Pro Excellentia – Fall 2015

PRO EXCELLENTIA • FALL 2015MARTHA HOLDEN JENNINGS FOUNDATION

Martha Holden Jennings Foundation F A L L 2 0 1 5

High school students from Fairport Harbor investigate the health of various ecosystems using the same protocols real scientists do in a summer aquatic ecology course. See pg. 14

Science On-Site


Martha Holden Jennings Foundation

P R O E X C E L L E N T I A • F A L L 2 0 1 5

The purpose of the Martha Holden

Jennings Foundation is “to foster the

development of individual capabilities

of young people to the maximum

extent through improving the quality

of teaching in secular primary and

secondary schools” and “to provide a

means for greater accomplishment

on the part of Ohio’s teachers by

encouraging creativity in teaching and

bringing greater recognition to the

teaching profession.”

Pro Excellentia is published to describe

a sampling of those efforts.

We ask that you please share this copy

with colleagues who may gain valuable

information and ideas from articles

covered in this publication.

Mary Kay Binder, Editor

© 2015 Martha Holden Jennings FoundationThe Halle Building1228 Euclid AvenueSuite 710Cleveland, Ohio 44115

Dedicated to fostering Excellent Teaching and Deep Learning in Ohio’s secular schools.

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Summer Mathp. 3

Brain Gainp. 8

IB Learnersp. 6

Student-Driven Learningp. 4


Snapshots of Summer

Math Institutes Each summer the Jennings Founda-tion sponsors Mathematics Institutes designed to re-energize Ohio’s math-ematics teachers in grades 6-8 and 9-12. The separate sessions are filled with practical strategies teachers can incorpo-rate immediately into their lessons. Institute instructor Jeffrey Wanko, Professor and Associate Dean for Under-graduate Affairs at Miami University in Oxford, says he hopes teachers become more at ease teaching through problem solving after participating in the institute.

“The core of the Common Core standards is to teach using a prob-lem solving approach,” explains Dr. Wanko. “So we really want teachers to understand what that means.” “Most everybody here has been teaching mathematics at this level for some time,” he continues, “but there have been a lot of changes in testing, a lot of changes in the curriculum, and a lot of changes in the expectations for teachers. There’s a level of professional-ism that all teachers are working towards to become better teachers and to teach mathematics in a way that better reaches students. That’s what we are striving for here.”

Dr. Wanko adds that with the wealth of resources available to teachers online, he also uses the institute time to help teachers identify the good from the bad. “I want to help them be more critical of the online resources so they know how to filter through them and get to the really good problems that are going to be helpful to them as teachers.”

Educators Retreat As summer break draws to a close each year, the Jennings Foundation gath-ers together a group of Ohio’s education leaders for the Educators Retreat. The event provides an opportunity for these professionals to discuss critical issues in education today under the direction of a renown educational thinker. This past summer, Marc Prensky, an internation-ally acclaimed speaker, writer, consultant and designer in the field of education, led the two-day sessions, challenging participants to utilize “real world accom-plishment” as the driver for an education that supports the goal of impacting what students are becoming. Mr. Prensky, who recently founded The Institute for Global Future Education, asked educators to share 30-to-60 second accounts of what students are doing in their districts that exhibit real world accomplishments: “I would like

to learn more about what is going on in Ohio. The idea behind this is to explore what our students can do that we don’t expect,” says Mr. Prensky. In addition to asking educators to reflect on their students’ accomplish-ments, he stressed the responsibility educators have to get to know students in their charge: “You have to look at your students as individuals and ask what is best for them,” he remarks. “And the only way to do that is to really get to know them. You have to ask them ques-tions. The more we know about them, the more we can give them what they need from us.”

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Teachers make powerful connections with their colleagues during the summer institutes.

Marc Prensky (top) leads educators in discussions regarding assessments, technology, and professional develop-ment at the Jennings Educators Retreat.

PRO EXCELLENTIA • FALL 2015MARTHA HOLDEN JENNINGS FOUNDATION 4

Real Life Lessons Come Through Service

Every Monday afternoon students in Carla Anthony’s Pathways to Nursing course at Ft. Hayes Metropolitan Edu-cation Center in Columbus walk a mile to the Neighborhood House where they meet with senior citizens to work to-gether on projects that help the needy in their community. One afternoon, they sorted donations that the students col-lected from their teachers and peers for Thanksgiving baskets. On another, they cleaned, organized, and stocked the shelves of a desperately needed Food Pantry that had been closed for the past two years. Back in class, the students spend time researching some of the challenges elderly people in their community face, particularly hunger and loneliness. They also reflect upon and write about their experiences at the Neighborhood House, noting how those interactions will impact their work in the health care field. In the process, Ms. Anthony wants the students, who will be applying for jobs as nurses aides in just a few months, to become familiar with the population they are likely to work with and develop important communication and listening skills. Ms. Anthony is one of 38 central Ohio teachers who participated in a Service-Learning Leadership Seminar held this past summer at Upper Arlington High School. The three-day graduate seminar, which was funded in part by the Jennings Foundation, was facilitated by retired educators Ellen Erlanger and Kathy Meyer, co-directors for an education initiative called the “Growing Together” Service-Learning Network. The initiative was developed by a non-profit organiza-tion called Partnerships Make a Difference and currently works with

40 K-12 schools in central Ohio. Its purpose is to help teachers use service-learning to “inspire a sense of passion and purpose” in their students. Service-learning, as explained by Ms. Erlanger, is a method of teaching and learning that connects classroom lessons with meaningful service to the com-munity. Integrated into the curriculum, service-learning helps meet academic goals while enabling young people to apply their knowledge to support their neighbors and community. It provides educators with an authentic instructional framework that effectively integrates rigor, relevance, and relationships. Students build character and become active citizens as they create authen-tic service projects that have particular meaning to them. “Working with Kathy and Ellen has helped me understand how to go deeper into my curriculum,” Ms. Anthony re-marks, adding that her students are also meeting academic standards through their service work with the seniors.

