John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Excellence in Education
24-Month Progress Report
Florida International University
College of Education
F.O.C.U.S. (For Our Children in Urban Settings) Program
(December, 1995)
SECTION 1: PARTNERS:
The principal partners in this multi-institutional collaboration are Florida International University and the Dade County Public Schools. Florida International University, the fourth largest of Florida’s nine (9) state universities, enrolls approximately 27,333 full- and part-time students, of whom approximately 57.6% are female, 47. 8% are full-time, 48.8% percent are American and resident aliens of Hispanic descent, 26.6 percent are Americans and resident aliens of European Descent (White, Non-hispanic), 13.6 percent are Americans and resident aliens of African descent (Black, Non-hispanic) and 3 percent are Americans and resident aliens of Asian descent. and 6.2% are non-resident aliens.
The University is working with the Dade County Public Schools, one of the four largest school districts in the nation, which enrolls 321,955 students, (October, 1994) 84.9 % of whom are designated minorities by the federal government. Specifically, the project involves five (5) Chapter I elementary schools -- Golden Glades (557 students), Lillie C. Evans (727 students), North County (777 students), Phyllis R. Miller (1,001 students) and Rainbow Park (814 ) Elementary Schools -- and five school communities -- Carol City, Opa Locka, North Miami, Liberty city and unincorporated North Dade County.
Contributing partners include Miami-Dade Community College, particularly the North campus, which provides the majority (over 70%) of the preservice teaching interns and prepares them with important, philosophically compatible educational training and outreach experiences, the kinds of experiences which research on “best practices” identifies as critical for success as teaching professionals. Other advocacy and volunteer social service agencies such as the Metro-Dade Youth and Family Development Early Intervention Development and Outreach Centers, the Dr. E. Bestman Center Day Treatment Program, the Community Action Agency Project , T I.P.P., the Center for Family and Child Enrichment Day Treatment Program , the Agape Academic Enrichment Center and the South Florida Coalition for Urban Community School Development are also an integral part of the program.
SECTION 2: SUMMARY (24 MONTHS):
F.O.C.U.S.. a multi-institutional collaboration utilized the 1995 year to continue to develop and institutionalize an innovative program that (1) recruits, trains and retains high quality preservice teacher interns in and from inner-city communities; (2) provides partner Dade County Public School teachers and administrators, community college/university faculty and social service providers opportunities for professional development and renewal; and (3) provides client Dade County public schools and school communities opportunities to access needed social services with a considerable reduction in bureaucratic delay.
Known as F.O.C.U.S. (For Our Children in Urban Settings), the undergraduate teacher education and training program component enrolls university and community college transfer students with sixty (60) college credits, or more, into the College of Education for five (5) semesters. The program educates, trains and prepares preservice teacher interns as elementary school teachers with special competencies that enable them to recognize and address educational problems and issues rooted in endemic and persistent social problems. The program provides preservice teacher interns with a solid grounding in elementary, early childhood, exceptional and urban/multicultural education methods, practical in-school (classroom) immersion and social service agency experience to challenge and nurture their capacities to apply that knowledge effectively in classrooms and the community.
The preservice teacher interns are placed from the outset of the program in five (5) inner-city schools and their surrounding communities to study, serve and interact within the client school culture, service agency treatment programs and community organizations. It is in this context that they develop experiences in working across institutional systems, identifying the manifestations of social problems in behaviors and school performance, communicating effectively with student, parents, other teachers and service providers, managing stress, and analyzing biases in thinking and attitudes about the inner-city, both in themselves and others.
The John S. and James L. Knight Excellence in Education grant supports the professional development component of the F.O.C.U.S. Program. These funds provide carefully integrated seminars and workshops involving preservice teacher interns, mentors teachers, community college/university faculty, social service agency personnel, and parents with the objective of fostering the level of understanding and cooperation necessary to meet the diverse needs of inner-city students and their families.
This component of the F.O.C.U.S. program also includes a social service agency practicum through which preservice interns are placed in day treatment or intervention centers to serve children with special needs. It also provides a mentoring/partnering system linking preservice teacher interns with public school mentor teachers. In addition, it facilitates the grouping of interns in school site instructional teams. Finally, it facilitates an ongoing series of Advisory Board meetings/forums involving community leaders, parents and educators in an ongoing discussion of the needs, opportunities and strategies for productive collaboration, and qualitative and quantitative research on school/community issues, and social service interventions for F.O.C.U.S.interns.
