UW astronomers have hand in ‘Science’ top breakthrough
Microsoft matching funds still available to faculty
Committee looking for Public Service Award nominees
How can we ever thank you? A Distinguished Staff nomination is one way
Royalties from photocopies made abroad
UWPD earns re-accreditation for second time in 10 years
Media 101: Communications professor gives tips to community groups
C-Stars: making Einstein relative to at-risk K-12 students
C-Stars Educators with a gift for making Einstein or the Bill of Rights relevant to kid’s daily lives are needed for a UW-led study aimed at improving teaching methods.
The program will offer a select group of practitioners, both K-12 teachers and the Ph.D.s that train them, opportunities to collaborate in designing class work based on contextual teaching and learning principles. Methodologies may vary, but the overall strategy of contextual education is to develop models that address real world problems and get students to apply academic knowledge and skills to their daily lives.
Reasearch Associate Professor Al Smith Jr., director of the UW’s Center for the Study and Teaching of At-Risk Students (C-STARS) is spearheading the statewide partnership. Smith says contextual learning is a 24-hour-a-day proposition. “As teachers we have to recognize that schooling is not limited to our contact with kids in the classroom; we have to look to the community at large for contextual reinforcement.”
During the 18-month duration of the project, a consortium—including eight Washington state universities and colleges, 32 school districts in King, Snohomish, Pierce and Yakima counties and the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) in Portland, Ore.—will partner to develop examples of “best practice” methods consistent with contextual teaching and learning.
The nearly $800,000 federal contract is one of only seven nationwide designed to address the growing realization that public education is failing a significant portion of the country’s youth. Helping these students comes at a time when reform and improvement of public education are a primary focus in the halls of Congress, the media and the collective consciousness of the nation.
Over the last two decades, several national studies have defined education and employment-related problems in alarming terms:
The challenge to Smith and his group will be to design contextual-based lesson plans that address new state academic standards and can keep students from falling through the cracks.
Contextual learning occurs when students experience and apply the curriculum in relation to their environment. It allows students to reinforce, expand and apply their academic knowledge and skills in a variety of in-school and out-of-school settings in order to solve problems.
“For this to work we need to have a dialogue with and get buy-in from parents,” said Smith.
“For example, if you’re teaching a 3rd grade class a lesson in categorizing objects, the suggestion by the teacher might be to have the students apply the lesson by organizing items into food groups when grocery shopping,” he said. “We want to engage parents and the community at large to provide reinforcing activities around academics.”
To that end, an academy of education professors will award fellowships to 10 or 12 colleagues from around the state. Each professor will be charged with developing an action plan designed to infuse these practices into teacher training programs at their institutions. All of the state’s public universities and colleges are participating along with two private institutions.
At the same time, a parallel contextual learning academy of K-12 teachers will select as many as 50 teachers, counselors and administrators to develop and field test contextual teaching and learning methods during the 1999-2000 school year. Effective strategies will be shared with the education professors to insure inclusion in curricula for teacher education.
A steering committee is gearing up to select candidates for both learning academies. “We will be establishing the selection criteria by the end of January,” said Smith. He expects the education professors to be on board by early spring. “They will participate with initial academy activities this summer that will be designed to run through all of next year.”
Smith and his colleagues would like to reach the K-12 educators who are already using contextual teaching methods. “There are teachers, counselors and administrators who are on the cutting edge of contextual teaching and learning—doing exemplary work every day,” he said.
“We are going to provide these individuals with a stipend. They will also have the option of earning university credit for their participation.” And that, says Smith, could also translate into higher salaries and will demand professional recognition.
Smith says the consortium is now exploring participation from school districts statewide. “When we put this proposal together we contacted school districts we had a history of working with, but we do not want to limit it to just that group.”
The project will specifically address two of the state’s learning goals. These aim to develop students who can : 1) think analytically, logically and creatively and integrate experience and knowledge to form reasoned judgments and solve problems, and 2) understand the importance of work and how performance, effort and decisions directly affect future career and educational opportunities.
Two separate pieces of legislation passed by the state legislature combine to create a statewide school-to-careers system that benefits programs like C-STARS. House Bill 1820 established the School to Work Transition Program. This legislation authorized school-to-careers projects throughout the state and provided incentive grants for high schools that incorporate work-based learning initiatives into their curricula. The Education Reform Act of 1993 (House Bill 1209) set four broad learning goals for Washington students, including one related to school-to-careers activities.
Nationally, Congress created a framework for the establishment of school-to-careers systems in all states through passage of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994. This legislation served as the catalyst for development of local programs and ultimately led to the joint initiative by the U.S. Dept of Education’s Office of Vocational and Adult Education and the National School-to-Work Office that financed the UW-led program.
Though much of the impetus for contextual teaching and learning is currently being generated by this legislation, Smith is quick to point out that “this focus has roots in cognition theories going back to John Dewey, and certainly is not limited just to workforce training issues.”
“Teachers have a lot to contribute to good teacher education, especially in sharing what works in the classroom,” said Smith. “We are not dumbing down, we want to reinforce what’s happening in school reform. We want to see if teaching with innovative contextual strategies is in fact helping kids improve their scores on standardized tests.” ¶
Bart Arenson