“Through this project we are able to reach into all areas of the curriculum, and it just keeps expanding every day.” Teachers who participated in the sum-mer seminar were trained in the critical steps needed to successfully integrate a service-learning project in the classroom. They first explored the following ques-tions:

• What should “high quality service-learning PBL” look like? What are its key elements?

• Why is service-learning/PBL worth doing? What opportunities and outcomes do we want for kids, and how can high quality service-learning/PBL help us pro-vide/accomplish these?

• How can we effectively use service-learning/PBL to help achieve school/dis-trict goals and priorities?

A typical project, they learned, includes five components all linked to the curriculum: Investigation; Planning and continued on p. 5

Partnerships Make a Difference

Hastings Middle School teacher

Jeff Elliott shares the work of his team members

with colleagues during the

Service-Learning Leadership

seminar.

“We are here to help teachers change instruction and as a result help kids change the world.” - - Ellen Erlinger, Partnerships Make a Difference


Service continued from p. 4

what an excellent teacher does to make learning compelling for kids and relevant to their experiences, this method of teaching is the perfect way to do that,” she says. “It enriches instruction, it re-energizes teachers, and it has terrific, positive impact on kids academically as well as personally. “The curriculum becomes so much more authentic through these experi-ences. Kids begin to apply subject area knowledge and concepts to real world challenges that matter to them.”

For more information contact:Karen PattersonPartnerships Make a [email protected]

Preparation; Action; Reflection; and Demonstration/Celebration (see box at right). During the seminar, the teachers dis-sected model projects that had been cre-ated by colleagues. The next challenge was to brainstorm project ideas that would apply to their own curriculum. “The course taught me all of the steps of project based service-learning,” says Carrie Stieg, a 7th grade language arts teacher at Hastings Middle School in Upper Arlington and seminar participant. “I already did bits and pieces of it be-cause it’s just good teaching. But I didn’t know all the steps that are involved to ensure success from start to finish.”

Connecting with the Community This school year, Ms. Stieg’s students are partnering with a group of peers who attend an academic-based after school program at the Dowd Education Center in Columbus. Those students are in foster care, homeless, or at-risk of becoming homeless. Together, the middle schoolers are creating a kid’s guidebook to Columbus. They have brainstormed and researched 75 different sites in and around the city. In November they were narrowing down that list. Because of differing school schedules, the students from Hastings and Dowd work indepen-dently but meet virtually to collaborate on the articles that will go into the book. They have also received a grant to get the books published. “The curriculum tie-ins involve writing, research, designing research questions—it’s everything my language arts standards covers,” says Ms. Stieg. “As far as content is concerned, it is my content.” In addition to conducting research for their guidebook, the students in Ms. Stieg’s class are expanding their work to include research on homelessness. After meeting their partners at Dowd, they took it upon themselves to learn more about the challenges their friends face. They will eventually decide how and to whom they will present that information.

Ms. Stieg says her skills have im-proved significantly since taking the Service-Learning course. She believes she is a more creative teacher and has “reworked” how she looks at teaching. “The number one point I took away from the course, and which has been difficult for me, is to let the students take ownership of their learning,” she adds. “It’s something Kathy and Ellen talked about constantly and what makes project based service-learning work. The kids have to drive it. That’s how they are going to take the most away from it. “And their excitement is contagious,” They are very interested because they are seeing the relevance to the real world.” Eighth graders in Jeff Elliott’s social studies class at Hastings developed a similar project. “We thought it was im-portant to give back to our community,” says one student explaining how they worked in groups to design and produce walking tour guides to historical sites in Upper Arlington. The students researched their town’s history and then created pamphlets showcasing these sites that would appeal to a wide audience. The class will vote on which brochure they think is best. The winning selection will be printed and available when the city celebrates its bicentennial in 2018. “It’s really cool to think that some-thing you made could impact somebody else’s life,” the student adds. “Even just to teach someone something they didn’t know. That’s a big factor in why we did this project.” “This is one of the first projects I have done where my teacher said, ‘Go do the research and create a brochure,’ without giving us step-by-step direc-tions every single day,” remarks another student in Mr. Elliott’s class. “He let us decide how to do it; and I liked that.” Meeting Excellent Teaching Criteria For all the deep learning potential it offers students, there is no doubt in Ms. Erlinger’s mind that Service-Learning contributes significantly to excellent teaching. “When you take point by point

K-12 Service-Learning Project Planning Toolkit

Investigation - Teachers and students investigate the community problems that they might potentially address. Inves-tigation typically involves some sort of research and mapping activity.

Planning and Preparation - Teachers, students, and community members plan the learning and service activities and ad-dress the administrative issues needed for a successful project.

