Ithaca College

Randi Beckmann, of Belle Sherman Elementary School, and Dr. Jeane Copenhaver-Johnson, of Ithaca College’s Department of Education, were recognized at Cornell University’s Town-Gown Awards on Saturday, December 2, 2017, for the Teacher Research Fellows Inquiry Group they co-designed and currently facilitate.

The Teacher Research Fellows Inquiry Group (TRF) is the product of a collaboration between TST-BOCES and Ithaca College. The project forms a small community of teachers from across the TST-BOCES region to engage in systematic study about their own teaching. This research community grounds its work in the perspective that teachers are uniquely situated to investigate and analyze their own practice and that such inquiry will result in better outcomes for their students. Teachers, who work collaboratively all year, present their findings at regional professional conferences, local meetings, and the Annual Conference on Teacher Inquiry at Ithaca College. Beckmann and Copenhaver-Johnson currently facilitate the third cohort of Research Fellows. This initiative was recognized along with Tompkins Cortland Community College and Cornell University partners of TST BOCES: The Career Skills Program (CU) and CollegeNow (TC3). This year’s ceremony was a “special edition,” with comments from Tompkins County’s three new higher-education presidents: Shirley Collado (Ithaca College), Orinthia Montague (TC3), and Martha Pollack (Cornell University).