Community Engaged Teaching and Research

2014 CAPCSD Conference, Orlando, FL

Linda J. Louko, PhD.and

Patricia Zebrowski, PhD.Dept. of Communication Sciences & Disorders

University of Iowa

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Community engagement: • “…collaboration between institutions of higher

education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.”

Terminology

• Student placements

• Volunteerism

• Service Learning: “an educational method that combines out-of-classroom service experiences with reflective in-class instruction to enhance student learning and build stronger communities” (Redlawsk & Rice, 2009)

What is Service-Learning?

• conducted and meets the needs of a community and is coordinated with an institution of higher learning and with the community;

• a way to foster civic responsibility:

• integrated into and helps enhance the academic curriculum of the students;

• Structured time for the students to reflect on the service experience

- National and Community Service Trust Act (1963)

Academic Material

Relevant Service

SERVICE LEARNING

Critical Reflection

COMPONENTS OF SERVICE LEARNING

Personal Growth

Academic Growth

SERVICE LEARNING

Civic Learning

CATEGORIES OF LEARNING IN SERVICE LEARNING

School and Community Members

Students

SERVICE LEARNING

Faculty

PARTNERS IN SERVICE LEARNING

Terminology continued

• Civic Engagement: This is service learning that involves the government or government agency partners.

• Public Engagement…

What is Public Engagement?

• The key components:

1. Receptivity and institutional support2. Inclusion3. Communication4. Reciprocity5. Sustainability

The Academy: Promotion and Tenure

• Teaching• Research (Scholarship)• Service

Defined by your institutionDefined by your department

What is Engaged Scholarship ?

1. requires a relationship between the university and community stakeholders

2. involves academic projects and/or research

3. can result in peer-reviewed publications, reports to government agencies, or presentations

Is there a product?

• Community Impact?– Altered community– Change in practice– Pubic policy change

• Academic Impact? – Student learning– Research– Publications

The International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community

Engagement

“IJRSLCE is a peer-reviewed, annual, online journal dedicated to the publication of high quality research focused on service-learning, community-campus engagement and the promotion of active and effective citizenship through education. An important aim of IJRSLCE is to reflect the diversity of topics of research on service-learning and community engagement, as well as the variety of forms of scholarship, research methodologies, and educational settings associated with these fields.”

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

• “The Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education is an on-line, refereed journal concerned with exploring community engagement and community-based learning perspective, research, and practice.

• The Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education publishes accounts of a range of research focusing on practical and theoretical insights and understanding, in higher education and across the disciplines and professions. There is a focus on case studies emphasizing community engagement and engaged learning practices, methodology, and pedagogy.

• The journal aims to establish and maintain a review of the literature of research and practice. It also provides a forum for dialogue on the methodological and epistemological issues, enabling different approaches to be subjected to critical reflection and analysis.

• The Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education is edited and published by the Center for Community Engagement (CCE) at Indiana State University (ISU).”

Michigan Journal for Community Service Learning

• “The MJCSL is a national, peer-reviewed journal for college and university faculty and administrators, with an editorial board of faculty from many academic disciplines and professional fields at the University of Michigan and other U.S. higher education institutions.

• Since 1994, the Michigan Journal has endeavored to publish the highest quality research, theory, and pedagogy articles related to higher education academic service-learning.

• With Volume 15 (2008-09), the Michigan Journal has expanded its purview to include not only articles about academic service-learning, but also about campus-community partnerships and faculty engaged scholarship. This expansion is commensurate with the expansion of the higher education civic engagement movement.”

Public Engagement: One way to start

Develop a Working Group• Like minded people (Rural Iowa, Immigrants, etc.)

• From a variety of disciplines– Different perspectives

• Read/Learn together– Share successes; describe challenges

• Funding

Working Group Participants

• College of Education• Saba Ali (Associate Professor, Dept. of Psychological and Quantitative Studies) • Carolyn Colvin (Associate Professor, Dept. of Teaching and Learning) • Lia Plakans (Assistant Professor, Dept. of Teaching and Learning)

• College of Liberal Arts and Sciences- Dept. of Communication Sciences & Disorders• Linda Louko (Clinical Associate Professor) • Patricia Zebrowski (Professor)• Rebecca Alper (Doctoral Candidate)

• College of Public Health• Mary Aquilino (Associate Dean, Community and Behavioral Health)• Linda Snetselaar (Professor, College of Public Health)

• Office of the Vice President for Research• Ann Ricketts (UI Representative to CIC committee on Engaged Research)

Working Group Projects: Year 1• Discussions of the many challenges to our pursuits of

publicly engaged scholarship

• Read selected scholarly work to deepen our understanding of underrepresented, immigrant populations.

