Reforming teacher education: Project ASPIRE leads the way in Ohio

Zack Patterson

1-31-11

Math major Zack Patterson tutored minority students while earning his bachelor’s degree at Ohio State.

His most rewarding experiences were when tutees thanked him for helping them do well.

“I remember tutoring two students in two notoriously hard Calculus courses,” Patterson said. “They called me at the end of the quarter, so excited that they had done well. It was rewarding to realize that I was making a positive difference in students’ lives in only four hours a week.”

He thought about how much more he could do by becoming a full-time teacher.

Inspired by his success, Patterson applied to the college’s Project ASPIRE. The Master of Education degree program prepares students with bachelor’s degrees to teach math, science or foreign language in urban schools.

As a partnership between the college and Columbus City Schools, Project ASPIRE leads the reform of teacher education in Ohio.

Audra Slocum

ASPIRE: Cutting edge in three key ways

The first cadre of ASPIRE interns spent a full year in their preparation, from June to June. All graduated and have jobs in urban schools, eight of them in Columbus City Schools (CCS).

The rigorous experience called for courses in teaching pedagogy and content knowledge. It also called for student teaching, all as expected in a regular MEd program.

The critical differences were:

• The yearlong Urban Teaching Seminar, planned and taught by faculty experts in multicultural education
• A full year of hands-on experience in the urban classrooms of Columbus City Schools working under master teachers
• A yearlong seminar on mentoring for master teachers to hone their skills

Audra Slocum, director of teacher education and residency, explains that the Urban Teaching Seminar is focused on unpacking the myths about students in urban school systems.

“The faculty and I guide the ASPIRE interns in examining their own gender, race and cultural origins,” she says. “Then they explore their students and students’ communities, so they have a deeper knowledge of the cultural forces that shapes urban students’ lives. They understand the strengths that outsiders do not see.”

With this in-depth knowledge, ASPIRE interns learn to build bridges in their teaching. They show they care by linking students’ lives, their communities and school. When students feel understood, trust develops, which is essential to learning.

A year of hands-on experience in urban classrooms

Now a math teacher at Dominion Middle School, Patterson looks back on the year that he and his fellow ASPIRE interns spent in Columbus City Schools. “If I hadn’t had ASPIRE, I would have felt less confident going into the 2011 school year,” he says.

Patterson spent two quarters working with Christine Hecht, his mentor and a teacher of 10th-grade geometry at Marion Franklin High School.

“I admire and learned from her ability to connect with a wide range of students,” he says. “I also appreciate that she was receptive to my ideas and valued having me in the classroom.”

He spent another quarter teaching advanced math to sixth graders with Jada Jackson, his mentor teacher at Dominion Middle School. “My experience with her was exceptional. I loved the school and was so excited when I was hired,” he says.

Patterson found the research-based theory and strategies from the urban seminar, coupled with the urban teaching, critical to gaining his students’ trust.

“Some urban students have serious adversity in their lives,” he says. “If they are worrying while in class about their next meal or where they will be sleeping that night, teachers must make their content as relevant and engaging as possible. It takes planning and creativity.”

Patterson, like all ASPIRE graduates, committed to three years of teaching at an urban school.

“Thanks to ASPIRE, I have the mindset of an urban teacher: I set high expectations and show students that I care,” he says. ” I feel I’m not really going in as a new teacher.”

Mentor teachers hone their skills for a full year

When Chad Smith, a 14-year veteran teacher with Columbus City Schools, heard about the chance to refine his student teacher mentoring skills through Project ASPIRE, he seized it.

With a French teaching endorsement and an MA in Foreign and Second Language Education from the college, he knew he wanted to engage with his alma mater again.

“In my years with the district, ASPIRE is the best professional development I’ve seen that’s completely focused on urban education and molded to help interns succeed in our district. If you’re willing to work hard, you can have a terrific career at CCS. I want them to stay.”

Last autumn, Smith welcomed ASPIRE intern Katie Kimnach to Centennial High School, where he is now in his eighth year of teaching Spanish. He appreciates that ASPIRE requires interns to spend extended time in the classroom.

“Before Katie took over the class, she had time to establish a relationship with the students. They saw her not just as a student teacher, but as a co-teacher. They felt comfortable asking her for help.”

In addition, Smith was pleased that Kimnach brought a new perspective from her extensive time spent traveling and studying in Argentina and Brazil. Smith’s Spanish language knowledge came from Spain and Mexico.

“Together, we brought the students a more balanced, global linguistic perspective about the Spanish-speaking culture,” he says.

