And the Academy Awards Goes to...COE Faculty and Teacher Candidates Engage HS Students to Raise Writing Scores

Our education students are getting hands-on teaching experience while helping Louisiana and Arkansas high school juniors through collaborations with Simsboro High School, Homer High School, and the Murphy Oil Foundation grant for El Dorado High School. These projects began over a year ago when Dr. Dawn Cassady was approached with a request from El Dorado High School to help improve their students writing skills and ACT scores.

 

Cassady said “you never know where you will get the next big idea from, but I saw this as a win-win opportunity.” This collaborative also gives our student-teachers a chance to interact with students online and face-to-face. 

Through the collaboration with El Dorado High School a writing-in-action program with required texts (Beowulf and Oedipus) came to life for the juniors at the high school and the student-teachers. Those involved interacted via distance education tools and a one-week face-to-face workshop accumulating in the juniors presentations of their movie trailers and an “Academy Awards Ceremony.” 

Cassady said these experiences are adventures for students and provide a way for students to try new things, keep up with the latest teaching techniques and experiment under the supervision of experienced teachers. “It is a way for student-teachers to find their teacher voice” which can be challenging. 

The student-teachers found the experience exciting and rewarding. At Simsboro students took on The Great Gatsby and the concept of the American dream. The student teachers also helped students create interactive bulletin boards of the Titanic and the 9/11 crash sites. Cassady said these projects have produced a “creative wonderland” for the students and student-teachers. Future projects include Crime Scene Dramas where students will create short news stories using iVideo technology.