Action (Implementing the Service Activity) - The “heart” of the project. Students engage in the meaningful service experience that will help them develop important knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and will benefit the community.

Reflection - Activities that help students understand the service-learning experience and think about its meaning and connec-tion to them, their society, and what they have learned in school.

Demonstration/Celebration - The final experience when students, community participants, and others publicly share what they have learned, celebrate the re-sults of the service project, and look ahead to the future.

K-12 Service-Learning Project Planning Toolkit. Created by RMC Research Corporation 8 for Learn and Serve America’s National Service-Learning Clearinghouse


Developing Effective Teachers for the IB Program

Cassingham Elementary and Bex-ley Middle School, in the Bexley City Schools, were authorized as International Baccalaureate (IB) World Schools in 2007. With its student-centered ap-proach and emphasis on global perspec-tives and deeper learning, IB aligns with the district’s mission, vision, and strategic priorities. “We believe strongly in the IB philos-ophy and the framework it offers for stu-dents,” remarks Jana Clarke, Cassingham Elementary second grade teacher and IB Primary Year Program (PYP) coordina-tor. “It includes a lot of best practices in education: it promotes independence in students; it is student initiated; it is in-quiry-based. It is constructive education that involves goal setting and provides feedback on those goals. All these things, which are talked about in education, are included under the IB umbrella.”

For all its benefits, IB is a rigorous and demanding program to implement, develop, and sustain over time. Teach-ers need on-going support, and to fulfill IB requirements, all teachers must be trained within a 5-year evaluation cycle. “Quality education begins with teach-ers, and supported teachers are able to best meet their students’ needs,” writes Bexley Superintendent Michael Johnson in a grant proposal to the Jennings Foun-dation to request support for IB profes-sional development. “The high–quality professional development offered by the IB organization will help Bexley meet its mission of creating a community of learners who become productive global citizens and leaders.”

Professional Commitment The goal of IB professional develop-ment is to provide transformative experi-

ences and empower teachers to improve instruction and use their creativity to engage students. Ultimately, it is the students who are the focus and who will benefit most from the training. “We have to show a commitment to IB professional development,” says Ms. Clarke, who has been the PYP coordina-tor in Bexley for five years. “All of our new staff members need to be trained each year and we are making an effort to keep up with continuous professional development.” With Jennings Foundation support, the district was able to provide those op-portunities to 35 elementary and middle school teachers during the past year. The possibilities were varied to meet the teachers’ personal and professional schedules. They included on- and off-site programs, one-day workshops, and on-line webinars. All programs are designed to promote student achievement and support teachers in their effective-ness. Topics addressed include inquiry, assessment, and the integration of the Common Core standards and the Ohio Science and Social Studies standards into units of inquiry. “It can be overwhelming for a new teacher coming into an IB school to know how to plan a unit,” adds Nate Maier, Bexley’s IB Middle Years Program (MYP) Coordinator. “This is all brand new to them. In the MYP, there is a very specific way to unit plan; there is very specific terminology that IB uses. When I send a teacher to training, my goal is for them to become comfortable with that infor-mation and to have time to work with others who are in the same situation. It’s a good time for them to collaborate.” “Any time you go to an IB workshop it gives you a lot of time to do in-depth reflection and to work with colleagues from other schools,” remarks Sarah Re-sek, a 5th grade teacher, who attended a workshop in Columbus focusing on transdisciplinary learning. continued on p. 6

Bexley City Schools

Jana Clarke and her 2nd grade students examine a map of Ohio and question what goods and services might be produced in the cities, along waterways, and in the country.


Developing IB Teachers continued from p. 6

“We work really hard to include the transdisciplinary approach in the 5th grade, so the workshop validated a lot of what we are doing. But it also made me think: What is the next step I can take to make it even stronger? How do we get even better?”

Second grade teacher, EJ Stachler participated in a four-week online workshop addressing assessments last summer. While she was able to complete the curriculum at her own pace, she participated in conversation streams, discussion boards, and video recordings with international colleagues: “It was a neat experience because we could in-teract and share our ideas about our IB program with teachers from all over the world.” Having taught in IBPYP for only a year, she believes the workshop was extremely valuable. David Schottner, a 3rd grade teacher, attended a workshop on how to bring authentic community action into the classroom. The goal was to encour-age students to discuss how they can help people in their communities and then let the students follow through on

their ideas without the teachers having to plan every little step. The workshop inspired Mr. Schottner to invite represen-tatives from public service organizations into his classroom this fall to explain what their agencies do. After listening to a variety of speakers, the children chose to collect and distribute food to a local food pantry and donate clothing and shoes to children in need. “Before this workshop, what I did in the classroom was mainly teacher-led,” he remarks. “But this opened my eyes to see that the ideas can come from the kids and should come from the kids.”

The activity, he adds, was tied to an IB theme titled How We Organize Ourselves. A Focus On Students To build capacity among teachers, Ms. Clarke asks all teachers to share “some of the big ideas” and resources they glean from their professional devel-opment at staff meetings and with their grade level teams. Sonja Hutchison, the district’s former IB coordinator and a current 5th grade teacher, says she views every profes-sional development session from the perspective of how it will impact her students. A 25-year veteran teacher, she has been involved with IB for half of her career. “My teaching is ten times better since IB,” she remarks, “because it is totally child-centered; it’s not teacher-centered. So every time we plan, we ask: ‘What’s best for kids? Why are we doing this? What’s their perspective?’ That’s what makes IB different from a lot of other best practices.” “You hear that a lot in training,” adds Mr. Maier. “Everything is always tied back to what’s best for students.”

