Each
year, approximately 50 secondary social science and English teachers participate
in the Summer Institute for ten days. The participating teachers were drawn from
members of the third cohort of teachers as well as from members of earlier
cohorts who were unable to attend the previous Summer Institutes. During this
time teachers are presented with a focus on content, pedagogy and technology
integration. During the summer of 2002, teachers interacted with nationally
recognized human and civil rights experts such as Dr. Clay Carson, Director of
the Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University, Dr. Patricia
Liggins Hill, Editor of Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of African
American Literature and Dr. Julianne Cartwright Traylor, President of Amnesty,
International. The Summer Institute
also provided time for preparing for the school year. The time was used to
collaborate, plan and learn in an authentic context that allowed for individual
differences.
Continuing
Cohort 1 and 2 teachers participated in an expository writing week during the
summer of 2002. Teachers used this
time to reflect and to develop lesson plans that in some cases have been posted
on the project’s website.
The
second fundamental block in the staff development process continues throughout
the school year as teachers implement new and enhanced technologies, content,
pedagogy to support the core English and history curriculum. Individual
coaching, on site staff development and the partner projects all contribute to
the ongoing support for the teachers. Technology integration classes that
focused on the combination of technology skill building with an emphasis on
classroom application were also offered throughout the year.
The
following figure provides an overview of the interaction among the different
activities supported by project’s professional development model:
Figure 2.
Urban Dream’s professional development program model
Summer
Institutes
The
Summer Institute is designed to:
 |
include presentations by individuals and partner
projects that focused on helping teachers and students enhance and deepen their
content knowledge;
|
|
provide training in the use of the equipment
teachers received for their professional use (laptop computer) and for their
classroom (five computers, T.V./V.C.R. and printer);
|
|
include presentations from teachers that made
connections between content, technology, and instruction designed to improve
students’ skills in reading and writing expository text;
|
|
provide
teacher participants time to develop materials and lessons to use in their
classrooms during the 2002-2003 school year; and
|
|
provide
participants, partner projects, and urban dreams staff time to develop plans for
how to best work together throughout the 2002-2003 school year.
|
|
A major
goal of the Summer Institute is to foster a professional learning environment
while simultaneously building a greater knowledge base of the content presented.
Summer Institute participants were also provided with a number of books related
to human and civil rights, as well as best instructional practices.
|
Tables
4 and 5 on the following page provides an overview of the Cohort 3 Institute’s
daily schedule during the of the summer of 2002:
Table 4. Cohort 3 Summer Institute: 2002 - week one
|
Monday
– 7/8
|
Tuesday
– 7/9
|
Wed.
– 7/10
|
Thurs.
– 7/11
|
Fri.
– 7/12
|
AM
Overview of
Summer Institute
Keynote
Speaker - Clayborne Carson, Director Martin Luther King Jr. Papers
Project, Stanford University
A
preview of the King Papers website – support for English and History
Teachers
|
AM
Norman
Naimark, Professor of History, Stanford University –
“Ethnic
Cleansing and Genocide in 20th Century Europe”.
|
AM
Meet
the UD techs
Developing
Essential and Inquiry questions
English
teachers
Teaching
from the Core literature list and anthologies
History
teachers -
Connections
between content, inquiry, technology, textbooks, and district
standards
|
AM
Netsearching
II - exploring information connected to essential questions, course
content, and curriculum project. (Individual topics).
Pizza Lunch provided
|
AM
Tech Training- The Gale Group – On line
resources
“History
Resource Center”
“Discovering U.S., World,
&
Multicultural History”
“Contemporary Authors”
“Twayne’s Complete Set”
“Scribner’s Writer Series”
|
PM
Net
searching I
|
PM
Expository
Reading and Writing in the English and History Classrooms.
|
PM
“African-Americans
in Oakland”
Field
Trip –
·
African
American Museum and Library of Oakland
659 14th St. Oakland, CA
|
PM
John
Denvir, University of San Francisco –
“Government
of the People, by the People, and for the People”
Check
in
|
PM
Tech Optional -
Exploration, coaching,
project development
|
Table 5. Cohort 3 Summer Institute: 2002 -
week two
|
Monday
- 7/15
|
Tuesday
- 7/16
|
Wed.
- 7/17
|
Thurs.
7/18
|
Fri.
- 7/19
|
AM
Center
for Latin American Studies, University of California, Berkeley
“Latin
American Literature”
|
AM
Dave
Forrest,
Logan
High School, Union City
“Tech
Integration in the History and English Classrooms”
|
AM
Lynn
Jones - California Heritage Project, UC Berkeley
Working
with images and documents from UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library and the
“American Memory” Collection from the Library of Congress
Working
group meeting check-in
|
AM
Ruth
Lum McCunn - Author, Thousand Pieces of Gold,
“Writing
Historical Fiction: Challenges and Responsibilities”
Lunch
Provided
|
AM
Tech
Optional –
Exploration, coaching,
project
development
|
PM
Susan
Svensson:
Word
Basics for Lesson/Unit Development
|
PM
Teacher
work time
|
PM
The
Urban Dreams home computer program – collaborating with the Marcus
Foster Institute
Tech
support – working with the Urban Dreams
tech
support staff
|
PM
Planning
year long follow-up
Preparation
- read
"The
Technology Puzzle" and "Can Computers Change the System"
|
PM
|
The
evaluators developed an exit survey for Cohort 3 participants in the 2002 Summer
Institute. The following table
provides an overview of their responses:
Table 6. Cohort 3 Summer Institute 2002
|
Workshop
|
Very
Unsatisfactory
|
Unsatisfactory
|
No Opinion/ Neutral
|
Satisfactory
|
Very
Satisfactory
|
N
|
|
Clay Carson, Stanford - (King Papers)
|
0.0%
|
0.0%
|
10.0%
|
35.0%
|
55.0%
|
20
|
|
Net
Searching I
|
0.0%
|
5.0%
|
5.0%
|
40.0%
|
50.0%
|
20
|
|
Norman Naimark, Stanford - “Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide in 20th
Century Europe”
|
0.0%
|
0.0%
|
15.0%
|
60.0%
|
25.0%
|
20
|
|
Expository
Reading and Writing in the English and History Classrooms.
|
0.0%
|
5.3%
|
15.8%
|
36.8%
|
42.1%
|
19
|
|
Developing
Essential and Inquiry questions-
|
0.0%
|
5.3%
|
15.8%
|
31.6%
|
47.4%
|
19
|
|
English teachers – Teaching from the Core
literature list and anthologies
|
|
