Why It Is Important
SEEDs is one of 22 teacher networks in the country modeled on the nationally-validated IMPACT II program, which has worked with over 20,000 teacher grantees and touched the practice of an additional half million professionals. These networks create an unusual professional development opportunity by offering teachers strategies and support from people they trust - other teachers.
The results of Project SEED match the latest evaluation of IMPACT II. Developers report a renewed commitment to teaching that is due to the teachers being honored and recognized for their contributions to education. Most Developers are mature professionals who have advanced degrees in education, yet no aspiration for administration, the traditional career ladder available to educators. Many Developers say that the recognition by Project SEED validated them as educational leaders and reversed their incipient "burn out." They express delight and surprise that their ideas are valuable to others. They improve their skills in presenting their ideas and in communicating with others about pedagogical practices. Interestingly enough, Developers report that they learn a great deal from the Adaptors of their project. Benefits for Adaptors include improvement in their teaching skills, connection to new colleagues, and excitement about learning from other teachers like themselves. Students in Project SEED classrooms report more interesting classroom content and greater individualization of their lessons.
The New Iteration of Project Seed
Inspired by the success of Project SEED, staff at the MMSA and the Maine Center for Educational Services began considering ways to extend the program to help meet some of the stateÕs most critical educational needs. In October, 1996, they began adapting the program so that it would provide incentives for teachers to try standards-based approaches in their classrooms and a scaffold for their initial endeavors. SEEDs is now the only teacher-centered initiative in Maine that disseminates standards-based reform through classroom applications. Although meeting the new goal meant making many changes to Project SEED, the staff recognized the need to keep the focus on recognizing teachers good work. Presently, teachers hear a great deal of criticism and receive far too little acknowledgment for their accomplishments. The net effect is lower morale and less commitment to school reform efforts and the flight of high quality science and mathematics teachers to other fields. Teachers also need to know that they do not have to throw out everything they have ever done and start from scratch again.
Typically, curriculum developers advocate designing instructional approaches by beginning with the targeted standard and then planning backwards or designing down from it. While this is highly effective in designing new units, it leaves experienced teachers wondering what to do with everything they have been doing for years. Many teachers resist educational change because it implicitly invalidates everything they have done in the past. Each new wave of reform says to teachers, "Everything you have done in the past is wrong and bad. Throw it out and start over. This is the answer." Seasoned professionals frequently react to new directives with public compliance and private dismissal.
SEEDs believes that for standards-based learning to fulfill its promise, there need to be programs that validate and extend teachers' best contributions to their field, while continually providing sound reasons to stretch and deepen their classroom practices. Teachers do need to have a solid working knowledge of the standards and how to link them to their existing practices. They also need to see how to use the best of their current approaches as the basis for new results in student learning.
Challenges
During the last year, SEEDs has encountered several challenges to meeting its goal. One of the most significant obstacles has been the newness of Maine's Curriculum Framework. The document was published in 1996, when SEEDs was just beginning. To encourage teachers to familiarize themselves with the framework, the SEEDs application packet includes information on how to order the document. The application requires teachers to specify which standards their approach would satisfy - what are the Guiding Principles? Content Standards? Performance Indicators? Teachers must describe their assessment tools and provide a peer support letter, a testimonial from a colleague explaining how the applicant's approach aligns with the framework.
|
Project staff have found that although applicants have familiarized themselves with the document, many teachers did not always demonstrate a broad or deep understanding of how to use the standards or the available array of assessment alternatives. This year the project asked those teachers selected as Developers to participate in a series of professional development opportunities designed to increase their understanding of standards-based teaching, learning, and assessment. These experiences included two days of intensive professional development. The teachers were paired with a mentor charged with helping them craft their SEEDs packet, the detailed description of their unit or series of lessons that is made available to potential Adaptors. To develop the strongest possible packets, SEEDs uses the Learning Cycle as a template for the packets. The Learning Cycle, as described by MMSA, offers teachers a solid frame for building high quality units that match how students learn. The cycle moves through four instructional phases - invitation, exploration, concept formation, and concept application - that match how students learn. Assessment occurs at each phase.
Not all of the approaches selected by SEEDs are complete units. Some are collections of lessons or parts of units. Some approaches fit into the learning cycle very well, and others fit better into one or more of the phases. Project staff worked with Developers on strengthening their approaches. The connection to a mentor from MMSA or the Maine Department of Education provided Developers with high quality, personalized, professional development that is reflected in the packets they produced.
Conclusion
In August, 1997, SEEDs recognized and rewarded eighteen Maine teachers as Developers of fifteen classroom approaches that model how to make MaineÕs Curriculum Framework come alive in classrooms. The catalog featuring their work will be published in the fall of 1997. The teachers who participated in this first round of applications report that the program was an incentive for them to learn more about the framework, and use it as a resource for instruction. They also feel that SEEDs provided them with opportunities for professional conversations and for receiving feedback about their work.
In December, 1997, SEEDs will award small grants to teachers who want to try one or more of the Developer projects in their own classrooms. Planners envision that students in the classrooms of teachers selected as Adaptors will reap the harvest of SEEDs for Science and Mathematics. As their teachers make their classrooms more interesting and relevant, students will become more engaged and learn more. They will demonstrate their deep understandings of mathematics and science in a variety of ways. Additionally, students will be excited by the new approaches and begin to consider more seriously science and mathematics related pursuits and careers.
|
During the last few years, much time, effort, and money have gone into large scale efforts to define what students should know and be able to do in mathematics and science. Following the lead of national organizations, such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, many states have developed their own exhaustive lists of student outcomes and elaborate assessment systems. Yet with all this effort to define standards, little attention has been paid to connecting state and national policy with what happens in real classrooms with real teachers and students.