• Hosted a campus-wide workshop on public engagement with approximately 200 attendees across the campus.

Year 2• Participated in discussion groups for the Carnegie

Community Engagement Classification application

• Continued reading in public scholarship informed by the data we gathered at the 2013 Campus-wide workshop

• Co-authored an article that has been submitted to the Michigan Journal for Community Service Learning – Described the Iowa public engagement event – Analyzed outcomes data

Year 2 continued

• May 3, 2014, community partners focus groups – To better understand publicly engaged research from

the perspective of community partners– To identify the roles community partners might play

in publicly engaged research.

• 3 members of the Obermann Working Group attended the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE) Annual Conference with support from the Provost’s Office

Year 3 Goals

• Focus will shift to the community partners are at the center of publicly engaged scholarship.

• Explore the data we receive from our community partners focus groups– The voices of community partners seems largely

missing from the scholarly work on publicly engaged scholarship

Enhancing Early Literacy Skills in ESL Preschoolers

Columbus Junction, Iowa

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Columbus Junction, Iowa

• Population = approx. 2,000

• Wilma Roundy Elementary is culturally Diverse – “ a major minority district”

48% Hispanic46% White

4% Asian (Chin Burmese – 400 families since 2011)

• Median income = $46,000.00• Major employer = Tyson Foods

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Roundy Elementary

• 22.5 % of children are English language learners

• 1 out of every 3 children is served in ESL program

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Barriers to Learning

• High Poverty• Many are Not Native English Speakers; English is language of

instruction at Roundy• Spanish and Chin Burmese Spoken in the Home on a Regular

Basis• No Regular Access in the Home to Literature in English• Different Cultures - Limited Parent Education• Resources of a Small, Rural District

What Are “Early Literacy” Skills?• Language (especially vocabulary)

• Phonemic awareness (sensitivity to speech sounds in spoken word, reflected in ability to perceive and produce rhyming syllables/words

• Print knowledge:

• Print knowledge is an important domain in early literacy development

• Print knowledge refers to the child’s emerging knowledge about the forms and functions of written language. This knowledge includes:

• Knowledge of the way print is organized in various texts

• The function different organizational structures serve (e.g. words are separated by spaces, title, author, chapter headings, etc.)

• Names and distinctive features of letters

• And perhaps most importantly, the expression of meaning through writing (i.e. letters form words, and words are the meaning-carrying units of language).

• Measures of print knowledge in preschool children are consistently shown to be associated with later word recognition and spelling achievements (e.g. Hammill, 2004).

• Recent research has shown that print knowledge is strongly influenced by the environment, and as such, its development can be readily enhanced by changes to the environment.

• Quality, not quantity matters most! That is, an increase in the time spent looking at and talking about print has been shown to accelerate young children’s pre-reading and early reading literacy skills.

• The efficacy of programs to enhance print knowledge has been studied most frequently in at-risk children (poverty, learning or communication disorders, etc.), but has also been shown to accelerate literacy development of normally developing middle class children…though not as much.

3:187 Early Literacy Instruction for Young Children

• An undergraduate service-learning course at the University of Iowa

• Partnership between the UI Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and 4 preschool teachers and their classes at Roundy Elementary in Columbus Junction, IA.

• Taught fall and spring

• Over 100 undergraduates since spring, 2012 from: CSD, internation studies, nursing, social work, education, business

• Daily story-book reading calling attention to print

• Print-focused read aloud program is based on research conducted by Laura Justice and colleagues at the Ohio State University

• Justice, L., Kaderavek, J., Fan, X., Sofka, A. & Hunt, A. (2009). Accelerating preschoolers’ early literacy development through classroom-based teacher child storybook reading and explicit print referencing. Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch, 40, 67-85.

• Program details provided in Justice, L., & Sofka, A. (2010). Engaging children with print: Building early literacy skills through quality read alouds. New York: The Guilford Press.

Print-Focused Read Alouds in Preschool Classrooms

Three preschool classrooms, each with 16 children

Program details provided in Justice, L., & Sofka, A. (2010). Engaging children with print: Building early literacy skills through quality read alouds. New York: The Guilford Press.

