Sarah Westbrook is the Right Question Institute’s director of professional learning for the Education Program.
As a former high school English teacher in Boston area public schools, Sarah is committed to amplifying and uplifting the innovative work educators do every day. She partners with schools and districts around the US and internationally to design in-person and virtual professional learning on the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) and collaborates with individual classroom teachers to highlight their work and identify new opportunities for professional growth.
Sarah believes that all students deserve rigorous learning experiences that make them feel curious, challenged, and smart and all teachers deserve active, collaborative professional learning experiences that honor their expertise, creativity, and capacity. Sarah has facilitated professional learning on the QFT for a range of audiences, including NCSS, NSTA, NCHE, and ASCD national conferences; Chicago Public Schools; Cincinnati Public Schools; New York State BOCES districts, San Francisco Public Schools; and groups from the Hawaii and Iowa departments of education. Sarah leads the design and facilitation of RQI’s popular online professional learning courses. She is the principal investigator of a Library of Congress grant that created free online learning experiences to support educators around the country, especially those working with traditionally underrepresented students, to facilitate more effective student-driven, inquiry-based primary source learning. With the Harvard Graduate School of Education Professional Education program, Sarah co-developed the online course, “Teaching Students How to Ask Their Own Questions: Best Practices in the Question Formulation Technique.” She holds an M.A.T. in English education from Tufts University and a B.A. in English from Bryn Mawr College.