The field experience for the Masters in Middle Level is detailed in the course and content outlines for CURR 687 Internship in Teacher Education: Middle Level. This is a required semester-long guided practice, supervised by a middle level educator or administrator, which is taken concurrently with CURR 622 Effective Teaching in Middle Level Education.
The Middle Level area in curriculum and instruction has designed professional development and collaborative partnerships and experiences with middle schools throughout the states of Michigan and Ohio. In addition to the fifty plus middle grades professional development workshops given during the past three years, Middle Vision: Dynamic Middle Level Education at Eastern Michigan University, co-directors Dr. Pat Williams-Boyd of Curriculum and Instruction and Professor Kaia Skaggs of Educational Psychology, has worked closely with both the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the development of the Middle Start Initiative and with three local middle schools. The initial Kellogg funding allowed EMU to work closely with East and West Middle Schools in Ypsilanti in helping them move from junior high schools to middle schools in theory as well as in practice and philosophy.
The collaboration with East Middle School has continued for the last the five years. This Title I school, with previously very low state scores, attendance, student achievement as witnessed in several areas, has recently received a national award from the United States Department of Education as a Promising Site. This work along with Edmonson Middle School, Willow Run, and Inkster Middle School, Inkster were funded for the past three years with Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration grants, written collaboratively with the schools and Middle Vision.
In September, 2002 Eastern Michigan University announced East Middle School, cited above, as its first
Consociate Middle School. Much like a professional development school, this recognition formally allows a continued reciprocal relationship between the school and the University and strengthens the ties already formed. Undergraduate and graduate students from across departments (Teacher Education, Educational Leadership, Guidance and Counseling, Social Work, Nursing, Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance) are now engaged in providing counseling groups, tutoring, the establishment of collaborative programs which benefit the university students through field experiences and the public school community with continued resources, the expansion of the school district’s first Wellness Center, initiated in company with the Ypsilanti medical, health, and human services agencies.
In the past EMU has worked closely with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, both on the State Advisory Board and as a member of the Steering Committee for the development of the Middle Start Model. This collaboration has afforded us further partnership work with Central Michigan University, Northern Michigan University, The Detroit Public Schools, the Kalamazoo Public Schools, the Coalition of Essential Schools, the University of Michigan, and the Mid-South Middle Start Network. Meeting at least once a month throughout the school year, the collaboration has allowed us to affect middle grades education not only with our own CSRD schools, but with our Middle Start partnership schools as Focused Professional Developers and as Technical Assistant Partners.
The response above which speaks to work with the Kellogg Foundation has brought us in close community with our sister institutions throughout the state as well as with major school districts, the Coalition of Essential Schools, and with other university Focused Professional Developers/Providers.
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