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TEACHING THAT WORKS is a 90-minute professional development pilot project aimed at middle school math instruction. The idea is to assist teachers in developing their classroom strategies and methods to best reach the middle school student.
It is generally thought among education professionals that the 'muddle in the middle' is where too many students get left behind and that this is the time when educators really have to make a special effort to keep the kids engaged. Middle schools are pre-adolescent, still children, but beginning to experience grown-up feelings. It's felt that instruction needs to be tailored to the needs of the middle schooler, making it more age appropriate. And that teachers usually do not receive enough training to be able to tailor their instruction in this way.
The project is broken into three segments, each segment featuring a middle school teacher instructing students on a middle school math concept. The three teachers are: Jennifer Jones, Herbert Patterson, and Trenise Duvernay. They are all on staff at Alice Harte Elementary School in Algiers. The three math concepts are: Mode, Media and Mean taught by Jennifer Jones; Converting Celsius to Fahrenheit taught by Herbert Patterson; and Ratios and Rates taught by Trenise Duvernay.
The teachers devised the lesson plans. Each lesson plan meets what's called a GLE (Grade Level Expectation) as outlined in the state's standards and benchmarks requirements.
The lesson plans were transformed into production scripts and reviewed by Lisa Sullivan, a math instruction PhD who teaches at Holy Cross College; and also by Dr. Peggy Kirby, a professional educator who is serving as the project educational evaluator.
Throughout each lesson plan/segment a character who we call the 'wizard' explains what the teacher has done or is about to do as it relates to the classroom instruction. Local actor Matt Borel plays the role of the 'wizard.'
Also, throughout each segement the 'slinky' metaphor is used to demonstrate the need for teachers to link each new concept to what has been learned before...a continuum of knowledge.
The students who participate in the classroom segments are actually middle school students at Alice Harte.
The project will be distributed in late December 2008 in DVD form to 20 middle school teachers in the Algiers Charter Schools Association.
Each teacher will be observed in the classroom before viewing the video, then again afterwards to see if there has been a change at all in their classroom approach.
Dr. Peggy Kirby is the Project Evaluator; Dr. Brian Riedlinger, who heads the Algiers Charter Schools Assoc., is the Project Educational Coordinator. Marcia Kavanaugh is the Project Coordinator.
TEACHING THAT WORKS is made possible by the Baptist Community Ministries, Freeport-McMoRan and the Selley Foundation are sponsors.
"We are hopeful that this project will lead to further production of similar professional development videos in additional areas like language arts, science, and history."
- Marcia Kavanaugh,
Coordinating Producer
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