Dr. Fedelis Ikem, dean of the WSSU School of Graduate Studies and Research makes remarks after teacher presentations.
Teachers from Mount Airy City Schools and Carter G. Woodson School of Challenge presented products and results of their yearlong training with Winston-Salem State University education faculty on improving their teaching of literacy on June 26.
The event marked the conclusion of the sixth cycle of the University’s NC QUEST (Quality Educators through Staff Development and Training across North Carolina) grant, “Improving the Performance of Elementary Teachers in Facilitating the Literacy Development of Low-Performing Students in High-Need Schools.”
“We used a product-based approach to plan and implement this field-based professional development,” says Dr. Madu Ireh, director of technology and associate professor in the School of Education and Human Performance and the grant’s principal investigator. The model, also known as job-embedded learning, focuses on training teachers in authentic teaching situations. For example, instead of demonstrating how to use Microsoft Office to help at-risk students through hypothetical lessons, the WSSU faculty taught the participants to develop, implement, and evaluate developmentally appropriate lessons and resources, which the teachers could turn around and use in their own classrooms the next day or week.
The state has granted WSSU and the teachers a year’s extension of the NC QUEST program through July 2010, according to Dr. Ireh.
Speaking at the June 26 event in addition to Dr. Ireh were Vicky Cameron, assistant superintendent of Mount Airy City Schools; Ruth Hopkins, director of Carter G. Woodson School of Challenge; Valerie Howard, director of WSSU’s Office of Sponsored Programs; Dr. Cynthia Jackson-Hammond, dean of the School of Education and Human Performance; and Dr. Jessica Bailey, WSSU provost.