Smith found the yearlong ASPIRE mentoring seminar to be reinvigorating. “I appreciated the chance to talk to my peers about how to support our interns. In the past, I was focused on the student teacher’s teaching behavior. The seminar let me make a huge paradigm shift to focus on student learning. In a traditional student-teaching situation, we don’t have time.”

This year, Kimnach now teaches Spanish at Johnson Park Middle School in west Columbus, and Smith continues as an ASPIRE mentor teacher. Please with his experience in ASPIRE, he welcomed new ASPIRE intern Erica Gonzalez to his classroom at the start of the 2011 school year.

Sandra Stroot, principal investigator of Project ASPIRE, says, “Stories such as these shared by our ASPIRE participants are the result of strong partnerships among the district, the teachers association and the university where we all focus on the needs of children and how we help them be successful in their school setting. A strong collaborative partnership is crucial to our success and provides a soild foundation on which to continue this work.”

You may Read about the initial Project ASPIRE grant award here.

Writer: Janet Ciccone, Office of Advancement, College of Education and Human Ecology, The Ohio State University

Sandra Stroot

Ohio State University has received a $12.9 million federal grant that will fund a new model program for preparing teachers to be successful in high-need schools that have a difficult time hiring and retaining quality educators.

Over the course of the five-year grant, Ohio State’s College of Education and Human Ecology will graduate 600 teachers with bachelor degrees and 120 teachers with master’s degrees for placement in the Columbus City Schools. At the master’s level, the focus will be on those specializing in math, science and foreign languages in middle and secondary schools.

The college will also create a model Teaching Residents program that will place 120 graduate-level teachers with the Columbus City Schools, and match them with experienced mentors who teach in the district. This part of the program will also focus on critical areas.

One of the benefits of the new program, called “Project ASPIRE: Apprenticeships Supported by Partnerships for Innovation and Reform in Education,” is that it aligns with Ohio Governor Strickland’s focus on education reform, said Sandra Stroot, senior associate dean.

“We now have resources to help support and guide that agenda, and collectively improve education in Ohio,” Stroot said.

New model to enhance teacher preparation

Rebecca Kantor

In addition to partnering with the Columbus schools, the grant will allow the college to work collaboratively with the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Ohio Board of Regents, the Ohio Department of Education, Battelle for Kids, the Granville Studio for the Visual Arts, Harvard’s Project Zero and Nationwide Insurance on various programs to enhance the quality of teachers in Columbus and beyond.

“We are proud, as the flagship center for education research in Ohio, to engage with these critical partners in creating a new model of teacher preparation,” said Cheryl Achterberg, dean of the College of Education and Human Ecology.

“Our experts will apply strategies they have perfected through years of research in teacher preparation. Our goal is to meet the learning needs of all children in the 21st century.”

Stroot will co-lead the new program with Rebecca Kantor, professor and director of the School of Teaching and Learning. Co-principal investigators are professors Barbara Seidl and Laurie Katz, Teaching and Learning and Belinda Gimbert, Educational Policy and Leadership, and Dennis Sykes, director of the Center for Special Needs Populations at Ohio State.

Multiple paths to licensure

In order to meet the goals of the program, the college is developing “multiple and flexible pathways” for students to receive a degree and a teacher’s license, Kantor said. That may include offering some classes on the weekend and online, in order to accommodate people who want to make a career change into teaching.

“We want to be more flexible in how we offer courses, to be flexible for the needs of students while improving the quality of teachers,” Kantor said.

An important key to Project ASPIRE is the partnership with Columbus schools. Together, the college and the schools identified the greatest needs of the district and the best ways to work together to meet those needs.

“We are very pleased to be partnering with the College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University to be able to offer district teachers professional development opportunities to enhance their instructional skills in math, science and foreign languages,” said Gene T. Harris, Superintendent and CEO, Columbus City Schools.

“Our students require 21st century skills to be competitive nationally and in the global marketplace.”

High-quality teachers to mentor students

Stroot said that the Teaching Residents program will allow some of the college’s best students to work with high-quality mentors in the Columbus schools.

“We are working collaboratively with the district and the teachers’ union to develop and implement the residency program, and Columbus schools have agreed to hire the teachers who successfully complete the program,” she said.

Project ASPIRE will also partner with Ohio State’s College of Arts and Sciences to ensure that teachers have high levels of content knowledge in the areas they will be teaching.

Other key partners will include Battelle for Kids and Nationwide Insurance. These partners will work with the college in the schools, and will also help leaders of the program understand the needs of the business community and use that knowledge to help teachers prepare their students to meet these needs.

Project ASPIRE was funded through the U.S. Department of Education’s Teacher Quality Partnership grants. The department recently funded 28 colleges and universities throughout the country.

Writer: Jeff Grabmeier, University Communications