When UW–Madison student Cecilia Goodale signed up to work as a virtual tutor this past summer to help local children in math and literacy, she admits she wasn’t sure what to expect.
But after working with three boys and their families, the senior, who is pursuing her teaching certification in elementary education and special education, says the experience was invaluable.
“I’ve done practicum work in schools but I told my classmates that this experience was special,” says Goodale. “I really got to know the individual students and their families in a way that you don’t typically get in a classroom setting. It was an outstanding experience.”
When the coronavirus moved nearly all teaching and learning opportunities online in the spring of 2020, the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) and School of Education utilized existing partnerships to quickly create plans for a virtual Summer Tutoring Collaborative. The efforts were made possible via Forward Madison, a partnership launched in 2015 that formally strengthened the longtime relationship between the School of Education and MMSD.
The Summer Tutoring Collaborative was designed to address the potential summer slide of MMSD students who experienced significant barriers to successful virtual learning during spring 2020. Staff with both MMSD and the School of Education developed the program in just weeks, and it used School of Education elementary education, special education, and graduate students with K-12 teaching experience as virtual tutors. The tutors worked with students enrolled in summer school in fifth, sixth, and eighth grades.
Goodale and the other tutors from UW–Madison received training to familiarize themselves with district technology, virtual summer school content and structure, virtual student and family engagement tips, and information about youth safety. The tutors then worked with MMSD students who were enrolled in summer school from June 22 to Aug. 7.
In all, 39 UW–Madison students worked as paid tutors, with 46 per- cent being tutors of color. They helped about 70 MMSD students. Goodale, who grew up in Uruguay and whose first language is Spanish, worked with three bilingual boys over the summer who were in fifth grade and moving on to sixth grade. She tutored two in math and one in English reading and writing.
The Tutoring Collaborative continued to support students at four MMSD mid- dle schools during the fall semester, and these efforts are currently being evaluated by researchers.
“I am proud that the structure of the Forward Madison partnership allowed both MMSD and the School of Edu- cation to react quickly to the pandemic, allowing for a tutoring program that is a win-win for K-12 and School of Education students,” says Jen Schoepke, who directs Forward Madison and holds a dual appointment with MMSD and the School of Education.
UW–Madison faculty awarded $1.4 million grant to improve professional development for rural special educators
Many rural areas in Wisconsin face a shortage of qualified special education teachers — a trend that shows little sign of decreasing. This often requires school districts to fill gaps by hiring individuals who are not fully licensed.
During the 2015-16 school year, more than half of rural school districts hired at least one “emergency” certified special education teacher, and 24 percent of districts reported that more than half of their special education teachers were emergency certified.
Employing emergency certified educators has been shown to compromise student outcomes, and also leads to high teacher attrition. While emergency certified teachers are required to pursue full licensure as a provision of their employment, fewer than one-third of these individuals ultimately complete the requirements to become fully certified.
Now, several UW–Madison faculty members have undertaken a study to improve these outcomes. The study investigators, all from the School of Education’s Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education (RPSE), have been awarded a $1.4 million research grant to develop meaningful professional development specifically for rural special education teachers who are emergency certified. The project is titled Addressing Emergency Certification in Rural Education Settings (Project ACRES), and it is being funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES).
The study investigators include: Kimber Wilkerson, a professor in RPSE, and the faculty director of the Teacher Education Center; Melinda Leko, a professor and department chair in RPSE; Bonnie Doren, an associate professor in RPSE; and Andrea Ruppar, an associate professor in RPSE.
While effective professional development is often time-intensive and expensive, Project ACRES is a fully online intervention that will provide participants with greater flexibility and remove barriers associated with travel across long distances for professional learning opportunities.
“As a group, we’ve been interested in better meeting the needs of special educators who are working without being fully licensed,” said Wilkerson, the principal investigator on the grant. “This problem can be even more pronounced in rural school districts, where special educators can be geographically and professionally isolated. Providing virtual supports to these educators is a matter of practicality.”
Though the UW–Madison researchers designed this study with rural educators in mind, COVID-19 has made the virtual nature of the supports being offered even more timely.
“The pandemic underscored the ways in which supports like virtual coaching and online communities of practice might also be beneficial to educators in any setting,” Wilkerson says. “We are eager to begin this research and share what we learn.”
Learn more about the Project ACRES study on the IES website, here.
The Discussion Project goes virtual
With COVID-19 restrictions limiting the number of people who can gather in-person on the UW–Madison campus, The Discussion Project is continuing to offer trainings by remaking itself as a virtual program.
The Discussion Project Virtual launched over the summer, and is continuing online though at least the spring 2021 semester. This online training supports instructors across campus in creating the conditions for equitable, inclusive, and engaging classroom discussions, which currently take place online.
The training consists of five, two- hour synchronous sessions in Zoom, which are each accompanied by an hour of asynchronous work. For completing all sessions, modules, and pro- gram evaluation surveys, participants receive $250. All participants also have access to free instructional consultation during or after the training.
The Discussion Project is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and operates within the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. School of Education Dean Diana Hess is the project’s principal investigator.
Conference helps educators teach about electoral politics
Politics can be divisive, con- fusing, and challenging to approach — especially in a classroom setting. Yet teaching about elections is one of the best opportunities to prepare young people for political engagement.
So on Sept. 26 — as the contentious 2020 Presidential Election hit the homestretch — the UW–Madison School of Education hosted the “Teaching About the 2020 Elections” conference. The virtual event was designed to help educators teach about electoral politics in a way that was engaging, respectful to all points of view, and supported by the best and most current information.
The conference was run out of the School of Education’s office of Professional Learning and Community Education, and was organized by Department of Curriculum and Instruction faculty members Jeremy Stoddard, Li-Ching Ho, and Simone Schweber.
After a keynote from Renee Hobbs (University of Rhode Island) on teaching about propaganda, conference-goers then chose from 14 different presentations in three concurrent sessions. These options included a session on the challenges of holding an election in a pandemic to one on teaching with election-related simulations.
In all, 232 people registered for the conference, including K-12 educators and administrators, preservice teachers, graduate students, and social studies professors.