American University – School of Education, Teaching, and Health
5d. Modeling Best Professional Practices in Service
The Institute for Innovation in Education Report: AU’s Work with DC Schools
D.C. Public Schools former chancellor Michelle Rhee has praised SETH’s partnerships
and projects with public schools, ranging from professional training to volunteer tutoring
to workshops and programs across academic disciplines.
AU’s School of Education, Teaching & Health (SETH) prepares education students to
become elementary and secondary school teachers through instructional work in area
schools two full days each week, plus two five-day weeks for a full semester. AU also
places student teachers in D.C. classrooms full time for 15 weeks to assist in teaching all
aspects of the school curriculum.
Professional Development School Partnerships engage AU with Janney, Stoddert, and
Horace Mann Elementary Schools; Hardy Middle School; and Wilson High School,
among others. AU also has a long-standing partnership with The Lab School of
Washington. AU undergraduate and graduate students work in classrooms, and
university faculty work with teachers to improve teaching practices and conduct joint
research on teaching and learning.
Since 2007, 23 AU student teachers have been awarded $500 mini-grants that allowed
them to bring their innovative ideas into classrooms. In Spring 2013 one AU student
worked with her Geometry students at Thurgood Marshall Academy to learn the
applications of geometry through an exploration of the schoolyard garden.
In their Service Learning in Teacher Education course, AU undergraduate elementary
and secondary pre-service teachers identify an educational need in the D.C.
community, design and implement a program to address that need, and evaluate the
program.
SETH is home to the Institute for Innovation in Education is an interdisciplinary
organization committed to conducting, administering, and disseminating educational
research and research-informed professional development initiatives. The following
projects are implemented thorough the Institute and support DC schools is a variety of
ways. One important theme across these projects is the interweaving of research,
academic programming and community outreach designed to improve the quality of
education for DC children. The innovative interdisciplinary research that takes place in
the Institute is designed to create and test methods and models related to translational
research, ranging from STEM teacher preparation and retention to early childhood
literacy to the childhood obesity epidemic.
American University’s School of Education, Teaching & Health (SETH), Department of
Mathematics and Statistics and Department of Environmental Science partner with the
Carnegie Institution of Washington to implement two programs – Math for America DC
and From the Laboratory to the Classroom: Building Capacity for Math and Science
Teaching in the Classroom (Lab2Class). The goal of both programs is to ensure
excellence in science and/or mathematics teaching in DC public and public charter
middle and high schools by recruiting, training, and retaining talented science and
mathematics teachers who commit to teaching in DC schools for a four-year period.
The MfA DC project has prepared 24 math teachers who are currently working in DC
schools. Thirteen Lab2Class fellows will complete the Masters in Teaching in Secondary
Education: Math or Science program in June and begin teaching in a DC school in
August 2014. The National Science Foundation and The Toyota USA Foundation fund
these programs.
Community Voices for Health (CVH), housed in the IIE, is a school-based program that
has worked within Kelly Miller Middle School (DCPS) for three years. CVH engages
middle school children, teachers, staff and families in advocating for a healthier
community through advocacy and education with experiential, empowering learning
opportunities. Kaiser Permanente Foundation, United Way and General Mills have
provided funds for the program, which includes the following components:
● Kids Take Action is a youth empowerment program that uses a combination of
group discussion and performance-based activities to teach students nutrition
life skills and to advocate for change that improves their ability to make healthful
lifestyle choices. Core learning standards are targeted to support teacher goals.
The program end product is a film of each student group singing, acting,
dancing, teaching, presenting and about nutrition and food justice issues.
● Teachers Take Action is a program that focuses on supporting the personal
health of teachers and instructing them on how to integrate health into each of
their classes.
During the past two years, the IIE worked with OSSE to implement a three-pronged
Team Nutrition program to expand nutrition education and wellness activities in 12 highneed middle schools in DC. Activities included a graduate level course entitled “Health
in the School Environment” for 12 middle school teachers; monthly meetings with
teachers to implement school wellness activities and extend the core curriculum to
include nutrition education topics.
Working in collaboration with the Economic Research Services’ branch of the USDA,
staff and faculty from the IIE conducted a behavioral economic study to increase the
amount of vegetables consumed in four elementary schools in Ward 7. Researches
conducted taste tests of new vegetables to NSLP participants. Using a basic differencein-difference design, the results found that a simple taste test led to higher consumption
among students of collard greens, and a more elaborate taste test that allowed
students to vote on their favorite style of preparation led to higher consumption of
sweet potatoes, a starchy vegetable that was surprisingly unpopular at the beginning
of the year. This study was presented at the Agricultural and Applied Economics
Association conference in August 2013. During the 2013-2014 school year, SETH will
expand this research study to eight elementary schools in DC and Arlington, VA.
The IIE partners with DC Public Schools to implement a Teaching American History
award from the US Department of Education. This program has offered 41 DCPS
teachers the opportunity to explore a period of history through the lens of landscapes
as historical texts – Year 1: Landscapes of Revolution, Year 2: Civil War: Landscapes of
Crisis and Year 3: Civil Rights: Landscapes of Protest and Equality. The teachers
participate in a summer institute and fall workshops that include eight graduate credits
in education and history where they develop a curriculum unit that is then
implemented and tested in the next school year.
