SMC receives grant for teaching program
By SHANNON NELLIGAN
News Writer
With nearly $122,000 in grant money, the education department at Saint Mary's has teamed up with nine area, public and private schools to improve student achievement through more effective teaching.
"Saint Mary's College was fortunate enough to be one of the few colleges who received this grant," said Marie Doyle, chair of the education department.
The funds for this project became available under Title II, a federal money block grant. Indiana state government was left with the responsibility of distributing these funds. The state is utilizing the grant to implement P.L.221; a law aimed at increasing school accountability and continued improvement of test scores.
Last year, the education department developed a cooperative council to study the program. The council consisted of faculty members, educators from local schools and education majors.
The council discussed, "Indiana's vision of excellence for reforming teaching and learning," comprised of student and teaching standards, beginning the teacher induction performance assessment program, continuing education and license renewal.
Each school is partnering so that teachers, Saint Mary's professors and student teachers will become involved in the classroom from the elementary to the collegiate level.
This will stop the lack of communication between the two levels of learning and better prepare student teachers for the transition to the real world.
Doyle reflected on this movement of increased accountability at every level.
"Teaching will not change unless we change the way we educate teachers. We have spoken about this for a long time and I don't know if things will change if we don't come together with a common vision," she said.
The progress of the program will be followed by site-based coordinators who will collect data. It will be used to make reports at each advisory board meeting, which meets four times a year. This ensures that project activities stay focused on the quality of the teachers and that children are benefiting.
"The performance of students [children] will be tracked by the individual schools, this will allow us to see, most importantly, specifically how children learn." said Doyle.
The Saint Mary's Education Department hopes to continue the close association with local schools, even after the two-year grant expires.
They believe that being involved in the professional and school development will aid the students.
All News Stories for Thursday, September 13, 2001