For more information contact:Ms. Jana Clarke, Bexley City [email protected]

Fifth graders are researching and writing articles on animals that live within a particular biome. They will discuss their findings in small groups to learn how the animals are interdependent.

Sixth graders study ancient civilizations and discuss how they impact society today.


Staying On Track

The mission of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland (BGCC) is to help children most in need to grow, learn, and realize their potential. The organization works year round to provide a safe haven where youngsters from Cleveland’s poorest neighborhoods feel secure and supported. Children who participate in BGCC pro-grams during the summer months enjoy games, reading groups, art projects, and field trips. The activities take the place of expensive camps, vacations, and other enrichment opportunities more affluent children are likely to experience. For eight weeks last summer, 180 youngsters participated in BGCC programs at 11 sites throughout Cleveland. While the children were in their care, program staff aimed to boost the students’ academic skills to pre-pare them to enter the 2015-2016 school year on track. During the summer school break, low-income youth are shown to lose up to two months of math and reading skills, explains BGCC Program Manager Barbara Bell. This significant learning loss widens the achievement gap between the under-privileged students and their peers.

With a grant from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation, BGCC supplemented its existing summer program with 45-60 minutes of Brain Gain activities each day. The nationally-developed curriculum is designed to maintain and build academic skills in literacy, research, mathematics, and technology. Brain Gain activities are organized into weekly thematic learning modules separately designed for the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Youngsters work together to complete group projects, explore ideas, compete in games, read and write, and create art. The modules enhance and stimulate intellectual curios-ity by introducing the youngsters to new ideas and tying them to their personal experiences. For example, week six of the elemen-tary school module is titled “Race to the Future.” Throughout the week, students work in cooperative teams to explore and make plans to live on “Planet –I.” In the process they learn vocabulary words, design space gear, investigate habitats, make time capsules, discuss how to care for the planet’s environment, and exam-ine various food options.

“I don’t want the students to think this is school, so we make the activities fun,” explains Ms. Bell. “Yet at the same time we want them to learn; and we empha-size reading and math.” Brain Gain is based on project-based learning principles that are incorporated into program materials and staff training. Targeted, goal-oriented lesson plans are provided for each module and detailed guides support the staff with all they need to implement a successful program. These include summaries of educational goals; supply and equipment lists; suggestions for books, videos, and other teaching tools; and step-by-step activities. New lessons were incorporated into the cur-riculum in 2015 that address topics such as making global connections, cultures, effective decision-making, building posi-tive relationships, college readiness, and employable skills. A visit to Charles W. Eliot School, a Cleveland Metropolitan School District elementary school, found a dozen stu-dents investigating global holidays, such as Earth Day, Global Food Day, and Global Water Day. They were looking for and discussing ways they could help maintain a healthy Earth. Each of the Brain Gain activities begins with a warm-up exercise in which students work with staff on math and reading skills pertinent to their grade level. While the youngest learners at Charles Eliot worked on beginning letter sounds, the third and fourth graders were practicing writing in paragraph form. “The students like being away from home,” explains Ms. Bell. “They don’t think they are in school because they have free time. We watch movies and read books but everything we do is edu-cational and connected to the module. They learn without realizing it. “Over all, my hope is that they return to school ready to learn at grade level.”

For more information contact:Ms. Barbara Bell, Program ManagerBoys and Girls Club of [email protected]

Boys and Girls Club of Cleveland/Cleveland Metropolitan Schools

Cleveland children enjoy summer activi-ties while practicing impor-tant academic skills through the Boys and Girls Club Brain Gain program.


Engineering ContestsCuyahoga Heights Elementary School

grants-to- educators

Two hundred smoothie straws…140 wire coat hangers…1,000 craft sticks…100 fibre craft pipe cleaners…four plastic dump trucks 2,500 gumdrops…250 rubber bands…140 plastic spoons…

These are just a sampling of the materials Barb Currey re-quested in a Grant-to-Educators from the Jennings Foundation to teach engineering concepts to third graders at Cuyahoga Heights Elementary School. Through Project Construct she challenges her students to compete in bridge building, catapult launching, and egg dropping contents and to experiment with the engineer-ing principles associated with each. “I feel it is my responsibility to enrich the curriculum with sci-ence, technology, and math as much as I can,” says Mrs. Currey, who fears that the focus on standardized testing has taken away some of “the creativity, ingenuity, and ‘thinking outside the box’” out of the classroom. Therefore, she plans four STEM-related projects each year for the entire third grade. Students work on the projects during “Innovation” hour on Friday afternoons. All the projects are embedded in the curriculum and designed to encourage inquiry through hands-on lab experiences. Last year, the students’ final Innovation project was titled the “Junk Box Wars Bridge Challenge.” They worked in teams to construct bridges that would support a dump truck filled with weights traveling the length of the bridge. Each team was given the same set of materials and was allowed to use as much or as little of the supplies as they wanted. The list included 150 craft sticks, 5 sheets of paper, 30 pipe cleaners, 30 straws, 10 CDs, and 400 cm masking tape. Mrs. Currey asked each group to brainstorm, build a prototype, test their prototype, then rebuild with another set of supplies. The final test was the competition to see which team’s bridge held the most weight. The students also read books about bridges purchased with grant funds and researched examples of similar student projects from Science Olympiad during the design phase of their work. In addition to learning the science behind the experiments, Mrs. Currey wants her students to get valuable practice working as a team. “I want them to be able to communicate what works well and where the weaknesses are in their designs. I want them to be able to reach a consensus—to be able to give up on their idea and go with someone else’s idea when it’s a better idea. At the beginning of the year this is so difficult for them; but by the end of the year, they leave with important skills that will carry them forward.” Mrs. Currey admits that it is a challenge to find time during the school day to devote to projects such as these or to locate resources for the consumable materials they demand. Yet, she believes it is worth the effort. “We have to teach students to problem solve,” she explains, “and this is one of the ways I am trying to do that. If we don’t spend time on it, how will our students become science and math thinkers?”