NARRATIVE: The principal goals of the F.O.C.U.S. Professional Development Component as submitted and revised in the grant proposal (May 1, 1994) are:
Goal 1 “Create a new University--Community College--School--Community partnership.”
Goal 2: “Facilitate the implementation of an entirely new approach to the preparation of elementary school teachers that is interdisciplinary, field-based, and community-based.”
Goal 3: “Enhance the professional development of teacher-trainees, teachers, school administrators, social service providers, community college and university faculty... through a comprehensive program of multidisciplinary seminars, workshops and forums.”
The specific objectives of the professional development component are:
1. To strengthen the capacity of teaching interns, community-based educational and social service providers to address the sociocultural barriers to children’s learning and successful family functioning in the community.
2. To strengthen the capacity of teaching interns, community-based educational and social service providers to offer children and families new skills in self-motivation, self-initiation, self-sufficiency, self-care, follow-through and critical thinking.
3. To develop skills in interpersonal and cross-discipline communication to build formalized and expanded communication networks among all stakeholders in the community.
4. To establish and evaluate an ongoing program of data collection, research, stimulation, curriculum development, documentation and dissemination of innovations in educational models for the recruitment, retention and training of inner-city and minority students for careers in teaching.
The following description takes into account project activities as initially defined with emphasis specific activities from January, 1995 through December, 1995. These activities are linked to program goals and objectives and are accompanied by an analysis of their impact on the realization of those goals and objectives.
•The period marking Florida International University’s Spring semester (January - May, 1995) was dominated by the F.O.C.U.S. student teaching experience. The bonding of the interns with their supervising teachers (and the renewal of their relationships with each other) was facilitated by the Master Teacher Seminars (MTS) of October and December, 1994 (Goal 3). The “psychological” contract negotiated between the F.O.C.U.S. interns and the supervising teachers who attended the MTS set the tone for a student teaching experience at each of the client schools that was characterized by teachers, principals, faculty and interns alike as “enriching and “very satisfying.” (See Appendix _) Student interns began the experience with clear notions of what supervising teachers expected of them. Those supervising teachers that were able to attend the MTS also received clear expectations from the interns. The assignment of the intern to a school and the early immersion of the intern into the regular classroom greatly facilitated the general success of the student teaching experience. Interns felt a part of the school and the school culture, having been at the school two (2) days a week since the second (2nd) semester of the program. Early immersion of the intern into the regular classroom is generally perceived by all stakeholders to be a successful intervention and impacts the realization of Goals 2 and 3 and program objective 1 (See Appendix __).
•During this same period, a number of grant funded and sponsored events were implemented. On March 1, 1995 F.O.C.U.S. Advisory Board was organized. The Advisory Board consists of twenty (20) community members representing education, business, industry, social services, state and local government and law. Also serving on the Board are the FIU/ F.O.C.U.S faculty, the five (5) professional development school principals, and the Dean and Associate Deans of FIU’s College of Education. The expressed purposes the F.O.C.U.S. Advisory Board are to: (1) assist in identifying talented and committed students for recruitment into the F.O.C.U.S. program: (2) identify and access resources for funding to continue the project; (3) represent the F.O.C.U.S. program to the larger community for the purpose of involving additional participating schools as training sites for professional development, and; (4) institutionalize the F.O.C.U.S. program into the mainstream of FIU’s College of Education (Goals 1 and 2; program objective 3). The F.O.C.U.S. Advisory Board meets every other month. There is also a regular newsletter sent to board members every month.
•On March 15 - 18, 1995, a team consisting of the F.O.C.U.S. program coordinator, the director of the F.O.C.U.S. Professional Development Component, the F.O.C.U.S. social service support coordinator, three (3) principals of client schools and an educational specialist/ F.O.C.U.S. Advisory Board member presented a round table discussion at the “Documentation and Assessment in Professional Development School (PDS) Partnerships” Conference held in Louisville, Kentucky, sponsored by the University of Louisville, West Virginia University and the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching. The round table discussion was led by the three (3) F.O.C.U.S. principals, Ms. Lora Manning, Dr. Ruthann Marleaux and Ms. Anna Jackson. The presentation served to share with the larger PDS community the uniqueness and the effectiveness of our multi-institutional collaboration (Goal 3, program objective 3). It also provided an opportunity for our public school stakeholders to see other PDS programs in operation and exchange ideas and information with key resource people (Goal 1, 2 and 3; program objective 3) . The F.O.C.U.S. principals were particularly impressed with the portfolio assessment strategy prominent in school districts in and surrounding Louisville, Kentucky, in contrast to the Dade County Public Schools’ emphasis on single or selective criterion standardized testing as valid measures of student academic performances .
