Sarah Westbrook is the director of professional learning at the Right Question Institute. A former high school English teacher in Boston area public schools, Sarah is committed to amplifying the innovative work educators do every day that so often goes unseen and unrecognized. 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 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 co-designed and leads RQI’s online course, “Teaching Students How to Ask Their Own Questions: Best Practices in the Question Formulation Technique,” offered through the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is also the co-principal investigator, with Andrew Minigan, on a Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources grant that will support educators around the country, especially those working with traditionally underrepresented students, to facilitate more effective student-driven, inquiry-based primary source learning. She holds an M.A.T. in English education from Tufts University and a B.A. in English from Bryn Mawr College.