For more information contact: Mrs. Barb Currey, Cuyahoga Heights Elementary School [email protected]

Students anxiously watch the results of their hard work as their designs are tested in the egg dropping (top) and bridge building contests.


Fit Bit Friends Upper Sandusky Exempted Village Schools

At 7:45 each morning, 2nd graders in Mindy Newell’s class strap their FitBits to their wrists. The wireless devices then track the number of steps the children take throughout the day. When it’s time to go home, they record their individual step tallies in their calendars, measuring the total against personal goals they set in advance. “I like a challenge, so I like to bring things into the class-room that no one else has tried,” says Mrs. Newell, who designed the “FitBit Friends” project for her students at Union Elementary School in Upper Sandusky with a Grant-to-Educa-tors from the Jennings Foundation. Having worn a FitBit device herself for two years, Mrs. Newell was well aware of the potential applications it presented for authentic project-based learning in the classroom. While the FitBits motivate her students to be active, they also provide data she can incorporate into mathematics, writing, and even social studies lessons. Recently, the students added the number of steps they had taken each day that week—anywhere from 4,000 on a less active day to 11,000 on a gym day—and then compared and analyzed their totals to what they had projected. “I could get out a workbook and make the children write in expanded form,” explains Mrs. Newell, “but this is much more meaningful. We can have fun and they can do Common Core math without really knowing they are doing it. And that con-tributes to deeper learning.” Further into the school year, Mrs. Newell plans to have the students determine how far they have walked in miles and will then graph that distance on a map.

“I think this project will be greater than I ever imag-ined,” she adds. “I constantly see more things I can do with the FitBit data.” I know I will integrate it into more lessons than I originally planned.”

“I think if you are excited about a project, your students will be excited about it,” Mrs. Newell adds, remarking that the children can’t wait each day to discover how many steps they have taken. Some even finish the day walking in circles around the classroom to get in those last needed steps. Just as important as using the FitBits to meet academic standards, Mrs. Newell says they allow her to teach important 21st century skills. Creating appropriate goals, receiving im-mediate feedback, and devising strategies to achieve personal objectives helps students develop problem solving and critical thinking skills, she explains. Goal setting also fosters indepen-dent learning. “This takes a lot of work and goes beyond the average plan-ning time for a teacher, but if you make learning relevant to life, you can grab the students’ attention and get them excited about learning.”

For more information contact:Mrs. Mindy Newell, Union Elementary SchoolUpper Sandusky Exempted Village [email protected]


Mindy Newell and her 2nd graders take periodic Brain Breaks where they dance to videos that record their physical activity on FitBits. Students then use that data in a variety of lessons imbedded into their academic lessons.



Step inside Kimberlee Bassett’s 7th grade language arts class-room at Coventry Middle School in Akron and you will discover a reader’s paradise. Desks are surrounded by bookcases six shelves high that hold stacks of current young adult literature. Overhead lighting has been replaced by the softer glow of table lamps. Spa-like music faintly plays in the background. This soothing environment sets the stage for a program called “Reading is Our Thing” (RIOT), which has informed Mrs. Bassett’s teaching for the past few years. RIOT is a carefully monitored independent reading program that engages students in meaningful reading experiences and aligns classroom activi-ties to Common Core standards and achievement goals. It allows students to choose the novels they read and the projects they complete with the intention of developing lifelong readers in the process. “I began the RIOT program after witnessing my students, year after year, losing a little bit more of their enjoyment of reading,” explains Mrs. Bassett, a 25-year teaching veteran who, up until five years ago, taught language arts in a more traditional fashion. “We would read a book together and do a project together, but the students were coming to class almost apathetic; they didn’t seem to care one way or another.” Mrs. Bassett determined that the students’ attitudes result-ed from teachers selecting the books they read. “They weren’t enjoying the books they were forced to read,” she says. “They were good books, yet, they didn’t necessarily reach this generation of students. “My number one goal, now, is to have students leave my classroom saying, ‘I love to read.’” She starts early in the school year laying the groundwork to make that happen. With funding from Grants-to-Educators from the Jennings Founda-tion she has been able to invite her 80 students to a local bookstore within the first month of school where they can each select three books to add to the classroom library. The students spend up to an hour with Mrs. Bassett perusing young adult titles and then handpick those of interest to them. “They have the freedom in that hour to go in any direction they choose,” says Mrs. Bassett. “They discover new authors and books they never knew existed before.” She then supple-ments their choices with non-fiction texts to meet the shift in the Common Core standards. Back in the classroom, Mrs. Bassett requires students to select a new book to read every three weeks. She has designed a variety of authentic deep learning activities the students complete afterwards, such as video-taping book commercials, writing character diaries, and designing alternative book cov-ers. Often students write letters to the authors and many have received responses in return.

