More than an academic department or stand-alone program, I@TVT’s work represents a transformative understanding of the nature of education across the whole scope of TVT’s program, working not just with students and their learning but also faculty professional development and community engagement. I@TVT integrates programs in engineering, science, mathematics, film and entrepreneurship with TVT’s core curriculum. This gives students the opportunity to combine their learning in creative ways that uniquely reflect TVT’s culture.

In the Sheila and Eric Samson and Family Innovation Center and the Arnold Shapiro Arts and Engineering Center, students learn in extraordinary spaces outfitted by visionary leaders in the school community. These facilities house engineering labs, fabrication studios, a design studio, a media center, film studio, new classrooms for physics and visual arts, a soundstage, sound design studios and more. Students are using these spaces to design solutions to complex problems and develop ever-deeper mastery of collaboration, creative problem solving, project management and playful learning.
 
Students in engineering, for example, use their knowledge of the scientific method developed in core science courses to better develop project management strategies to launch a satellite into the upper atmosphere successfully. Entrepreneurship students competing in an international entrepreneurship competition focused on social innovation bring their knowledge of tikkun olam to their work, deeply enriching it. I@TVT is comprehensive. Our goal as an Innovation faculty is to help students break down the barriers that separate traditional fields of study. Our belief is that students learn best when they are encouraged, indeed required, to break down these barriers. We use an assortment of methods to help students break down these barriers, including design thinking, project management, problem-based learning, game-based learning and others. And our staff deploys these methods as early as Transitional Kindergarten.
 
I@TVT staff work collaboratively to build up not just our students, but our community and each other. I@TVT is led by TVT’s Director of Curriculum and Innovation Dr. Jonathan Cassie, who came to TVT in 2016 with more than 20 years experience at independent schools across the country. Dr. Cassie’s first book for educators, Level Up Your Classroom, was published by ASCD in 2016 and won a prestigious gold medal from Association Publishers and Media in 2017 as the best non-fiction book for the year. Joining Dr. Cassie on the I@TVT team are:

• Michelle Glickman, a committed film educator, who has worked to strengthen our students’ capacity to produce rich story-driven films at a high level of technical mastery.
• Lindsay Melia, TVT’s Lower School Mathematics specialist, who brings mathematics to life for our students through the Beast Academy curriculum in a first-in-the-nation collaboration with the math geniuses behind Art of Problem Solving (AOPS).
• Laura Saad, TVT’s Lower School Science/STEAM specialist, who came to TVT with deep international experience and who is implementing the transformative Amplify Science curriculum with our students K-5.
• Velear Schrupp, a design-thinking educated librarian who, along with the library staff, is transforming the learning experience for our Lower School students. She and her team teach all Lower School students critical library skills along with essential learning-by-doing skills in the Lower School Imagination Station.
• Diallo Wallace, a former Navy aviator and noted Engineering and Aerospace teacher who joined us this year and has been a transformative presence in the lives of our students.

We look forward to learning with you as I@TVT continues its work to secure TVT’s commitment to being firmly rooted in the traditions of the Jewish people while also aspiring to the heights of 21st century success.

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