•On April 6-8, 1995, Knight Foundation grant funds co-sponsored the College of Education’s first (1st) annual Urban/Multicultural Education Conference, entitled “Urban/Multicultural Education: Beyond Rhetoric.” This conference, held at Florida International University’s North Campus, was keynoted by Dr. Maurianne Adams of the University of Massachusetts. The conference consisted of the presentation of twenty-four (24) papers which will be published in a forthcoming book with the same title of the conference. The conference provided an excellent opportunity for participants (which included F.O.C.U.S. and AGAPE interns, teachers, community college and university faculty) to exchange ideas about critical issues in Urban/Multicultural Education (Goal 3; program objective 4).
•On April 30, 1995, in a special inaugural ceremony for family and friends, and on May 1, 1995, in a university commencement ceremony, thirty-four (34) of the original thirty-seven F.O.C.U.S. interns graduated. Twenty-seven (27) of the graduates graduated with a grade point average of 3.0 or better. Fifteen (15) graduated with honors (G.P.A. 3.5 or above), including four (4) Magna Cum Laudes (3.8) and two (2) Summa Cum Laudes (3.9). Even more impressive than the foregoing traditional indicators of academic performance is the fact that approximately 80% of the graduates are already employed in the Dade and Broward County School systems (Goal 1; program objective 2) . The program’s innovative approach to teacher education and training is a major factor in the F.O.C.U.S. graduates excellent academic performance. In addition, their assignment to an urban/multicultural school environment and their mentoring by a DCPS teacher greatly enhance their marketability.
•On June 24, 1995 the Knight Foundation grant sponsored an all day Advisory Board Retreat at the Newport Crown Plaza Holiday Inn and Resort Hotel in Miami. The purpose of this retreat was to “create a vision” (plan) for the second F.O.C.U.S. cadre and to provide the opportunity for Advisory Board members to participate directly in identifying problems and prospects of the F.O.C.U.S. program during fiscal year 1995-1996. The “Visioning Session” was facilitated by (1) Board member Marie Nock of Miami-Dade Kendall Campus, (2) Dr. Norm Brammer of MDCC-Kendall; and Professor Joseph D. McNair, the director of the F.O.C.U.S. professional development component (Goal 1 and 2; program objective 1, 3 and 4).
•On August 28, 1995, thirty-three (33) members of the second cadre of F.O.C.U.S. interns were admitted to Florida International University. Seventeen (17) are of African descent, ten (10) are of Hispanic heritage, six are of European ancestry, ten (10) are males and twenty-three (23) are females. Fifteen students of the new cadre were pre-teaching interns in the Miami-Dade Community College/Agape Academic Enrichment Center (Goal 1 and 2; program objective 1). Rainbow Park Elementary School was added as a F.O.C.U.S. client school during 1995-96 school year. As such, F.O.C.U.S. interns will be placed at five (5) rather than four (4) client schools.
•The professional development component of the F.O.C.U.S. program sponsored a series of eight multidisciplinary seminars for F.O.C.U.S. interns including three (3) on Interpersonal Communication and Conflict Resolution Skills, three (3) on “Whole Language” techniques and two (2) on “Study Skills.” The seminars were conducted by the director of the F.O.C.U.S. professional development component (Communication, Study Skills) and Ms. Maria Elena Buria, an educational book publisher and former inner city school teacher (Whole Language). Attendance data and intern evaluative comments on these seminars suggest that these seminars were needed and well received.
