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News Bureau | |
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Schofield Hall 218 |
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Eau Claire, WI 54702-4004 |
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Education Course Introduced
At UW-Eau Claire
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MAILED: June 11, 1999
EAU CLAIRE —
A new summer course offered by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire School of Education will address a growing concern among educators in Wisconsin: keeping up with current state and national criterion.
Titled "Curriculum Links: Understanding and Expanding Strategies for the Standards (CLUES˛)," the course looks at the need for school districts to assess their curriculum in terms of the recently adopted Wisconsin Model Standards and the assessment of the student growth under the TERRA NOVA standardized test system.
The three-week course that will start June 14 comes to the university as a result of a grant funded by the Eisenhower Professional Development Program, a competitive grants program for improving teaching throughout the state that is supported by the UW System through funding from the U.S. Department of Education.
The funding will help waive tuition for two of the three credits for the course, allows for the purchase of $150 worth of books for each of the 21 students and will give each student a $200 stipend.
Primary instructors Dr. Bob Barganz, professor of curriculum and instruction, and Dr. Helen Dale, professor of English, will team-teach the course along with Karen Reynolds, a grade kindergarten-12 reading specialist from Mondovi, and Jean Barganz, a reading specialist from Eau Claire North High School.
Designed with the help and input of area school districts, the course will offer teachers a chance to understand how to align curriculum to current standards through units employing strategies, rubrics and other forms of evaluation, Dale said.
"We've got a great combination of reading and writing," Dale said, referring to the backgrounds of the instructors. "This course is going to be very helpful for the teachers enrolled."
The goal of the course, to help teachers align curriculum to Wisconsin's model standards and the skills required in the TERRA NOVA test, is a broad step in the field of education, Barganz said.
"We're looking at going from content oriented teaching to process oriented teaching," he said. "This is new and bold, but this is the teaching of the future."
The teachers enrolled in the course this summer will go back to their schools and select other teachers to come next year to take the course, which will ensure a great number of students will be affected by the curriculum changes in a short amount of time, Dale said.
"This is going to affect a lot of students in Wisconsin," Dale said. "It will affect them in a very good way."
The teachers in the course will also come together again in the fall and next spring to discuss the progress of the curriculum changes, and will discuss the issue further using an email list serve, Dale said.
"This is going to be a positive experience for all of us," Dale said of the course. "We're looking forward to it."
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EW/JB
[Administrative Offices]
[News Bureau]
Janice B. Wisner
UW-Eau Claire News Bureau
Schofield 218
(715) 836-4741
newsbur@uwec.edu
Updated: June 11, 1999
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