The IIE is also home to the AU chapter of Jumpstart—Jumpstart provides language and
literacy development in preschools serving low-income children. Seventy AU students
from across campus, known as Corps members, volunteer with this AmeriCorps
program, partnering with three public charter schools in Ward 7 and 8. Each Jumpstart
Corps member completes a minimum of 300 service hours over the academic year.
Jumpstart at AU is the largest program in Washington, DC and serves approximately 200
preschool children. Additionally, Jumpstart at AU engages with more than 50 outside
volunteers to engage them in Jumpstart’s mission of getting children ready to succeed
in kindergarten and help close the achievement gap before it is too late.
Imagination Quest (IQ) is a collaboration between AU and Imagination Stage. The work
is twofold: Through an AU grant, more than 60 teachers in the D.C. public schools,
grades K–12, have taken a 3-credit graduate course in arts-based teaching and
learning. The project continues with outreach initiatives to D.C. schools, including
Mildred Green Elementary, J. C. Nalle Elementary, and the Center City Consortium. The
project has grown substantially over the past 10 years: in its first year, IQ served 30
teachers and saw one classroom residency (D.C.) and one grant; in its 10th year, it
served 1,777 teachers, 485 parents, 3,482 students, and 74 principals, and received 24
grants.
Theatre professor Caleen Jennings works with D.C. teachers in the use of Shakespeare
as part of the Folger Theatre’s Summer Training Program.
In 2007, Bancroft Elementary was “transformed” by the volunteer labor provided by AU
students, their families, and AU staff, faculty, and alumni during Family and Alumni
Weekend. This year the AU community returns August 19–21 to paint windows, plant
shrubs, weed, and lay out mulch.
More than 4,000 more books are now on the shelves of Benjamin Orr Elementary School
thanks to two Washington College of Law staff members—who also raised money to
provide books, including a law dictionary, to each of the schools that participated in
WCL’s Marshall-Brennan Program. Now the two are raising money for $500 cash grants,
a recent one going to Anacostia’s SEED school for its library.
The Eagle Endowment for Public and Community Service is a student-initiated
endowment fund that provides service grants to students three times a year. In recent
years, grants ranging from $500 to $1,000 have been awarded for projects in D.C.
public schools and elsewhere. The fifth annual MLK Jr. Award by the Eagle Endowment
went to two projects. One was an eight-week young women’s personal finance
education project in summer 2008 proposed by an AU business student. In 2007, the
MLK Jr. award went to AU’s Creative Peace Initiatives enabling six graduate students to
make available a peacemaking workshop to D.C. high schools.
Nearly 200 AU student volunteers tutored pupils in many D.C. schools last year through
the D.C. Reads program. Schools where volunteers tutored include Bancroft
Elementary, Powell Elementary, and Aiton Elementary.
AU celebrated Dr. Seuss’s birthday last March by reading his books to D.C. elementary
school students for the fifth year. Forty-five students, faculty, and staff—as well as Ann
Kerwin, AU president Neil Kerwin’s wife—shared the joy of the Seuss classics with children
at Bancroft and Brightwood Elementary Schools.
AU enjoys an unusual partnership with D.C.’s Horace Mann Elementary School. For
about six years, AU has offered the services of a three-person grounds crew for one day
as a resource to Horace Mann’s silent auction to benefit the school. AU supplies free
labor and consultation for the grounds, especially the sports complex, at Horace Mann.
And each year AU invites Horace Mann students to participate in Campus
Beautification Day to learn about plants.
Youth Voices—WAMU 88.5 FM teaches selected high school students how to create a
radio feature story about an issue that affects their lives and their community.
Workshops are held three times a week during the fall, spring, and summer semesters at
the studios and offices of WAMU 88.5. The stories are considered for airing on WAMU
88.5 and are offered nationally through PRX, an Internet content-sharing platform
through which many Youth Voices pieces have aired on stations from New York to
Oregon. Students learn to develop and research a radio report, conduct live
interviews, write radio scripts, and use editing software to produce polished radio news
feature stories. The program was honored for news features produced by students this
past year on subjects that included social networking, cross-cultural adoption, and the
challenges faced by youth raised without fathers.
Under the guidance of an AU graduate student who funded the project with a $1,000
Eagle Endowment grant and money from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and
Humanities, eight Washington teenagers created short documentaries that explored
everything from race relations to homelessness to music. The films debuted at D.C.’s
GALA Hispanic Theatre, the culmination of months of training, writing, and editing.
An SOC faculty member has helped raise funds through Cartoons and Cocktails for
Young D.C., a newspaper produced by D.C. high school students, and has been
instrumental in giving the students access to the Newseum in conjunction with their
classes.
The Department of the Environmental Science chair mentors students at Wilson High
School to prepare them for the National Ocean Sciences Bowl, an annual academic
competition for high schools on topics related to the study of the oceans.
Students at eight D.C. senior high schools learned about constitutional law from AU law
students last year through the nine-year-old WCL Marshall-Brennan Constitutional
Literacy Project. The focus was mainly on constitutional rights and responsibilities of
students and concluded with a moot court competition judged by judges and lawyers.