“Young adolescents need access to many books of various genres, which they can read with success,” explains Mrs. Bas-sett, who hopes to be able to add new titles to her classroom book collection every year. “I’ve learned that if you give students a choice they will read. That’s what they need. And that is the only way that I am going to reach my goal, which is to encourage avid reading.”

For more information contact:Mrs. Kimberlee Bassett, Coventry Middle [email protected]

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Reading Is Our ThingCoventry Middle School

“This is a really good environment to work in,” remarks a 7th grader who says she has been reading one book every two to three days since September 1. “The atmosphere here is amazing, just look around and see.”

“It used to be a burden to read. Teachers kind of forced you to read, and I just didn’t want to do it,” comments one of Mrs. Bassett’s former students. “Last year, however, I read 65 books. My average was a book every four days.”

“Mrs. Bassett’s class was really interesting because I was able to go into so many different genres, like fantasy and realistic fiction,” says an 8th grader. “Then we got to talk with our friends about all the different books we were reading and that was really fun.”


STEM Camp Takes Off

When Michele Evans planned a sum-mer STEM Camp for elementary and middle school students in Wadsworth, she expected 200 children would sign up. But in just 18 hours, she registered more than twice that number. Initially overwhelmed, she worked out the logis-tics, and by the date camp started, 421 K-8th graders were enrolled in the week long program. “With 400 plus kids there hasn’t been a child off task all week,” explained Dr. Evans proudly to a group of visiting educators during the fourth day of camp. “I have yet to see a child who has not been engaged. These activities are just so interesting you can’t help but want to do them!” A walk through the school’s hallways proved just that. In the cafeteria, the youngest learners were thermoforming alien heads, which they later turned into masks. In a nearby classroom, K-2nd graders were using paper cups, masking tape, pipe cleaners, and coffee filters to construct protection devices for “astro-nauts” (packing peanuts) that would

allow them to survive a six foot drop. Outside, middle schoolers were dropping parachutes from the top of the bleachers and watching to see if their Mars Rovers survived impact. “We designed work that is engaging that makes kids think,” said Dr. Evans, “and that’s what you see going on here. “It’s been so much fun,” she contin-ues. “When the students leave the class-rooms they talk about what they are doing with friends in the hallway. They

sing; they dance. Every kid here is designing and is involved in the en-gineering process. It’s a camp environ-ment, but I have a lot of hope that we are going to see a lot of these activities going on in our buildings in the fall.”

Creating A Pathway The Director of Instruction and Professional Development, Dr. Evans developed the summer camp to begin to fulfill the district’s commitment to expand STEM curriculum into the elementary schools. “This is part of the district’s push to create a K-12 STEM pathway,” she remarks, adding that up to that point, the district had focused on creating engineer-ing and STEM-related courses for grades 7-12. With those classes in place, it was time to reach into the elementary grades. Research shows; however, that el-ementary teachers are typically hesitant and unsure about teaching engineering related topics. A recent survey of Wadsworth teachers indicated that up to 33 percent of 5-8 teachers never used problem-based learning (PBL) activities in their classrooms. That percentage jumped to 45 percent for grades K-4. continued on p. 12

Wadsworth City Schools

Campers take a giant leap and

then with some quick measure-

ments deter-mine how far

they would have jumped had they

done the same thing on the

moon.

The youngest campers observe the 3D printer in action.


STEM Camp continued from p. 12

“We are really committed to develop-ing STEM literacy for our kids, and the teachers are key to that,” explains Dr. Evans. “So we wanted to set the teachers up to be successful, and we took an unconventional route to get there.” With input from a newly-formed STEM leadership team, the district applied for and received a grant from the Jennings Foundation to train K-8 teachers in inquiry-based instruction and problem-based learning early last sum-mer. Those teachers would then apply what they learned a few weeks later at the STEM camp before taking the les-sons into their classrooms in the fall. “There is so much pressure in educa-tion today that it’s important to cre-ate environments and situations where teachers can take risks and feel comfort-able doing so,” says Dr. Evans.

“Our theory was that if the [educators’] first teaching experi-ence with engineering design was positive and fun, then they would be more likely to use STEM concepts and the engineering design cycle in their classroom teaching.” Dr. Evans enlisted the expertise of Susan Kohler, Aerospace Education Specialist with NASA Glenn Research Center, to lead the summer training. Ms. Kohler spent a week in June in-structing 39 of the district’s K-8 sci-ence teachers in PBL. Teachers worked in teams to solve problems requiring STEM skills and thought processes. They learned the importance of taking on the role of classroom facilitators who pro-mote deep learning by asking students thought provoking questions and struc-turing opportunities for critical thinking.

Between the training week in June and the first week in August, the teach-ers created PBL activities that align with the Ohio Science Content Standards for each grade in preparation for the STEM camp. Kip Shipley, Wadsworth High School’s Engineering, Design, and Technology teacher and the STEM Camp coordinator, served as their mentor in this process. The teachers developed challenges that would encourage camp-ers to work in groups, collaborate, design solutions, and test and refine their solutions. “We wanted to spark the children’s interest; we wanted students to design and learn to work with others. We want-ed them to understand that you could do this every day on your job if you decide to be an engineer,” says Dr. Evans, de-scribing what she hoped students would take away from the camp experience.