•On August 28, 1995 as a result of the efforts of the F.O.C.U.S. social service support coordinator to link social service provider agencies to the F.O.C.U.S. teacher education and training program, F.O.C.U.S. interns were placed for six hours a week in the following social service provider agencies: The Metro Dade Youth and Family Development Early Outreach Service Division (North, Central, Main, Caleb Area Centers), the Dr.E. Bestman Center Day Treatment Program, the Community Action Agency: Project T.I.P.P., Center for Family and Child Enrichment (Day Treatment Program). The purpose of these placements is to : (1) familiarize the intern with the variety of services available in Dade and Broward counties for children in crisis; (2) assist the intern in establishing important networks among social service providers that s/he may utilize when s/he encounters children in crises in their own classrooms; and (3) enable the intern and the social service provider to look at human resource development through each other’s eyes (Goals 1 and 2; program objectives 1, 3 and 4). This service learning activity is currently linked to the College of Education’s Multicultural Teaching Laboratory course (EDG 3322) required of all education majors and taught to F.O.C.U.S. interns this semester by the director of the F.O.C.U.S. professional development component. In subsequent semesters, this activity will be linked to other related courses in the College of Education’s teacher education and training curriculum Activities of the social service support coordinator in addition to coordinating the service learning activities of interns, include providing direct services to identified students at client schools and providing counseling and social service interventions to F.O.C.U.S. interns as needed.
•On September 14-15, 1995, the Director of the professional development component conducted a two day seminar on “Multicultural Awareness” for Headstart Social Workers. The occasion (1) provided the opportunity to form other community linkages especially with educational and social service support agencies, and (2) provided avenue to promote the F.O.C.U.S. program. Evaluative comments from over sixty participants suggest that the seminar was well received and successful.
•On October 26-29, 1995 the four F.O.C.U.S. principals, one F.O.C.U.S. mentor teacher, the director of the F.O.C.U.S. professional development component and the Dean of the College of Education attended the annual meeting of Excellence in Education Projects funded by the John S. and James L Knight Foundation at the “Sixth National Conference on School/College Collaboration” sponsored by the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE) in Washington, D.C. This conference provided participants an opportunity to learn about other programs funded by the Knight Foundation and get a sense of how the F.O.C.U.S. program was both similar and dissimilar to other programs around the country (Goal 3; program objective 4).
•At the time of this writing, the director of the professional development component is finalizing plans to schedule workshops and on-site seminars at four of the five client school sites. Workshops will include: (1) “Authentic Assessment” with selected fourth, fifth and sixth grade teachers at Lillie Carmicheal Evans Elementary School; (2) “Multicultural Awareness” for interested teachers and staff at North County Elementary School; and (3) “Constructivism, Learning Styles and Individual Differences” at Rainbow Park Elementary School. These workshops and seminars will be conducted by the director of the professional development component. The director is also collaborating with one of the F.O.C.U.S. faculty, Dr. Faye McNair-Knox, to conduct a series of workshops at Phyllis Ruth Miller Elementary School on “Learning Styles.”
MOST SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENT(S) TO DATE: The project’s most significant accomplishments to date are (1) graduating the first cadre of thirty-five (35) F.O.C.U.S. interns, and matriculating a new cadre of thirty-three (33) preservice teaching interns; (2) establishing, meeting and communicating regularly with the F.O.C.U.S. Advisory Board; (3) partnering with advocacy and volunteer agencies to place preservice teaching interns in day treatment and/or intervention centers to gain skills and insights in working with troubled inner city students; (4) establishing regular meeting/planning times with client principals to review and revise strategies for program effectiveness; and (5) cementing a sense of community and program ownership established between old and new interns, mentor teachers, college/university faculty and social service providers as a result grant-funded inservice training, workshops and Master Teacher Seminars and conferences.
MOST SIGNIFICANT UNANTICIPATED PROBLEM(S): (1) Establishing strong linkages with field supervisors of social service provider agencies through personal contact and follow-up visits ensure a successful service learning experience. (2) Learning to see educational/social problems from the perspective of the social service provider and within the parameters of their treatment strategies.
MOST VALUABLE LESSON(S) LEARNED THAT WOULD BE OF PARTICULAR VALUE TO SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES PLANNING A COLLABORATIVE PROJECT: School/college collaborations aimed at educational reform are long-termed processes which must be based initially on the simple qualitative personal interactions and coordinated contributions of a few “good people” and evolve (or develop) into more complex and comprehensive responses. For such collaborations to endure, reachable milestones in the developmental process must be identified in advance and treated as major accomplishments when achieved.
MOST VALUABLE LESSON(S) FOR THE EDUCATION OF FUTURE TEACHERS: (1) The earlier a preservice teacher intern can be placed in a “real” formal learning environment (classroom), the better. Giving preservice teacher interns the opportunity to put educational theory into practice concomitant with its presentation enhances student learning and is a superior training technique. (2) Practical skills in interpersonal communication and conflict resolution and the opportunities to practice them in “real” settings are invaluable aids for giving preservice teacher interns the confidence to approach most classroom management challenges, as well as challenges in their own training and development.
