April 08, 2014

Graduate school receives $360,000 from Oregon Department of Education

The graduate school has received $360,000 from the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) for two projects that support teachers in becoming more culturally competent.

The graduate school has received $360,000 from the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to work on two projects to address the longstanding concern that aspiring teachers and leaders enter the field without adequate cultural competence or support for practicing culturally responsive teaching strategies.

The graduate school will partner with three Portland high schools (Grant, Madison, and Roosevelt) to create “inquiry teams” consisting of a Lewis & Clark teacher education student and their teacher-mentor, an early career teacher, a school leader, and Lewis & Clark professors.  Teams will collaborate to identify, develop, and enact culturally responsive pedagogy and practice at their sites. In addition they will explore and work to eliminate the systems, structures, policies, and practices that have perpetuated gaps in resources, opportunities, access, and outcomes for historically marginalized students and families. Mollie Galloway (Educational Leadership) and Janet Bixby (Associate Dean and Teacher Education) are the project’s principal investigators.

The second project, led by Sue Feldman and Sherri Carreker, expands a successful conference for educators across the state, Teaching With Purpose, to include a new Leadership Institute that will train and support more than 100 school leaders in coaching culturally responsive teaching strategies and institutional practices in schools and districts over five years. The grant also allows Lewis & Clark faculty and graduate assistants to develop and test a research tool for evaluating the capacity of a school and or school district to implement equitable practices.