Side by Side: Motivating students to consider Careers in Education grant, co-PI

Side-by-Side is the name of a precollege program that I co-conceived and developed with my colleagues Drs. Miriam Witmer (Instructor of Educational Foundations) and Doyin Coker-Kolo (former Associate Dean).  The new program is aimed at enhancing the educational programming for students of color by addressing the mismatch between the shifting demographics in the preK-12 school population and the decreasing minority representation in the teaching workforce.  Specifically, we created a program that generates interest in the teaching profession for underrepresented high school students with the ultimate goal of developing a pipeline for the recruitment of students of color into the College of Education at Millersville University who will then become educators and return to the School District of Lancaster (SDoL) for one-year of guaranteed employment. In 2015, we received $5,400 funding from the PASSHE Faculty Professional Development Council (FPDC)—1 of only 2 FPDC grants awarded to Millersville University in 2014-15—and an additional $1,000 from the Dean’s Office (College of Education & Human Services) to implement phase 1 of our program.

There are two components in Phase 1: an “Exploring Careers in Education” (ECE) weekly seminar, which is supported by a mentoring model called “Color of Teaching” (COT). Both components incorporate opportunities for Millersville students to assist as mentors in teaching and tutoring, and as research assistants in data collection and research analysis. In all, 41 9th and 10th grade students at JP McCaskey High School were nominated. 31 of these students were interviewed and given weekly hall passes in order to be excused from their regular classes and participate in our in-school program.   All students who completed Side-by-Side indicated they would like to continue if the program were to be offered again in the future.

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