Community Engagement
As you read the pages ahead you will learn of our great community outreach work. This work has been accomplished through partnerships, grants, coursework, action research and, most importantly, the commitment and passion with which our faculty, staff, and students dedicate themselves to our social justice mission.
The community work of the College of Education is spearheaded by THE OFFICE OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT (OCE). This office consolidates the community outreach activities of the college by targeting specific communities for our work and promoting the existing themes of our outreach, i.e., promoting child literary and college readiness. The great successes of the OCE, both in acquiring funding, engaging in productive partnering, supporting faculty, and impacting the community are ever expanding. The OCE houses the federally sponsored GEAR UP and TRIO programs which include Veterans Upward Bound, and school-based Upward Bound, and Talent Search. The early childhood literacy program, Jumpstart, is another aspect of the OCE as are grant and contract programs described in the links below.
The CENTERS FOR CONTINUING EDUCATION enhance our exceptional learning experiences at the Schaumburg and Chicago facilities and feature courses, workshops, and programs in professional and personal development, and community-based services that directly affect the educational needs of individuals of all ages. Courses and programs address interesting topics such as child literacy, career exploration, K-12 remediation, K-12 enrichment, bilingual/ESl instruction, and an educational leadership academy.
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Jumpstart
Funded by Americorps, the Jumpstart program recruits, trains and funds Roosevelt University students to serve as mentors for low-income, 3 to 5-year-old children in three partner preschools. The goal of the program is to develop literacy and social skills of preschool students and to provide classroom support to teachers. Early intervention techniques help to eliminate negative behaviors or habits at early ages before they become deep rooted by high school age.
Two highlights of this year included a November 2009 event called Bookamania, in which Jumpstart partnered with the Chicago Public Library to offer a celebration of books for children ages 3 – 10, and featured guest authors and storytellers, storybook readings, musical entertainment, crafts and costumed characters. In March 2010, Roosevelt University hosted a regional Jumpstart for a Day (JFAD) event where more than 300 preschool children and their families participated in various activity stations to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday.
GEAR UP(Gaining Early Awareness & Readiness for Undergraduate Programs)
This program is funded through two U.S. Department of Education grant contracts to Roosevelt University’s College of Education and the Chicago Education Alliance, respectively. Staff from the GEAR UP grant program engage students, teachers and parents in a coordinated system of activities to help keep 15 students on track for high school graduation, and ultimately, for enrollment in postsecondary education. As the program nears the completion of the fifth year of services to more than 15,975 students and their families, staff members have increased the focus on high school retention and college preparation activities to meet the needs of the student cohort, who have moved into the 10th and 11th grades in 21 Chicago high schools.
Building strong relationships with students via daily contact through Student Advocates and Tutors has been a foundation of GEAR UP’s services. These personal connections help to foster higher numbers of students participating in multiple college visits, writing personal statements, attending tutoring sessions, attending student leadership events and enrolling in credit recovery courses.
Social Justice High School Partnership
With funding from the Polk Bros. Foundation, the Social Justice in Action program continues to evolve as the 3-year-old partnership between Roosevelt University and Social Justice High School (SJHS) matures. Through this program, Roosevelt faculty partner with teachers at SJHS to create and facilitate cultural capacity building sessions during the year at SJHS, co-design curriculum for critical thinking and writing classes at the University during the summer and lead a summer college immersion program for rising seniors.
CLIP (Chicago Literacy Initiative Partnership)
The Chicago Literacy Project over the last 7 years has supported teachers who desire to become reading specialists through the Roosevelt University Master of Arts in Reading program. CLIP has allowed placement of undergraduate and graduate students in partner schools for observation hours and student teaching. This project is in its final evaluation year, and the lessons learned will be disseminated at the World Congress of Reading in New Zealand.
Credit Recovery Initiative
This grant was awarded by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation to develop an alternative way of teaching algebra and geometry through a partnership among Roosevelt and Loyola Universities and the Chicago Public Schools. The project compared teaching techniques in algebra and geometry in the CPS summer recovery program. In addition, the initiative provided a successful professional development delivery model that will ultimately impact how credit-recovery programs are designed so that fewer students will fail and need remedial work. By providing professional development, coaching and classroom supports to math instructors teaching current high school recovery classes, the overall goal of this grant project is to realize improved performance of students in subsequent courses.
Teacher professional development was provided by Roosevelt faculty to help them deliver more effective instruction in both Dunbar and Hyde Park High Schools in Chicago. Project faculty modeled classroom techniques and provided coaching support for credit recovery teachers and students during sessions held from mid-June through July 2010. Approximately 80 underserved CPS students were taught in the program and their success will be compared to students taking general summer recovery classes at a control school. Pre- and post-tests during the summer 2010 were administered for short-term data gathering and long-range analysis. The analysis will be conducted by looking at the following year’s student achievement data for both the control and experimental groups.
CRETE (Conflict Resolution Education in Teacher Education)
In-kind contribution provided by Temple University’s College of Education
CRETE trains pre-service and in-service teachers and helps teacher education programs infuse conflict resolution education within the pre-service curriculum to enhance new teachers’ classroom management skills. CRETE is funded by the United States Department of Education (FIPSE Project P116B040920), JAMS Foundation, George Gund Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.17
Through a partnership formed in fall 2008, with Temple University in Philadelphia, Pa., several full-day workshops known as CRETE (Conflict Resolution Education in Teacher Education) were hosted for Roosevelt’s College of Education faculty and administrative personnel by the Office of Community Engagement (OCE). These workshops help participants understand conflict resolution education and provide an opportunity to learn and reinforce conflict and classroom management skills in College of Education required courses. An additional four-day CRETE training workshop for Roosevelt’s pre-service teachers was held in August 2010.
Texas Instruments
In-kind contributions of equipment and professional development supported by T3 – Teachers Teaching with Technology funds.
In January 2010, the OCE entered into a professional development collaboration with Texas Instruments. Through this partnership, TI generously provided handheld calculator laboratories for the College of Education’s model methods classrooms at the Chicago and Schaumburg campuses, along with class sets of handheld calculators for each of four classrooms at two partner high schools. This technology is to be used in credit recovery classes in algebra and geometry.
Along with the equipment and accompanying software, TI also provided four days of professional development training for teachers and staff in a “train the trainer” model. Participants gained familiarity with the TI-Nspire™ and TI-Nspire Navigator™ software systems through hands-on activities and discussed the pedagogical implications for the classroom.
