About the Project
For this project, secondary educators representing core academic areas, such as English, math, history, and science, in grades 7-12, from two districts, Indianapolis Public Schools and Muncie Public Schools, engage in a professional development program, focusing on project-based teaching and learning in an effort to improve the literacy acquisition of their secondary students. This program is designed to improve the quality of literacy instruction in the core areas by growing a teacher-mentor program, which will eventually be self-sustaining. Future mentors’ knowledge of project-based learning will flourish through guided workshops, focused reading, peer discussions, teacher application and practice in their classrooms, and through master demonstrations.
Educators concerned about equal literacy opportunities for students, including the increasing numbers of those who are linguistically and culturally diverse (LCD), often express a hope that educational opportunities and experiences will improve for all their students. “Culturally and linguistically fair, appropriate, and success-promoting materials, pedagogy, and placement options are needed. . .” (Roseberry-McKibben, 2002, p.2). Similarly, a number of teacher educators and researchers have argued for more authentic, problem-posing literacy instruction, but they have indicated that there are key barriers blocking the use of the progressive methodology—barriers that our project is designed to overcome. The first obstacle is a lack of ongoing academic and experiential preparation for teachers (Rosa-Lugo & Fradd, 2000). This preparation should include training in progressive theories of methodology, including project- based literacy learning strategies, which involves student inquiry, and more authentic assessments. Second, there is a particularly acute lack of appropriate materials and pedagogical methods for educating students from these diverse backgrounds (Goldstein, 2000, Roseberry-McKibbin, 2001, Wyatt, 2002). Finally, schools often lack interdisciplinary communication.
In Phase 1 of our project (2005-2006), two working groups of mentor-teachers (one group located in Muncie and one in Indianapolis) participate in guided professional development with the Principle Investigators from Ball State University. At all stages, all participants will collaborate to develop proficiency in Project-based literacy instruction. This process requires a yearlong commitment from the teachers involved and the creation of a portfolio, mastery demonstration to other core teachers, and the continuous use of portfolio techniques. The proficiency process moves teachers through four steps—from awareness to mastery demonstration.
In Phase II (2006-2007), each mentor-teacher create a mentor team to develop and integrate the professional development support system into their school curriculum and participate in an ongoing electronic and real-time discussion among the teachers. This two-phased approach will provide the groundwork for better meeting the needs of all students in today's multicultural classroom through a focus on problem-based learning and literacy.