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Faculty from BW's education department revise coursework at BW and continue to collaborate with Fairview Park schools thanks to the Improving Literacy Partnership Incentive Grant.
Future teachers at Baldwin Wallace University are learning the very latest standards for teaching students to read.
BW was one of eight recipients in Ohio of the Improving Literacy Partnership Incentive Grant awarded by the Ohio Deans Compact this past fall. The $25,000 grant has allowed BW education professors and faculty to rework the syllabi and coursework in the undergraduate and graduate programs.
Dr. Rochelle Berndt and Dr. Cynthia Dietrich, the co-principal investigators for the grant, have worked alongside other education faculty to align the program with Ohio's Science of Reading mandates, which focus on the latest research into how students learn to read.
Reviewing and adopting new textbooks and creating curricular crosswalks that align with the standards are just a few of the ways the education department has worked to ground itself within the Science of Reading.
Alongside reworking the BW curriculum, Berndt and Dietrich have continued their partnership with Fairview Park City Schools thanks to the new grant. Having previously received nearly $250,000 in grants in 2022 from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, the two BW professors started a collaborative partnership with the school district to provide tutoring support to K-12 students.
The new partnership is focused on working with elementary teachers at Gilles-Sweet Elementary School in the Fairview Park City School District in order to gain insight into their approach to teaching literacy based on the Science of Reading. Each month, the teachers come to BW's campus to share their insights on specific aspects of teaching reading.
Berndt states, "The current partnership centers on collaborative discussions between BW faculty and Fairview Park literacy teachers on the Science of Reading and how it is being implemented in their classrooms."
This collaboration includes guest lectures from Fairview teachers in BW literacy courses and inviting Fairview elementary students to attend BW's Language, Literacy, and Learning Summer Camp, allowing both schools to benefit.
The long-term benefits will pay off as BW education students graduate and enter the classroom with mastery of the new standards, based on the Science of Reading.
"Realigning our courses will enable our undergraduate and graduate students to be the best prepared in current literacy research, which will then positively impact the students they will teach in PreK-12," Berndt explains.
In April, an audit team from the Department of Education will visit to observe the changes to the literacy courses and to interview the faculty. In the meantime, the faculty will continue to work to achieve the goals they have laid out to elevate the program.
They also hope to continue to expand their partnerships with local school districts as they look for more collaboration and experiential learning opportunities down the line.
