In the News: New program offers 'passport' to better education

When Kelli Hoecker asked second-graders whether they’d ever used PowerPoint before, one answered, “What does that even mean?”

Five weeks from now, they’ll know. Hoecker and eight fellow education students from George Fox University are running an after-school program at Edwards Elementary School to get important field experience in the profession.

More and earlier field experience is key in preparing future teachers, said Beth LaForce, the George Fox education professor who leads the program. A national panel reached that conclusion in 2010, she said.

George Fox’s goal of better preparing their education students dovetailed with Edwards Principal Sue Luthra’s interest in maximizing opportunities for her elementary students. “That’s the win-win,” LaForce said.

Luthra got permission to give George Fox its own physical space at Edwards. Now the nine George Fox juniors meet in an Edwards classroom each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon for a college class on how to teach reading and language arts. At 2:30 p.m., they work on creating a curriculum and lessons based on Oregon’s common core standards. At 3:15 p.m., the students — separate groups of fifth- and second-graders — arrive.

“I’m just really excited about it,” said Hoecker, who joined her fellow George Fox classmates to create the second-grade theme, “Passport to Adventure.” It features five stations, such as Jungle Safari, where students will read a book and do a mini-analysis with help from Main Point Monkey, Character Lion and Setting Elephant.

At Adventure Island, the second-graders will create their own story and book on a laptop computer, using the PowerPoint program Hoeker demonstrated for them last week.

Students will read a play out loud at the Antarctica Chill Zone, Readers’ Theatre-style, to improve their fluency and expression before performing at the end of the five-week session. George Fox student Katherine Fuller is writing four different plays, all filled with animal characters, for the four small groups that will visit her station.

At Oceanic Shores, students will use sea-related photos to spark their imaginations and write a story that will connect back to their personal experiences. Station leader Lacey McNay fired them up for the task with a “Finding Nemo” clip.

The final station, Shipwreck Beach: Pirates, will explore different voices and characters. Last week, the students practiced Aargh!-ing in their best pirate voices and hunted for red X’s — and possible treasure — hidden around the room.

“We had kids on Thursday saying they didn’t want to go home and they wanted to stay in our room and read,” Hoeker said.

Across the hall, George Fox juniors took turns reading “The Westing Game” aloud to a group of fifth-graders, stopping periodically to ask for the students’ thoughts on the story.

“They were just amazed at the ideas the kids came up with,” LaForce said.

The George Fox students are already noticing individual differences in the children, such as which ones are quiet, which like to share, which get a bit too rowdy when they’re together — and which ones are paying close attention.

After Hoeker read “P is for Passport” to the second-graders last Thursday, she asked, “Isn’t it exciting, hearing about all the different places in the world?”

“Did they talk about Antarctica?” one boy immediately asked.

“They didn’t,” Hoeker said.

By Jill Smith, Newberg Graphic