared to adapt and be flexible.”

    View Transcript

    Follow the “Understand This ...” podcast on Apple Music.

    Credits

  • Writers

    Brandon K. Baker

  • Photographers

    Eric Sucar

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  • West Philadelphia
  • Outreach
  • Understand This...
    • How to connect communities to colorectal cancer screening
    A pair of hands holding a cancer screening kit vial in one hand and paperwork in another extended to a person standing in a park.

    A FIT Kit comes in an envelope and includes instructions, a prepaid return mailing envelope, and a small tube to contain a probe that the user will insert into a stool sample to capture a tiny particle. In the lab, the small sample is tested for signs of blood in the stool, which may not be visible. (Image: Penn Medicine Service in Action)

    How to connect communities to colorectal cancer screening

    Penn Medicine has been on a multiyear journey to both raise the rates of screening for colorectal cancer and increase uptake of follow up care, with the goal of driving down colorectal cancer death rates and addressing inequities

    From Penn Medicine Service in Action

    PennMed’s new Pavilion facility seeks to define the future of hospital care
    Philadelphia Inquirer

    PennMed’s new Pavilion facility seeks to define the future of hospital care

    After five years of construction, Penn Medicine will debut The Pavilion, a mammoth new care facility in University City that Penn officials said includes advanced and adaptable features and amenities to better tackle education and research as well as patient treatment. 

    Daniel Morales-Armstrong’s ‘Inclusive City’
    Masked adults sit four to a table with papers and folders during a brainstorming session.

    Participants and Inclusive City students facilitate charrette brainstorming sessions. (Image: OMNIA)

    Daniel Morales-Armstrong’s ‘Inclusive City’

    The William Fontaine Fellow of Africana Studies and History helms a course designed to lead students in a collaborative engagement with a local Philadelphian community.

    Blake Cole

    Penn Medicine’s new center to improve surgical equity for vulnerable patients
    Front entrance of the PHMC Public Health Campus on Cedar.

    PHMC Public Health Campus on Cedar. (Image: Penn Medicine News)

    Penn Medicine’s new center to improve surgical equity for vulnerable patients

    The Center for Surgical Health provides a new access point into sustainable, high-value surgical care for patients who typically rely on the emergency room for treatment.

    Steve Graff

    Penn plans to ramp up diverse, local spending for $1B annual procurement with new program
    Philadelphia Business Journal

    Penn plans to ramp up diverse, local spending for $1B annual procurement with new program

    Chief procurement officer Mark Mills spoke about Penn’s Fueling Business Growth program, which seeks to increase the University’s spending with diverse and minority-owned Philadelphia businesses. “It's just the right thing to do,” he said. “We want to have a supply base that best matches the neighborhood in the city that we are in, so it only makes sense to have that reflected in how we buy.”