Clinton School student Heath Carelock of New Carrollton, Md., partnered with the Central Little Rock Promise Neighborhood (CLRPN) to explore trendsetting practices and strategies that teachers from participating Promise Neighborhood schools can use to support positive student achievement.
Carelock created a manual identifying and detailing multiple areas of education innovation in which teachers, pre-K to 12, were the central focus. Teachers will be able to reference the manual online, then research and apply its features to help attain optimal impact on student learning. Additionally, teachers will be able to contribute their own findings of innovative, emerging practices to a CLRPN online interface.
“This project represents CLRPN’s effort to involve teachers in discovering bold and creative approaches to successful learning,” said Carelock, a former teacher. “We embarked on creating a culture where there’s a hunger for innovation, for teachers to look deeper into opportunities to demonstrate leadership, to develop the whole child and be culturally responsive.”
He produced the manual as his final project through the Clinton School’s Master of Public Service degree program. To complete the manual, he drew from numerous books, journal publications and education-based websites.
“Our mission centers on creating and sustaining a community in Central Little Rock whose stakeholders aggressively intervene in the lives of children to prepare and motivate them for a productive adulthood,” said Arkansas State Senator Joyce Elliott, who serves as executive director of CLRPN. “This project furthers our mission by providing teachers with resources that can help them think anew by giving teachers access to a repertoire of innovative approaches, which are personally responsive to students’ needs.”
After recruiting teachers to the project, Carelock worked with one partnering CLRPN school, Hall High School, where he toured the facility, observed classes and interviewed teachers. Later he conducted a group conversation with volunteering teachers.
Teachers testified to wanting more ways to incorporate innovative approaches in their lesson planning and with their classes.
“Time is always an issue for teachers, so a resource that allows teachers to tap into ideas quickly will be of tremendous benefit,” said Julie Hall, director of operations for CLRPN, and a former teacher.
The project was built on previous assessments done with CLRPN schools. Carelock identified 12 areas of innovation in teaching, including whole child theory approaches, constructivist strategies, advances in cognitive psychology, project-based learning, service learning, E-learning, literacy instruction, student assessments and practices in thematic schools.
“I came into this project inspired because I had completed an in-depth policy analysis on the Obama Administration’s Promise Neighborhoods,” Carelock said. “That paper was my opportunity to understand macro-level policy features, but it wasn’t until I did this project on such a micro-scale that I could see the ‘promise’ in Promise Neighborhoods.”
Carelock presented the manual last week in Caguas, Puerto Rico at the twentieth International Democratic Education Conference. Education experts and practitioners from democratic schools chimed in with fresh perspectives and encouragement, inquiring about its availability.
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