Engaging Students and Teachers The Stem camp was a fun and unify-ing experience for the teaching staff, too. Twenty-six of the teachers trained in June returned to be camp instructors. “The teachers were so excited at the camp—they had great fun, worked in teams, collaborated, and felt free to take risks. They saw the kids’ reaction to this kind of teaching and how engaged and

enthused they were. It helped teachers see that this kind of change was needed and is really worth it.” This fall, Dr. Evans has observed STEM activities taking place in all age classrooms. Children have designed catapults, Mars rovers, foam rockets, and water propelled rockets. Two months into the school year, a survey of teachers trained last summer revealed that those who taught at the STEM camp were using both PBL and engineering design cycle experiences more frequently in their teaching.

“This grant really provided a springboard for STEM in our dis-trict,” says Dr. Evans. “To see teach-ers and kids having a great time learning together was really re-warding. And the enthusiasm built from camp has intensified interest with our teachers and community in our STEM initiative.”

For more information contact:Dr. Michele Evans, Wadsworth City [email protected]

STEM Camp engineering

activities chal-lenge students to design, test,

and then redesign their

models to improve

performance.


Aquatic EcologyFairport Harbor Exempted Village Schools

Students collect a variety of water animals, such as mole salamanders, back swimmers, ramshorn snails, dragonfly larvae, and aquatic worms, in D-nets at the Mentor Marsh.

On a cloudless July afternoon with temperatures reaching into the 90s, 16 inquisitive high school students board-ed a bus in Fairport Harbor and headed west to conduct field experiments at the Mentor Marsh. One of the first nature preserves in Ohio, the marsh occupies the ancient riverbed of the Grand River and is home to a large variety of habitats. Equipped with water bottles, sunscreen, bug repellent, and waterproof journals, the teens hiked along a boardwalk that traverses the marsh taking note of the plant and wildlife they observed alongthe way. Before returning home, they collected specimens of animal life in the water to determine the health of the wetland. The day’s activities were part of a five-week aquatic ecology summer course designed by Nathan Yaussy, who teaches physical science and biology at Fairport Harding High School. The course focused on the interactions between aquatic or-ganisms and their environments. “I wanted to give students an op-portunity to conduct scientific research from start to finish, using professional methods,” says Mr. Yaussy, who received

a grant from the Jennings Foundation to purchase equipment used in the class. Mr. Yaussy ran the summer experi-ence like a typical high school class. The students met in his classroom four days a week and were required to read research papers, plan sampling points, collect and analyze data, and synthesize their findings into a final research paper. The small, dedicated group of students allowed him to incorporate more hands-on activities into the lessons, such as working with a stream erosion simulator he borrowed from the Lake County Soil and Water Conservation District.

“What is great about a summer experience is that you can create your own curriculum, you are not boxed in by state standards,” he explains. “You can utilize the stan-dards and make them part of the program, but you can decide what you think is important. You can also be more flexible, and as things change, you can go with the flow. So if questions lead in a certain direction you can go in that direction.”

Mr. Yaussy planned weekly field trips to give students a chance to investigate nearby ecosystems as a scientist would. In addition to the Mentor Marsh, the students visited the Hiram College Field Station, Kent Bog, Lake Erie, and the Grand River. In the streams, they sam-pled and identified invertebrates to check stream quality; in the wetlands, they took soil samples and identified native and non-native plants; and at Lake Erie, they collected fish and plankton samples. The students analyzed the data they gathered back in the classroom and drew conclusions concerning the health of each ecosystem. “The students liked the ability to go out and look at cool things,” says Mr. Yaussy, adding that most of the teens who took the summer class also partici-pate in his science club during the school year. “These kids are extremely full of questions,” he remarks. “Giving them a chance to ask those questions and to explore what is going on around them is something they really enjoy. “I learned that there’s nothing quite so rewarding as teaching a small groupof intensely curious students.”

For more information contact:Mr. Nathan YaussyFairport Harding High SchoolFairport Harbor Exempted Village [email protected]


Non-Cognitive Skills and Academic Success Springfield City Schools

Middle School teachers in

Springfield meet to plan how and

when they will administer the BEL survey to

their students.

Several years ago educators with the Springfield City Schools recognized that their urban graduates were not as success-ful in college or work as they would like. “Certainly they had graduated from high school so they had achieved those expectations,” explains Kim Fish, Direc-tor of Communications and Collective Impact for the district. “But why did some drop out after one semester in college? Why couldn’t others hold onto a job?” In conversations with local universities and business, they discovered these students were ill prepared in the area of “non-cognitive skills” or skills that are not measured by a typical test. “They don’t manage their time well; they don’t ask for help when they need it; they don’t understand what they are suppose to do,” Ms. Fish explains, de-scribing some of the graduates’ short-comings. “We can measure their math, their reading, their writing, and their problem solving ability; but there isn’t a cognitive test for these other skills. We needed to do something about that.” Five years ago the district began a deliberate, proactive approach to mea-sure these non-cognitive factors and the impact they had on student engagement and learning. The Jennings Foundation funded their initial effort to develop a student-specific assessment, which was

