Each year, about 450 middle school and high school science and math teachers attend Teacher Institute (TI) programs, with many teachers participating in multiple institutes and workshops. Some teachers have attended TI programs every year for more than a decade.
Involvement with TI typically begins with a participant attending a four-week summer institute. There are four institutes per year, each focusing on a different science or math topic, but all of the institutes are designed to help teachers experience the benefits of inquiry-based teaching, develop expertise with hands-on activities, and strengthen their content knowledge. Institute graduates become TI alumni (there are about 1,900 active alumni) and are invited to attend a variety of workshops and two-week advanced institutes.
Established in 1984, the Teacher Institute initiated a major new program in 1998. In response to the growing number of new science teachers in local schools—and realizing that more than a third of beginning teachers leave the profession within the first few years—TI created the Teacher Induction Program. The program supports new science teachers in their first two years of teaching (the Beginning Teacher Program) and trains mentors and classroom coaches to work with the new teachers (the Leadership Program). During the two academic years, the novice teachers attend workshops, seminars, and support-group meetings, and receive classroom visits from their coach. After their first year, they attend one of the summer institutes. This highly successful program was the first subject-specific program of its kind and is now emulated throughout the country. Each year, about thirty beginning teachers join the program.