MOST SIGNIFICANT LASTING IMPACT ON THE HIGHER EDUCATION PARTNER: (1) Many faculty are beginning to rethink traditional approaches to teacher education and training and are beginning to themselves employ the methods and assessment techniques they teach in their own (college/university) instructional delivery systems. (2) Faculty are developing new reference groups among public school teachers and the communities they serve.
MOST SIGNIFICANT LASTING IMPACT ON THE SCHOOL PARTNER: Client teachers and administrators are demonstrating behavior that suggests that they are experiencing process of renewal . They receive F.O.C.U.S. interns enthusiastically, induct them readily into the school culture, support them, mentor them and nurture them. Their behavior suggests that they feel that they are not alone in dealing with the problems of educational reform. They act as if they are truly part of a team.
MOST INTERESTING QUESTION(S) REGARDING EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT: How can we establish authentic assessment practices in a school district that relies heavily on single criterion measures of student academic performances.
MOST SIGNIFICANT CONCERN(S) ABOUT THE PROJECT’S NEXT 12 MONTHS: Expanding and improving the social service coordination between college/university, service agency and client school to provide principals and school counselors/social workers direct access to provider agencies with a minimum of bureaucratic “red tape.”
INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND STRUCTURAL REFORM: A critical issue raised with the F.O.C.U.S. program and its stakeholders by the Knight Foundation revolved around the question of how the Program’s unique features (i.e., institutional collaboration, broadened approach to teacher preparation, urban focus, etc.) could be both institutionalized and lead to significant structural reform beyond the period of time covered by the Excellence in Education grant. This is a critical issue in light of research findings that indicate that the “innovative” aspects of most experimental programs tend to disappear upon the expiration of the funds specifically provided to support the educational innovations. Listed below are the policies and decisions that have already been developed and implemented to increase the probabilities that the F.O.C.U.S. program (and its attendant feature) will continue beyond its initial period of Knight Foundation support:
•The College of Education has dedicated three (3) hard faculty lines to support the F.O.C.U.S. Program, thereby incorporating the Program’s needs as part of the College’s recurring budget;
•FIU has accepted the responsibility of providing the Program’s students (on an ongoing basis) with the scholarship support needed to guarantee their participation.
•The F.O.C.U.S. Program has developed and implemented a Community Advisory Board committed to raising the resources required to continue the Programs specialized workshops and inservice professional development seminars directed toward maintaining the project’s community service initiatives; and
•Both FIU and the College of Eduction have incorporated the Program’s needs as an integral part of the University’s current $50 million Capital Campaign.
ADJUSTMENTS: There have been two significant changes in emphasis with respect to grant funded activities. (1) The envisioned function of the school/community forum as a principal means for collecting data, research, stimulation, curriculum development, documentation and dissemination has been absorbed by the F.O.C.U.S. Advisory Board, specifically its Educational Reform/Research Committee. (2) The functions of the F.O.C.U.S. social service support coordinator have shifted to an emphasis on coordinating the social service provider articulation of the service learning component in the F.O.C.U.S. teacher preparation curriculum and providing direct services to F.O.C.U.S. interns and identified client school students rather than matching and coordinating provisionary support services to client schools.
There have been no significant changes in the grant budget.
DISSEMINATION: A description of the F.O.C.U.S. professional development component activities have been disseminated in monthly F.O.C.U.S. Advisory Board Communiques and in a journal article entitled “Moving From the Margins to the Center” published in FIU’s Journal on Urban/Multicultural Education.
FINANCIAL REPORT: The financial report is presented on the form provided by the grant agency and records the original budget, the revised budget, the expenditures to date and the balance remaining. It is the first appendix to the body of this report. There have been no significant amendments or changes other than those of a routine book keeping nature.
FORECAST: The activities planned for the next twelve months to the conclusion of the funding period are designed to consolidate the gains made toward advancing the program in the direction defined by project goals and and realizing project objectives. Specific plans include (1) providing direct services in the form on onsite workshops, seminars and classes to client school teachers and parents; (2) continue with the help of non-grant resources to conduct Master Teacher Seminars and Advisory Board retreats to continue the process of cementing our multi-institutional collaboration; (3) to continue to provide direct services to F.O.C.U.S. interns and identified client school students with respect to social service intervention; and (4) apply for a dissemination grant.