done under the direction of Dr. David Conley’s Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC). That effort led to fur-ther collaboration with the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute (UEI), which investigates practices that work in urban education and creates toolkits that utilize those practices. In 2015, Springfield was selected to participate in a pilot study being conduct-ed by researchers at UEI titled Becoming Effective Learners (BEL). The research-ers developed an instrument to survey teachers and students to see if there is a correlation between grades and how classrooms are organized to support the students’ academic mind sets, behaviors, and learning strategies. They want to know if students feel supported in their academic work. They are questioning the students’ attitudes about self efficacy: do they believe they can achieve if they work hard and are they able to persevere despite obstacles? The goal of the BEL study is to help the research team understand how survey data can assist schools in shaping programs, as well as to give the partici-pating schools deeper insights into how to improve practices while contributing to a larger conversation among educators, policy makers, and researchers about the role of non-cognitive factors in academ-ics. [TheUnion.com October 14, 2015]

“This project will allow our teachers to build their understanding of how non cognitive factors influence how students engage and perform in school,” explains Ms. Fish, who received another grant from the Jennings Foundation to par-ticipate in this work. “Then, working with this better understanding, they will develop ways to purposefully support increasing student achievement.” This fall, Ms. Fish invited teams of teachers from the district’s three middle schools and its high school to lead this project in their respective schools. They administered the first BEL survey in November and are waiting for the results to be compiled by the research team in Chicago. Once the district is given the base line data, the educators will determine how it will be used to impact student achievement.

“We are trying to engage as many teachers as we can in the ongoing and expanding research about how both academic per-formance and non-cognitive per-formance and teacher behaviors directly influence student achieve-ment,” remarks Rick Butler, a Data Analysis and Strategic Planning consultant, who partners with Ms. Fish on the project.

While they are still in the early phases of their work, Ms. Fish believes other educators can begin to learn from their experience. “Giving thoughtful consider-ation as to how the school and classroom environments impact student mind sets and academic behaviors is important and well worth the effort,” she remarks. By better understanding these non-cognitive factors, “educators can create environ-ments where students see more value in school and learning and will act in ways that lead them to learn more.” For more information contact:Ms. Kim Fish, Springfield City [email protected]


news & notesOutstanding Educators

Each year, the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation recog-nizes and rewards a group of Ohio’s most effective educators by presenting four individuals with top educator awards. The honors are bestowed at the Foundation’s annual Educators Retreat. These professionals are admired by their colleagues, active in their communities, and have made long-standing achievements in their field. Candidates are nominated by their school administrators, or in the case of the outstanding super-intendents, by their school boards, and submit an extensive application. They are selected by a panel of leading educators. The honorees receive cash awards to be used for educational projects of their choice.

The 2015 awardees are (l. to r.): Rebecca Rice, Mas-ter Teacher Award, Evamere Elementary School, Hudson City Schools; Ann Rougier, Arthur S. Holden Teacher Award for Excel-lence in Science Education, Stivers School for the Arts, Dayton Public Schools; Beth Holland, George B. Chapman, Jr. Teacher Award for Excellence in Mathematics Education, North Olmsted High School, North Olmsted City Schools; and Mary Ronan, Ohio Superintendent Outstanding Performance Award, Cincinnati Public Schools. The Foundation sponsors the Educators Retreat each summer to give educational leaders throughout the state an opportunity to discuss critical issues in education today.

The Foundation Welcomes Consultants

This fall the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation welcomed two new educational consultants to the Jennings Family: Dr. Adrienne Conliffe James and Dr. Alicia Lopez. Dr. James served as Superintendent of the Sycamore Community School District in Cincinnati from 2006-2015. The suburban district is comprised of 5,300 students and 800 staff members. Prior to her appointment as superintendent she served the same district as assistant superintendent, principal, assistant principal, and teacher. Her responsibilities varied with each position giving her a wide-range of experience to draw upon when evaluating grant programs for the Foundation. Dr. James holds a Doctor of Education in Curriculum and Instruc-tion from University of Cincinnati; a Master’s of Education from Xavier University; and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and Sec-ondary Education from Wittenberg University. She serves on the Children’s Home of Cincinnati Board of Trustees and the Executive Committee for the Alliance for High Quality Educa-tion. She holds the Distinguished Alumni Award from University of Cincinnati and Citation Award from Wittenberg University. Dr. Lopez spearheads Lopez Consulting, which specializes in 21st century curriculum development and instruction; align-ing instructional practices to the new state academic, college and career standards; and inquiry-based learning that supports 21st century skills. She is also an educational consultant for Esperenza, Inc., a non-profit educational organization with a mission to enhance educational and economic opportunities for Hispanic Americans. Dr. Lopez was academic director at Aurora City Schools for a dozen years and an educator with Cleveland Municipal School district, Beachwood Middle School and Berea High School earlier in her career. She is a member of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development; International Reading Association, and National Staff Develop-ment Council.

New to the Distribution Committee

The Foundation will welcome Jack Thompson to the Distribution Committee in January, 2016. Dr. Thompson is Superintendent, Perry Local Schools in Lake County. He began his career as a teacher of computer and business courses in Jefferson, Ohio. Since then he has served as assistant principal in Painesville and Madison and principal and assistant superin-tendent in Kirtland. Dr. Thompson holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis on professional development from Kent State University; a Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Cleveland State University; and a Bachelor of Science Degree from Akron University in Special Education.

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Pro Excellentia – Fall 2015

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