Allow me to give you some background info on the case study: When I first met Kevin in January, he told me that he had heard that I was a skilled writer and capeable with reseach. A project he and his collegue, Kate, were planning on pulling together was a scholarly paper reflecting on the construction of the early college program at Manhattan Hunter Science. It is one of the most suscessful Early College programs in the nation and Kevin thought I would be adept at compiling a professional paper that assessed the program. As a student teacher and study group moderator, I would be on the front lines-- communicating with the students, listening to their feelings towards the reflective learning practices and study group system, teaching (obviously), and doing some major reflecting on my own.
For the first two months, I was struggling to get my sea legs-- dealing with study group drama and trying to assert myself as a teacher. Doing research was THE LAST THING on my mind-- I just wanted to survive one day at a time! The students were resistant to completing the weekly assignment (or "task," as I called it) I gave to them. Some even went out of their way to not do it or do it so poorly as to get a rise out of me. It was a rough time-- I did lots of reflection, how I taught, how I interacted with my students in and out of class.
In April, Kevin felt that I was finally ready to tackle the report. The students were obligated to post relfections on their personal Fiction Writing blogs at the end of the fall semester and at the end of the spring semester, just before taking college finals and graduating. As the Fiction Writing teacher, Kate showed me the archives of her Google Reader where students from the classes of 2009, 2010, and 2011 had posted their work. In their reflections, students had to respond to questions about study habits, scheduling, classes, college readiness, their opinion on study groups, where they do work, and contrast senior year to their previous 3 years spent on the high school campus.
The report's thesis would be crafted by me, based on whatever information I gleaned from the reflections, through interaction with the class of 2011, and my own thoughts on the Early College program. The assignment is extremely open-- my research and my reflection would provoke questions and those ideas would be my "guiding questions" that would serve as a roadmap.
I spent a whole month reading close to 300 students' reflections on their blogs. I kept a log of the students and any interesting comments they made. After a while, the blogs began to feel very repiticious. But every so often the students would make intriguing observations and demonstrate growth. Soon, the following essential questions emerged:
- How can we create an Early College program that is holistic?
- How can we develop a program that teaches students study skills, intra-personal skills, empathy, connectedness, independence/self-reliance.
- What can be done to make study groups more focused?
- What role does goal setting and self-appreciation play in helping students to become reflective learners?
- How can we utilize technology even more in the 12th grade Humanities classes?
- How can we curriculm plan to promote global citizenship, activism, and awareness?
- What do the students think about study groups?
What resulted through those essential questions was a 25 page case study critically evaluating aspects of the EC Program employed by MHS. I used books by David Conley, the "father" of the Early College movement (so says Kevin), and James Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me and a pioneer of promoting social justice history in the classroom. Loewen and Conley's research, while on two very different topics, spoke to eachother and complimented my desire for more high schools to push high-level thinking, social justic, and college readiness skills. I also cited an articles from the NY Times on how more students than ever lack the college readiness skills necessary to perform adequetly at the university-level.
The bulk of my paper was the result of reflections, supported by ideas discussed in Conley, Loewen, through conversations with Kevin and Kate, and conversations with my students. I know my paper is fantastic (please comment me if you'd like to read part or all [!!!] of it), and Kevin told me he's planning on using it to help improve the EC program and educate future student teachers on the nature and expectations of this one-of-a-kind program.
This report was the perfect capestone project-- I will always remember my time spent student teaching at Hunter College with Kevin Froner and the MHSHS class of 2011. I am satisfied that I made my mark on this EC program.
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