Teachers in the Edison Local School District gained Best Practice Grant funds to perpetuate student success.
The Jefferson County Educational Service Center disbursed three $600 mini-grants to elementary educators Jordan Tice and Miguel Brun and Jaye Taylor at Edison High School to help enhance learning in the realm of math, literacy and foreign languages.
Tice will utilize her funding to teach sixth-graders at Stanton Elementary about the benefits of solar power with her project, “Solar Powered Engineering.” About 60 math students will construct a robot using kits purchased with the grant money and the project is eyed for this spring.
“The goal of the project is to get students to make the connections from what is done in class to different career choices, like engineering,” she said.
Tice, a previous grant recipient, added that she was honored to be selected for a second time.
“Students are excited to work on challenging, hands-on projects with their peers. This grant has allowed me to get students excited about school again,” she concluded. “Thank you to the Jefferson County ESC for giving teachers an opportunity to apply for this grant so they can supply classrooms with resources they normally may not have.”
Brun, an intervention specialist at Stanton and John Gregg, is seeking to bolster literacy among students at Stanton and John Gregg Elementary Schools through his project, “Simple View of Reading-Language Comprehension-Developing Morphemic Analysis.” The district has been part of the Ohio Early Literacy pilot program to strengthen word recognition and language comprehension among students in grades PreK-3 and the idea is to use explicit instruction each day to achieve that goal.
“The proposed project will place an emphasis on explicit instruction in morphemic analysis,” he added. “It will impact all students in grades K-6 at both Stanton and John Gregg. The goal is to develop morphemic analysis through the study of morphology,” he said. “Morphemes are the smallest meaningful unit in a word and the proposed evidence-based strategies are designed to help students recognize base words and prefixes and suffixes along with Latin roots and Greek combining forms. These activities directly address the language comprehension aspect of Scarborough’s Reading Rope, a leading research tool utilized to drive evidence-based instructional practices.”
Brun was honored to receive the mini-grant and said it helps make innovative instructional practices possible.
“The teachers in the Edison Local School District in grades PreK-3 are implementing evidence-based literacy practices through the Early Literacy Pilot. This grant will allow the teachers to implement evidence-based instruction strategies that will strengthen the language comprehension piece of the simple view of reading.”
Additionally, Taylor plans to use grant funding for “Comprehensible Input Using the Somos Curriculum,” which intends to enhance foreign language instruction by using new strategies.
“It is a more natural approach to learning a language and involves a total curriculum overhaul since it’s not centered on a textbook,” Taylor explained. “I’ve already partially begun to implement it, but I hope to fully incorporate it into my curriculum as soon as I get the resources.”
The project will impact about 200 high schoolers, generally freshmen and sophomores in the Spanish class, and plans are to build conversational abilities in students and help them better retain their knowledge.
“I’m very excited to receive this grant and very thankful to be chosen for it. I can’t wait to start using these resources and improving my classes,” Taylor added.
JCESC Superintendent Dr. Chuck Kokiko congratulated the recipients and said the grant helps teachers put their innovative projects into practice.
“The JCESC is appreciative of our member school districts and enjoy giving back when the opportunity presents itself. Much of our time is spent with school administration as well as providing teacher professional development and the mini-grants are a way to have a direct impact on the classroom,” he said. “The JCESC Governing Board is grateful to all of our applicants and the hard work teachers do each and every day. We look forward to continuing the program next year.”
JCESC has disbursed an estimated 200 Best Practice Grant funding over the past 11 years with Edison receiving 35 awards within that timeframe. This year, 21 total applications were approved out of more than 50 submissions from Buckeye Local, Edison, Indian Creek, Harrison Hills, Southern Local, Steubenville, Toronto City Schools and the Utica Shale Academy.
(Photo Cutline: Teachers in the Edison Local School District received $600 Best Practice Grants from the Jefferson County Educational Service Center. Pictured are, from left, JCESC Coordinator Patty Ferrell with Jordan Tice, a sixth-grade teacher at Stanton Elementary, and Miguel Brun, an intervention specialist at Stanton and John Gregg Elementary. Not pictured is Jaye Taylor, foreign language teacher at Edison High School.)