TEAMS:
A research-based, grounded higher education
response to meeting the needs of militaryconnected students through pre and in-service
educator development
Pamela Arnold, Kathleen Levingston & Christine Ward
Darden College of Education
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA
Contact: parnold@odu.edu
Military Child Education Coalition
Annual Training Meeting
2012, Dallas
Teaching, Education and Awareness
for Military-connected Students
TEAMS is an interdisciplinary higher-education
response to the needs of military-connected students
and the schools that serve them.
 The Center for Educational Partnerships
 Counselor Education
 Counseling and Human Services
 Educational Foundations and Leadership
 Teacher Education Services
 STEM Education
 Educational Psychology
 Teaching and Learning
 Nursing and Health Sciences
TEAMS advances a vision for
Military Conscious Schools:
Where every military child is educated by individuals
who are well prepared to effectively respond to the
unique learning and social-emotional needs of
military-connected children. TEAMS augments and
facilitates, rather than duplicates, the missions of
other agencies and programs.
TEAMS collaborates with multiple internal
and external stakeholders.
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ODU Faculty, Staff and Administrators
The Military Child Education Coalition (MCEC)
The University of Southern California
Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA)
Commander, Navy RMA, Fleet Readiness Program, Child and
Youth Program
Newport News Public Schools
Norfolk City Schools
Virginia Beach City Schools
Hampton Public Schools
Fort Belvoir
TEAMS INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
TEAMS coheres a multi-disciplinary research
agenda around military-connected students and
schools
• Educational needs and strengths of military-connected students
• Preparation of military-conscious teachers, counselors,
administrators and service providers
• Special educational considerations for serving militaryconnected students
• Resiliency and academic engagement in the context of the
military-connected student
• School-wide systems change towards military consciousness
TEAMS Needs Assessment of
Military-Connected Schools
• Eight public elementary schools
• Students from all military branches
• Area with largest concentration of school-aged children of
active duty military families in U.S.
We knew military students can have unique life experiences that
may interact with public school contexts to mediate their school
experiences, potentially resulting in school challenges
• Frequent
transitions
• Longer deployment
• More frequent
deployments
Military Culture &
Lifestyle
Military-connected
Student’s School
Experience
• Potential schoolsituated academic
challenges
• Potential schoolsituated social and
emotional challenges
• Localized curricula,
assessments, pedagogies
• Localized behavioral
expectations
• National climate
School Culture &
Context
We also knew military students may develop unique buffers that
they bring to their school experience (Weber & Weber, 2005)
Unique
Stressors
Unique
Buffers
Transition
Improved
Coping Skills
Deployment
Resiliency
We thought seeing military students as a unique
population would have specific implications for P-12
educator professional learning
• Students from diverse backgrounds have differing cultural
repertoires that impact both learning and behavior in school
settings (Utely et al., 2011)
• Culturally responsive educators understand their students’
cultural characteristics, experiences and repertoires and are
able to adjust instruction accordingly.
Our research goals were to talk to the
educators themselves to...
 Investigate perspectives of those who educate military
students in public school settings
 Develop a grounded framework for educator preparation and
professional development curriculum
 Consider how to include military students in the framework of
“all students” in educator preparation
Mixed Methods Data Collection
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Individual interviews with principals
Individual interviews with counselors
Focus group with teachers
Teacher questionnaire
N=81
Domains of School Personnel Needs and Response for Educating
Military-connected Students
Academic Support
Instructional placement, assessment, curriculum, remediation, student academic performance.
Social-emotional Support
Students’ mental and emotional wellbeing, social and peer relationships, emotional resiliency, social support, school counselor and
teacher activities.
School Leadership and Student Records
Administrative processes or activities such as record keeping, data gathering and usage, student records transfer; policies including
attendance, discipline, structure of the school day; activities of the principal or division leaders.
Cultural Awareness & Responsiveness
Knowledge and consideration for the life experiences of military children and families; utilization of experiences in the classroom.
School-military-community Partnerships
Mechanisms for communicating with the military community, including the command post, school liaison officers and families.
Educators of military-connected students need
to know how to provide quick and targeted
academic supports
“How do you fill the gaps in the amount of time you have with
them? It does make it hard for them. Their social studies in
another state is not going to look like what we teach here. They
are playing catch up as well as trying to move forward.”
-Elementary School Teacher
Educators of military-connected students need
to understand and address specific socialemotional needs
“Usually their academic problems stem from the social and
emotional issues so addressing that kind of goes with that.”
-Elementary School Counselor
Educators of military-connected students need
to be able to develop records, systems and
policies for identification
“For many of my military children – I didn’t know for the first few
months that they were military. There is nothing on paperwork
that tells you.”
-Elementary School Teacher
Educators of military-connected students need to
develop cultural awareness and understanding
“I came from an area that was not a military area at all so I didn’t
know anything about the military lifestyle. It was all new to me
when I started teaching. Students were coming and going every
other week and I would have a brand new student for a couple
of weeks and then they would leave again. Just adjusting to all
of that!”
-Elementary School Teacher
Educators of military-connected students need to
know how to connect school-military-community
“The parents are connecting at the school. Many times a parent
will come to me and ask me something and I won’t have a clue
but I am sure the military has a resource for it. It is maybe just
having an awareness of what the resources are and where to
refer them to.”
-Elementary School Teacher
Few educators reported receiving preparation
specific to military students
50
45
40
35
30
Strongly Disagree
25
Disagree
Neither Disagree or Agree
20
Agree
15
Strongly Agree
10
5
0
I have been trained in needs of military connected
students
Educators reported a desire for more specific
preparation in how to effectively educate
military-connected children.
81% of teachers indicated it is a priority for
them to learn more about militaryconnected students.
