Engaging K-12 Communities

ENGAGING Disaster Response & Recovery

Delta Express

Delta Express addresses the educational, psycho-social, and health needs of the children in the Renaissance Village FEMA trailer park in Baker, Louisiana. LSU faculty have used these experiences to develop materials and models for future responses to natural disasters when large populations are relocated to temporary villages. By leveraging university resources and established partnerships, this project deepens and strengthens the service-learning infrastructure, promotes opportunities for university students to engage in their communities, provides academic and civic engagement through disaster relief, and helps individuals within the Renaissance community and beyond.

Early Childhood Educators’ Responses to Disasters

Funded by the National Science Foundation and the Board of Regents, the College of Education grant entitled “Early Childhood Educators’ Responses to Katrina and Child Outcomes” develops an understanding of educational responses to natural disasters by collecting and analyzing survey data about teachers’ classroom responses to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The project also conducts an assessment of children’s knowledge about hurricanes in general and Katrina and Rita in particular.

ENGAGING the Environment

Coastal Roots Program

The Coastal Roots Program provides an active learning situation in which students can explore strategies for sustaining coastal ecosystems and develop an attitude of stewardship toward natural resources. The Coastal Roots Program began in 2001 with six schools. Today it is active in 18 schools in ten parishes and every year impacts 750 students in grades four through 12.  The program integrates into elementary science, middle school life and earth sciences, and high school biology and environmental science. Other school groups such as environmental clubs and 4-H clubs also participate. Between 2001 and 2007, nearly 2,000 students planted 18,000 plants on 57 restoration planting trips.

ENGAGING Individuals with Disabilities

Louisiana School-Wide Positive Behavior Support

School-Wide Positive Behavior Support (PBS) is a successful approach to improving student behavior and academic performance by building communities of cooperative, collaborative learners. By focusing on adult behaviors and using data to act proactively, schools assess their values, goals, and procedures to create a climate that meets their desired outcomes. The goal of PBS is to define, teach, and support appropriate behaviors in a way that establishes a culture of competence within schools.  In this environment students are more likely to support appropriate behavior and discourage inappropriate behavior by their peers. The teachers find themselves working with the majority of students, rather than continually trying to control the entire student body.

Louisiana State Improvement Grant2 (LaSIG2)

LaSIG2 supports efforts that lead to improved student outcomes for individuals with disabilities at the district level, expanding from 11 to 14 parishes within five years. LaSIG 2 expanded its family engagement objectives to include new partnerships, improves access to professional development for stakeholders such as educators, students, families, and community members. Among its many state department of Education, family, and school-wide partners, the project also collaborates with Families Helping Families regional resource centers, Pyramid Parent Training Project located in New Orleans, and People First of Louisiana.

ENGAGING Internationalism

French Education Project

The French Education Project supports, enhances, and improves the teaching of French and Francophone cultures with special emphasis on Louisiana’s Francophone heritage. The French Education Project focuses on teacher education, material development, and research. Louisiana schools are leading the United States in foreign language immersion programs. Among the 91 schools nation-wide with French immersion programs, almost 30 are in Louisiana according to the Center for Applied Linguistics. Louisiana hosts one-fourth of the nation’s 12,000 students enrolled in this rigorous curriculum. The rich, cultural heritage of the state and its people provide an excellent atmosphere for research and development that could be applied to all foreign language immersion programs.

National Online French Immersion Resource Center

Established in May 2005, the LSU National Online French Immersion Resource Center shares lessons, activities, and documents for educators teaching language arts, mathematics, science, history, geography, and the French language. The online resource center provides unique access to educators’ resources and recommendations that may be otherwise unavailable in parishes with limited budgets for immersion programs. The Embassy of France in the United States has recognized LSU as one of five National Resource Centers, along with Rutgers University, the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, and Yale University.

ENGAGING Literacy

The LSU Writing Project

Established in 1985, The LSU Writing Project is a professional development program designed to help teachers in all subject areas and at all grade levels learn new strategies for helping their students become accomplished writers and learners. This collaborative university-school partnership is dedicated to improving the quality of student writing in the schools through its approach of “teachers teaching teachers.” This means identifying successful teachers of writing, bringing these teachers together in invitational Summer Writing Institutes, and preparing them to lead workshops for other teachers. Participants join a network of teacher consultants who actively provide ongoing professional development for schools and districts.

ENGAGING Technology

Pathways to Inquiry

Funded by a grant through the Teacher Professional Continuum Division of the National Science Foundation, Analyzing and Building Science Inquiry Skills through Evidence-Based Technology Integration develops a link between teachers’ access to science inquiry skills and earth science activities for their students. Through collaboration with teachers throughout Louisiana as well as LSU Information Technology Services this project offers two integrated science inquiry resource tools: an Inquiry Skill Analyzer and an Inquiry Activity Portal.

Virtual Museum

Through a collaborative effort between the College of Education French Education Project and the LSU Museum on Natural Science, and a grant through the Louisiana Board of Regents, teachers across the state will have access to a virtual museum through compressed video distance learning at seven sites stretching from New Orleans to Shreveport. In addition to expanding the professional networking capabilities of science and French immersion teachers the virtual museum will also provide training in the use of online materials and technology to underserved, rural areas of the state.

ENGAGING Urban Education

GEAR UP

GEAR UP is a $5.4 million federally funded program of the U.S. Department of Education designed to reverse the dropout rates of middle and high school students and encourage success in post-secondary education and careers. GEAR UP accelerates the academic achievement of urban middle and secondary school students so that more of these young people will graduate and succeed in postsecondary education and careers. The program is also geared towards lessening the need for remediation.

LSYOU

LSYOU provides high school students with the skills and knowledge they will need to be successful in high school and beyond. LSYOU is also a community outreach program, used as a service-learning site where LSU faculty, staff, and students can learn effective teaching techniques while making an impact on the lives of urban youth.

 

SUMMARIES OF DEPARTMENTS & SCHOOL

Teacher Education Program

LSU’s teacher education programs ensure that new teachers are highly qualified and competent. Candidates graduating from these undergraduate curricula, as well as from the master’s level Holmes curricula, enter P-12 classrooms as confident professionals ready to meet the demands of teaching in today’s schools. The programs reflect content-rich diverse experiences integrally connected with coursework. Candidates benefit from ongoing feedback from university faculty, public school teachers, and peers. Preparation programs incorporate the performance assessment, which supports candidates in assessing their own development and effectiveness.

University Laboratory School

Founded in 1915 as a division of the Louisiana State University College of Education, the LSU Laboratory School intellectually and socially develops both students and pre-service teachers by implementation, demonstration, and continuous evaluation of exemplary programs and instructional practices across the K-12 spectrum. The University Laboratory School serves as a center for educational innovation and research that provides professional development opportunities for the state’s educators.  It is ranked among the nation’s top five percent of public high schools.

Kinesiology Programs

The Department of Kinesiology provides graduate and undergraduate concentrations for students interested in the art and science of human movement. An undergraduate degree in this department provides a broad, general education with necessary supporting courses in basic sciences, core courses in the kinesiology body of knowledge, and a sequence of courses in an area of concentration.  Kinesiology focuses on many different aspects of human movement and its application to physical activity and the quality of life. Department programs explore a full continuum of processes and outcomes, and address the needs of individuals ranging from young to old, healthy to diseased, and skilled to unskilled.

M. Jayne Fleener, Ph.D.
E.B. “Ted” Robert Professor and Dean
The Peabody Bulleti, The Dean’s Communique | College of Education Administration