School of education receives grant for middle-school literacy project
The College of William and Mary’s School of
Education has received a grant for $152,500 from the State Council of
Higher Education in Virginia to help fund middle-school literacy
efforts.
“This is an area of critical need,” said Virginia McLaughlin, dean of
the William and Mary School of Education. “Schools have made great
progress in improving literacy in the elementary grades, but the
demands for reading become much more intense at the middle school
level. Many times, students’ performance in science, social studies and
math is more reflective of their lack of reading skills than their lack
of knowledge of the actual subject area. Not being able to read
textbooks or tests is a real handicap.”
The grant is the latest in a line of “No Child Left Behind” grants that
have been submitted by William and Mary on behalf of the
School-University Research Network (SURN), a partnership between the
College and 26 area school divisions. This year’s grant will fund a
SURN project entitled, “SURN Collaboratories: Middle Grades Literacy
Across Content.” The project will develop and mentor teachers at middle
schools in Hopewell, Norfolk and Petersburg that have not met
accreditation standards for literacy.
“The College has been partnering with Petersburg on a number of
community-building and service-learning opportunities. We were
particularly excited to target this No Child Left Behind grant to the
Petersburg schools because it connects so well with the work the
university is doing there,” said McLaughlin.
The project will begin when teams of interdisciplinary teachers from
the three divisions attend a two-day summer training academy in
Petersburg at the end of August. The teachers will learn instructional
and motivational strategies and then will implement those strategies in
their classrooms when school begins in the fall. Throughout the year,
the teams will reconvene to receive more information and share what
they have learned. Additionally, members of the project faculty will
visit classrooms and provide one-on-one coaching to the teachers.
A new component of this year’s grant allows project faculty members to
set up model classrooms in local schools with experienced teacher
mentors. Members of the project teams may set up appointments to visit
the model classrooms and see the strategies they are learning in
action, said Jan Rozzelle, director and lead faculty member of the
project.
“It helps when a teacher who has been through the program models what
the teams are learning in a classroom with real students,” she said.
Several School of Education faculty members are serving as faculty on
the project, and a graduate student is working as the project graduate
assistant. Additionally, teachers who have participated in a SURN
project before and excelled are serving as teachers-in-residence for
the project.
The project will conclude with a conference in March 2008 in which the
teams will share their findings, lesson plans and research with the
other SURN partners.
Although student gains will be monitored closely throughout the project
to determine its success, the true goal of the program is to impact
teachers’ knowledge and skills.
“If we can change the way teachers plan and deliver instruction, then
we can begin to impact student learning,” McLaughlin said. “That’s
where you get your most important and sustainable improvements in
education—by focusing on teachers.”
