Seeds University Elementary School (UES) helps bridge this gap by offering GSE&IS graduate students an elementary school setting where they can observe, ask questions, and gain information about teachersŐ concerns and childrenŐs needs while they learn to conduct research.
"To design research and communicate findings that will improve the quality of childrenŐs education a researcher must know the real challenges teachers face," says UES Director and Education Professor Deborah Stipek. "UES offers graduate students the opportunity to learn what real teachers with real students care about. As a result they learn to develop their research not out of textbooks, but out of classroom concerns."
Graduate students training at UES are involved in research on varying levels, Stipek says, from "simply observing in the back of the room" to playing a lead role in designing new curriculum.
Education student Elham Kazemi, for example, has spent time at UES observing how different instructional strategies engage children who have difficulty keeping up with the curriculum. Several other doctoral students have been working closely with teachers to design instruction informed by their research. Laurette Cano works with teachers to develop new strategies for teaching reading and literacy. Rachelle Feiler is helping develop strategies for teaching mathematics in the early childhood program. And Sue Marshall is helping to integrate technology into the upper elementary science curriculum.
The arrangement, says Stipek, benefits both researchers and the school. "The integration of these new researchers into the school environment means that they will be able to address potentially relevant questions in their research, which will help in efforts to improve education for children. And teachers working with graduate students get the benefit of having a resident expert on a particular subject. The instructional program is improved by the collaboration. It's a win-win situation."
Rosaleen Ryan and Patty Byler, doctoral students who are working on an assessment of the UES Learning-in-Two-Languages (LITL) program, say that working at UES has given them a chance to work more closely with teachers than they would in other schools.
"At other research sites I moved in two different worlds--research and classrooms," says Ryan. "Because the LITL assessment is created in collaboration with classroom teachers, the questions we ask are informed by teachers' concerns. Instead of reading the literature to figure out what questions to ask, we go directly to teachers and ask them what they need to know."
As a result, says Stipek, the LITL assessment will help UES teachers fine-tune their program and serve as a guide to outside educators who are trying to implement a similar program.
Melissa Gross, a doctoral student in Information Studies, is working at UES to help her identify important research questions related to how children generate questions and use library resources. Ultimately her research will help make libraries more useful and productive for children.
"Indeed," says Stipek, "benefiting children, through improved educational practices and a closer link between researchers and practitioners, is the ultimate aim of all these researchers and of UES."
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