Near $1M grant will help beef up skills
By Jaclyn Loveless
CSUB professors will team up this summer with the Delano Joint Union High
School District to improve academic skills for math and science students.
CSUB was awarded a four-year grant of $986,078 by the California Postsecondary
Education Commission (CPEC) in a competition last November, one of eight handed
out statewide. During the course of the project, titled Content Academic Language
Literacy Instruction (CALLI), 60 Delano teachers will receive intensive training
and site-based coaching so they can strengthen the reading, writing, and speaking
skills needed by their students to increase achievement. This program will
impact about 4,000 students.
Emilio Garza and Debra Cook-Hirai are co-directors of CSUB's CALLI project,
and say the high percentage of English learners in the Delano Joint High School
District pose a unique challenge for teachers in this area. "With over
31 percent of the families in this district identified as low poverty and
48 percent of students identified as English learners there is a definite
need to increase student achievement through extensive staff development for
all math and science secondary teachers in the area," they said.
Cook-Hirai said academic language is defined as English used in professional
books and characterized by the specific linguistic features associated with
academic disciplines. "It is the language used by teachers and students
for the purpose of acquiring new knowledge and skills. Literacy is learning
to read, academic language is reading to learn."
She said that even though math and science scores in Delano have risen in
the last year, "the teachers in Delano are extremely receptive to new
ideas and concepts which will further increase CST (California Standards Test)
scores and student motivation." Garza said, "They are especially
interested in the peer coaching aspect, where their own peers present and
model lessons so they can become better in their own teaching. They want the
project to support teachers and not to be 'evaluative,' and we at the university
are very supportive of that."
In June math and science secondary school teams, along with an administrator,
will attend an intensive five-day training workshop, which will address topics
such as literacy and academic language instruction with effective assessment
techniques (especially in the core content areas), working with learners from
diverse backgrounds, sheltered language instructional techniques, and a review
of California state adopted content specified standards.
CSUB professors from the School of Natural Science and Mathematics, including
Michael Lutz and Carl Kloock, and the School of Education will conduct this
workshop. And research director Hisauro Garza from Sierra Research and Associates
will assure the project follows strict guidelines set by CPEC. Participants
will be expected to produce a school plan at the end of the week, which will
depict how strategies will be implemented at their school site. They will
also be expected to produce and edit a "best practice" video which
highlights an instructional strategy learned at the summer workshop and which
will serve as a reflective piece for the participant. The reflective video
will be supported by Delano District funds.
The video will be posted to a website, available anytime, globally, where
educators can view online peer review/coaching. "This program intends
to build a professional development model which can be used in other schools
across the state," Cook-Hirai said. "Building partnerships with
school districts and other schools within CSUB is a critical factor, which
has not been emphasized enough. Additionally, this project will also be a
model for demonstrating collaboration between the university and local school
agencies."
Follow-up sessions conducted throughout the year will emphasize the process
of video editing, as well as instructional strategy implementation.
Participants will be paid stipends to attend the professional development
sessions and to produce the videos. Cook-Hirai added, "The program is
an intensive effort to build a professional development model which is proven
effective for increasing student achievement and motivation in the classroom
without increasing teacher burnout," she said.
The grant is part of the federal Improving Teacher Quality Program funded
under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. It is the latest edition of a
long-standing federal program aimed at improving student achievement through
professional development for teachers. These grants require rigorous evaluation
research to demonstrate how the professional development affects student achievement.
Howard Welinsky, CPEC chairman, says the grants play an important role in
making sure every student has a highly qualified teacher. "The program
has had a long-term impact on helping teachers strengthen their content knowledge
and their understanding of effective teaching strategies - key elements of
education reform," he said. "CSU Bakersfield and its partner schools
should be proud of the quality of their proposal and its potential for improving
teaching and learning in the south San Joaquin Valley." |