Old Dominion University
Military Child and Families
Graduate Certificate
.
The ODU Military Child and Families Education Graduate Certificate
prepares educators to provide sustainable, comprehensive school-based
responses
Foundations
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Assessment
Service Delivery
Design
Embedded
Field
Implementation
Interdisciplinary cohorts of teachers, counselors, administrators, service providers
3 sequenced 4-credit courses
12 graduate credits total
Integrated service learning components in each course
Blended on-line delivery
Customized partnerships with school districts and agencies
Course 1: COUN 689
Understanding Military Children and Families
• Course objectives:
 Understanding military structure and culture
 Understanding social, emotional, academic, and behavioral
considerations of military connected students and families in the
schools
 Recognizing the current status of educational opportunity for military
connected students at the local, state, and national level, and
advocating for
 Learning, accessing, and applying applicable resources and policies
impacting military connected students and advocating for students as
necessary
COUN 689:
Understanding Military Children and Families
• Pilot year
Cohort from local school division
Condensed to 6 weeks to accommodate teachers’
schedules
Course material, discussion, and work designed to
have practical, usable applications
Assignments:
Interviews
 Reflections
 Activity/Intervention plan
 Policy Manual
 Agency interviews

COUN 689:
Understanding Military Children and Families
• Lessons learned:
 Longer session needed
 Multidisciplinary composition of class was beneficial on
numerous levels (administrators, teachers, school counselors,
community mental health counselors)

Dividing professionals into small groups (all counselors, mixed
professionals from one school, etc.) was an effective way to draw from
individual strengths
 More time on military culture – field trips, day in the life, etc.
 More time on academic interventions
 Interview assignments proved powerful
 In-class and online discussions were thought-provoking
 More role-play
 Students in the class are committed, passionate professionals
who already “get it”; reach out to new teachers and those with
little or no military experience
Course 2: Comprehensive Assessment Tools for Schools Serving Military
Connected Students and Families
Participants will use the Military Consciousness Assessment
Toolkit (Mil-CAT) to:
Plan
Assess
Display
• Identify the breadth of domains for school-wide provision
of educational services for military-connected students;
select domains as appropriate for specific questions,
objectives and needs.
• Develop a protocol for conducting a needs assessment or
program evaluation in an authentic educational setting
involving military-connected schools or students.
• Articulate appropriate action items and outcomes based on
the results of the assessment process.
• Create a plan for disseminating the information to
relevant groups.
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The Military Consciousness Assessment Toolkit (Mil-CAT)
provides schools with tools to assess need and responsiveness
Need/
Response
Domain
1. Academic support
2. Social emotional
support
3. School Leadership
and Student Records
4. Cultural
Responsiveness
5. School Military
Community
Partnerships
Rubric
Dimension
Needs
Assessment
1. Comprehensiveness
Logic Model/
Formative
Evaluation
2. Impact
3. Sustainability
4. Consistency
Summative
Program
Evaluation
5. Customization
6. Research base
Course 3: Designing Comprehensive Service Delivery Plans to Meet
the Needs of Military Connected Children & Families
PLAN
Consider contextualized
assessment data
Participants will:
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Work collaboratively to integrate
a range of services to design a
comprehensive school wide plan
to effectively respond to the
educational needs of military
students and families in a
specific setting.
•
Develop a companion
evaluation model that will serve
to provide formative data with
which to modify the plan to
improve its effectiveness, or to
adjust it to meet the changing
needs of the students and their
families in a specific setting.
Consider range of practices,
resources and materials
DESIGN
Select optimal
practices, resources
and materials
available in a specific
context
•
Integrate selections
into service plan
Develop protocol to
evaluate efficacy of
plan components
Scaffolded Learning Assignments:
Professional Learning Portfolio
Components
Foundations
• Resources
Guidebook
Assessment
• Mil-CAT
Design
• Service
Delivery Plan
Integrated Field
Implementation
• Summative
Report
The Military Consciousness Assessment Toolkit
(Mil-CAT)
Why “Military Consciousness”?
We envisage that the best educational settings for
military students are ones in which schools actively
seek awareness of the environment they are providing
for military connected students, and act intentionally
and deliberately in order to improve that environment.
The Mil-CAT enables schools to plan and assess system-wide changes
in the ability to respond to the needs of military-connected children
Mil-CATPLAN
Conduct needs assessment
Generate goals and strategies
Design logic model
Mil-CATRESPOND
Mil-CATDISPLAY
Assess implementation fidelity
Monitor progress
Inform program changes
Apply rubric
Communicate
outcomes
Display growth
The Mil-CAT can be made available to schools at
a variety of support levels.
Option 1:
Rapid Appraisal
Coverage
of MilCAT
domains
Data
gathering
instruments
Data
collection
processes
Information
richness
Data scoring
and
interpretation
Interim
reporting to
stakeholders
Final
reporting to
stakeholders
Assistance with
communication
to stakeholders
Broad
Pre-existing
Independent
Low
TCEP-TEAMS
No
Yes
Customizable
Customizable
Yes
Yes
Customizable
Yes
Yes
Option 2:
Needs Assessment
Medium
Mixed
Customizable
Medium
TCEP-TEAMS
supported
Option 3:
Program Evaluation
Focused
Customized
Customized
High
TCEP-TEAMS
supported
TEAMS Military School Partnerships
TEAMS translates research and theory into
practice with military schools and students
Department of Defense School
Military Partnership Grant
Academic Support
Math Coaches
Social-Emotional Support
ODU Graduate Certificate in
Military Children and Families
DCOE TCEP, EFL & Counseling
ODU Math Specialist
Certification
School Counselor Professional
Development
DCOE STEMPS
DCOE Counseling
Contact Information
Pamela Arnold
parnold@odu.edu