Fifteen Print Objectives Across Four Dimensions of Print Knowledge

1. Book and Print Organization- title of book- author of book- page order- page organization- print direction

2. Print meaning- function of print (to convey meaning)- environmental print- concept of reading (reading serves purpose)

Fifteen Print Objectives Across Four Dimensions of Print Knowledge

3. Letters - upper and lower case- letter names- concept of letter page order

4. Words - concept of word in print (correspond to spoken

word)- short and long words - letters and words - word identification

Approach • Fifteen print objectives recycled across a period of 30 weeks.

• One book per week; three to four reading sessions per week (for 30 weeks) is target “dose” (Justice & Ezell, 2000, 2002).

• Four total teaching “episodes” per session has been shown to significantly increase childrens’ print knowledge in relatively short period of time (Justice & Ezell, 2000)

• Books (30 total) matched to objectives (i.e. provide multiple opportunities to call attention to print objective).

Reading Schedule WEEK BOOK TITLE PRINT-KNOWLEDGE

OBJECTIVES

#1 MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL Environmental PrintConcept of Reading

#2 THERE’S A DRAGON AT MY SCHOOL

Print DirectionConcept of Words in Print

#3 I LIKE IT WHEN…. Author of BookFunction of Print

#4 THE DANDELION SEED Upper and Lower CasePage Organization

#30 MISS BINDERGARTEN GETS READY FOR

KINDERGARTEN

Concept of Word in PrintLetters and Words

Example WEEK BOOK TITLE PRINT-KNOWLEDGE

OBJECTIVES #16 I STINK Concept of Letter

Pager Order #17 ANIMAL ACTION Letters and Words

Letter Names

Participants:

36 control children (2009-2010)52 program participants (2011-2012)

Does the “Print Focused Read Alouds” program enhance the development of early literacy skills

in predominantly ESL preschool classrooms?

Measurements: Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

Receptive Vocabulary

Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) Pre-KLiteracy skills

PALS Pre-K Tasks

Alphabet Knowledge Upper-Case Recognition Lower-Case Recognition Letter Sounds

Beginning Sound Awareness

Print & Word Awareness

Rhyme Awareness

TEST AREA SIGNIFICANCE

PPVT p = .052

PALS – Upper Case NOT SIG p = .289

PALS – Lower Case NOT SIG p = .295

PALS – Letter Sounds NOT SIG p = .072

PALS – Beginning Sounds NOT SIG p = .324

PALS – rhyming p = .046

PALS – PRINT & WORD NOT SIG p = .356

RESULTS:

We calculated “growth scores” to compare the growth that the two groups of children exhibited by the end of the year.

IMPLICATIONS:

Results show improvements to the children’s underlying linguistic competence as reflected by the growth of their rhyming ability and receptive vocabulary.

RhymingRhyming ability is a core facilitator of literacy and reading development. Indeed rhyming is important for preparing young children for deeper levels of phonological processing (Goswami, 2002).

IMPLICATIONS:

Receptive Vocabulary:Vocabulary establishes a foundation for literacy skills and has been shown to be the best predictor of reading comprehension at the end of 2nd and 3rd grades and continues to be predictive throughout the school years. (Hemphill et al, 2008).

By exposure to “Print Focused Read Alouds”, children’s vocabulary and rhyming abilities were bolstered, allowing for a richer literacy foundation to take into kindergarten.

Before….

• What do you know about literacy problems in preschool children? Do they exist in your home community? List three ways literacy development can be promoted.

• What issues related to literacy instruction do you think you’ll encounter during your community service effort?

• What do you know about Columbus Junction, Iowa and Roundy Elementary? How can you find out more?

• What do you hope to gain from this experience?

• At the end of this course, what would you like the children, teachers and staff of Roundy Elementary, as well as parents and community members, to say about you, your work, our department and the University of Iowa?

During….• What knowledge and skills do you already have that you find yourself applying to

your work at Roundy? What new skills are you learning? How will these skills help you in your future career?

• What information do you need right now that would be helpful?

• What knowledge and concepts from your coursework have become more understandable during your work?

• Have you had an “ah-ha” moment while reading to your group, either at the time or while you were thinking and planning about them and your reading? Describe it and why it was significant for you. How do you think you might apply this newly-discovered insight in the future?

• What frustrates, confuses or challenges you while you are reading to your group?

• Is your understanding of Roundy, the children and their teachers, and Columbus Junction in general changing while you are working in the community? If so, how? If not, does that go against your expectations?

After

Articulating what has been learned

I learned that….

I learned this when….

This is important because….