Registration for the 2012 Summer Professional Development opens Tuesday, May 1st. Reference the courses available here, or use the "register for courses" option noted above for all current course listings. If you should need registration assistance, please reference our support page or call us at 904.348.5757.

The Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership is happy to announce the selection of this year’s First Coast Princeton Scholars. The 2012 Princeton Scholars are: Wenona Arline, K-12 Math Coach, Schultz Center for Teaching and Leadership; Susan Burns, 2nd grade teacher, R.V. Daniels Elementary; Angelete Deason, 3rd-5th grade teacher of the Gifted, Susie Tolbert Elementary; and Meme Broadfoot, 6th – 8th grade Language Arts teacher, Darnell Cookman Middle/High School.

As First Coast Princeton Scholars these teachers will be attending the Princeton Scholar’s Summer Experience on the Campus of Princeton University June 25 – June 29, 2012.  This year’s seminar titled, Gods, Goddesses, Kings, and Queens: Integrating Visual Art into the Classroom will be led by Caroline Harris, Ph.D., Curator of Education and Academic Programming at the Princeton University Art Museum. (See below for more information regarding Dr. Harris.)

The seminar will introduce the teachers to ancient Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, and Roman art collections, and will assist them in writing lessons that will incorporate visual art into their field of teaching and coaching. Three days will be spent at the Princeton Museum of Art and two days at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The seminar will include lectures, group discussions, and gallery sessions.

Princeton Scholars are selected from teachers who participated in the 2012 First Coast Scholar seminars and submitted a curriculum unit and application for the Princeton Summer Experience.  Funding for this program comes from Jacksonville area Princeton alumni.

Caroline Harris has been curator of education and academic programs for the past six years at the Princeton University Art Museum. Prior to joining the Museum, she served as staff lecturer in charge of academic affairs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in the history of art from the University of Virginia. Her dissertation, Le Violon de Delacroix: Musicality and Modernist Aesthetics, was completed in 2004.

Dr. Sowell is a science teacher with a deep appreciation for the impact his lessons have on the "here and now." He is passionate about his students’ understanding of what science is as a discipline, how science works and how scientific knowledge is generated. He works to excite, engage and empower his students everyday to understand and improve the world around them.

Dr. Sowell’s students learn science by doing science. Instead of putting the lecture before the lab so that his students show him what he said was correct, Dr. Sowell places the experience before the lecture so that his students create their own learning by exploring real-life scientific situations. He develops a strong community of learners in his classroom, fostering a climate of collaboration, empathy and kindness where critical thinking and creative expression are valued.

As a novice-teacher mentor and professional development facilitator, Dr. Sowell works directly with the newest faculty members at Darnell-Cookman, encouraging them to constantly improve by seeking new knowledge. His passion for his practice is evident inside the classroom as well as in the time he gives back to bettering his profession and the field of scientific inquiry.