The education department at Georgetown College has been selected for a $1.9 million grant over the next 5 years from the U.S. Department of Education, to be used for the college’s Center for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CCRP).
The funding is an extension of a grant received by the college in 2007 that focused on English language learners, or students acquiring English as their second language. Working with researchers from other universities across the state, including the University of Kentucky, the Education Department found that Kentucky teachers were generally not teaching in a culturally responsive way.
“Every child has culture — age, geographics, religion, language and even learning styles. What we mean is a different way of looking at teaching, so we’re looking at the context of the whole child,” said Dr. Yolanda Carter, dean of education. “Whatever we do in all of our classes, in any of our department policy making, we love to reach every child in the classroom in a positive way, a meaningful way.”
Faculty in Georgetown College’s education department used their research from the first grant to formulate a Culturally Responsive Instruction Observation Protocol (CRIOP), which focuses on eight basic components of classroom instruction, including assessment practices, classroom caring and teacher dispositions, classroom climate and physical environment, curriculum and planned experiences, instructional conversation, family involvement and collaboration, pedagogy/instructional practices, and multiple perspectives of sociopolitical consciousness.
This second grant will help Georgetown College faculty move into actual classrooms to offer professional development to current teachers. Dr. Rebecca Powell, the director of the CCRP, plans to spend two years in Fayette County’s Booker T. Washington Elementary School, teaching teachers how to implement the eight components. Another faculty member will work in Bourbon County schools, including the Paris Independent School System. The ultimate goal is to coach a cadre of at least 25 Kentucky teachers each year.
The professional development will be taught in three different phases: the family collaboration phase, which will help teachers learn from families; the ESL phase, which deals with quality instruction for English language learners; and the CRIOP internship phase, which is intended to help teachers best use culturally responsive protocol in classroom settings.
“The incentive of the program is the heart of the teachers. They really want to do what is best for the kids they serve,” Powell said. “We are hoping to show growth and achievement, that the achievement gap will close.”
Eventually, the teachers who receive the initial professional development will share these methods with students who will be future teachers.
“When teachers feel good about their abilities in the classroom, students feel good about their abilities in the classroom,” Carter said.
In the name of science
Financial grant opportunity has also knocked on the door of Georgetown College’s science division in 2012, with a second round of funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).
The division received an initial HHMI grant in 2008, totaling $1.3 million, enabling the division to reach out to underserved Kentucky student populations who showed scientific potential but who might not have had opportunities to expand that potential.
“What we often find is that first-generation students come in with a different understanding of what it means to be a scientist, and a different level of preparation and skill,” said Dr. Tim Griffith, associate professor of biology and lead author of the 2012 grant. “Now, we have a number of different programs that will help students become good scientists and good students.”
The second HHMI grant will further fund programs designed to increase student awareness of scientific opportunities available in the world. Griffith said the grant monies will not fund a single program, but multiple sub-programs for current and future students, such as a pre-college bridge course, science foundations classes, and Georgetown College Program for Accelerated Learning in the Sciences, also known as GC PALS.
The bridge course, funded by a previous National Science Foundation grant, targets incoming science-oriented freshmen and will be offered as a bridge between high school science experiences and college science experiences. As freshmen and sophomores, students will be exposed to a foundations course, which will begin with the great philosophers and end with
modern scientists. GC PALS will offer
research opportunities for undergraduate students through science seminars and mentorships.
Dr. David Fraley, a Georgetown College professor of chemistry, said he looks at the grant as an opportunity to increase student awareness of the sciences.
“Sure, they know about a doctor and a dentist and a pharmacist, but they might not know what a biochemist or a physicist does,” Fraley said. “At Georgetown, we’ve always had a modest research program going, but now our students have more opportunity to do more research. If a student wants to study with a professor from San Diego, we can now send them to do that.”
The HHMI grant is a highly competitive grant and Georgetown was the only recipient out of six Kentucky schools who were invited to participate.
“It is a whopping big deal to not only get it once, but twice. There’s a synergy going on in the sciences here,” Fraley said. “It’s a high honor for the college, an affirmation of the quality of science and math programs, and provides a wonderful opportunity for students to enhance their science education.”
For more information about The Center for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, or the science and math programs at Georgetown College, contact them by phone at (502) 863-8000, or find them on the Web at www.georgetowncollege.edu.