For Students, Faculty, and Staff: MyU One Stop

PsTL’s commitment to College in the Schools: Putting pedagogy into practice

Eagan High School CIS students
Eagan High School CIS students

Using research-based, innovative teaching practices, CIS faculty coordinators from PsTL are making a positive and powerful impact in the lives of high school students and their teachers.

Structured for student and community success
Margaret Kelly, senior teaching specialist in PsTL and CIS faculty coordinator for Sociological Perspectives: A Multicultural America (PSTL 1211), sees the benefits of the Entry Point Project (EPP) from collective viewpoint. “The more people who have a positive postsecondary experience early on, the better off we are as a state. This is a no-lose effort.” Kelly explains. Her challenging course encourages high-level thinking and uses scaffolding to help students build on knowledge. The framework is designed to alert teachers to any gaps in comprehension so they can intervene early, if required. The universality of the subject matter also reinforces learning and development for the students. “This course works especially well for EPP as it integrates the students’ assets of lived experiences with race and class in the assignments and discussions,” says Kelly.

A key aspect of Kelly’s faculty coordinator role is supporting the course’s high school teachers with professional development throughout the year and during summer workshops. She also visits each classroom. Although it adds to her regular teaching responsibilities, she highly values both. “Seeing these high school students is an important reminder of where my students were just a year before,” says Kelly. “It’s incredibly rewarding to work with an amazing group of teachers. Learning from one another and problem solving together enhances the course’s impact in ways I couldn’t do alone.”

Modeling to support engagement and equity
Since 2009, Sue Staats, associate professor in PsTL and faculty coordinator for College Algebra through Modeling (PSTL 1006), watched her math course grow from serving 30 high school students in two inner city schools to reaching 600 high school students in 29 schools across the state. This growth reinforces her academic passion. “The desire to support equity in education brought me to Minnesota,” Staats says. “College in the Schools offers the widest expression of my equity work possible. It’s a joy seeing creative, dedicated high school teachers put an accessible structure around solid mathematics education to help students in the academic middle re-envision themselves as college students.”

Staats developed the course to prompt mathematical competency that’s conceptual and creative, as well as procedural. Through the use of modeling, an approach promoted by CEHD’s STEM Education Center, the course engages students with open-ended problems that require inquiry and integration of mathematical concepts. Class projects, such as designing a bike-share program for a suburban city or exploring the growth rate of British soccer star salaries in relation to the rest of Britain’s work force, allow students to apply mathematics to questions and issues that interest them. “For some students, College Algebra can be challenging, holding them back from what they want to achieve,” reflects Staats. “But thanks to our extremely committed CIS teachers, our mathematics program is serving the academic needs of a very diverse group of students and helping them earn college credit at the same time.”

Learning through hands-on inquiry
When Leon Hsu, associate professor in PsTL and CIS faculty coordinator, was developing the curriculum forPhysics by Inquiry (PSTL 1163), he asked himself, “If students take only one physics course, what do I want them to get out of it?” This reflection led him to create a lab-based class that foregoes traditional lectures for guided inquiry. “It’s too easy to sit through a traditional lecture without being mentally engaged, which can make learning physics difficult,” says Hsu. Instead, the completely hands-on and minds-on course fosters conceptual reasoning through scripted discovery, helping students understand the process of how science works by performing experiments, making explanatory models and testing those models as part of a small group. Students also keep a journal to help them think about their learning. “The course structure requires students to work with and think about the material in the learning process,” he says.

As one of College in Schools’ Entry Point Project courses, Physics by Inquiry gives high school students a view of physics that complements that of most other physics courses by focusing on the scientific process. It also helps high school teachers present physics in a more appealing manner to a broader range of students. “The course gives teachers a way to challenge students beyond the formulas, problems and tests of traditional physics courses,” says Hsu. “It provides an alternative view of physics while preparing high school students for college.”

Rigor that benefits students and teachers
Human Anatomy and Physiology (PSTL 1135) allows CIS high school teachers to bring the rigor of a college science course to their students. “The pace and depth of the material is challenging and demands that students step up and take initiative for their learning,” says Nancy Cripe of Minnehaha Academy. She sees the impact: “Students develop ‘tools for their college toolbox’ – honing study skills, prioritizing study time, working effectively with lab partners, and learning to deal with occasional failure without quitting.”

The course curriculum, developed by Murray Jensen, associate professor in PsTL and CIS faculty coordinator, emphasizes critical and creative thinking in the classroom by engaging students in a wide range of learning tasks, such as Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL), cooperative quizzes and group discussions. Students are expected to “fill the bucket at home” meaning the memorization typically associated with anatomy and physiology classes is done on the students’ own time. “Many of my students have not had a class this intense or difficult,” says Ann Marie Froehle of Cretin Derham Hall. “The real satisfaction comes when college students return, and say how ‘easy’ their anatomy class was due to the notes/labs we did while they were in high school.”

Ryan Lester of Hmong College Prep Academy agrees the course prepares students for life at the university level. He also sees the value it brings to his teaching practice. Lester explains, “I continue to teach the class because of the way it has pushed me to be a better teacher. Murray has done a great job challenging us as teachers. He holds us and our students to an extremely high standard, but provides a lot of support and trainings to help us.”

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