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| Learning to Teach in Inner-City Schools and With Diverse Populations (LTICS). A program designed to develop teachers who choose to teach in schools with inner-city and/or diverse populations and are effective in teaching these populations. |
Audience Approved by PEP for school districts serving low income multicultural families with a teacher-preparation college nearby, school populations that include teachers and students in grades PreK-12, and all subject area teachers, student teachers, and supervisors.
Description Learning to Teach in Inner-City Schools and With Diverse Populations (LTICS) involves the creation of a Teaching Academy that is a collaborative effort of a local inner-city school and a nearby teacher education college. The school/college partnership provides a structure in which a group of supervising teachers, college supervisors, and student teachers develop and learn to implement effective instructional strategies for diverse school populations.
The LTICS program is designed to change how teachers think about instruction in the inner-city schools. Weekly seminars focus on understanding the community and students' culture, working with neighborhood children and their families, managing classrooms, cooperative learning, using positive behavior management techniques, planning appropriate lessons, challenging higher-level thinking skills activities, and linking students background knowledge with school lessons.
Teachers and supervising teachers are observed at the beginning of each semester and set goals for change. At the end of each semester, they are observed again to assess their change in behavior. Time spent on-task is computed for students in the classrooms of the academy student teachers and teachers. Learning materials within the seminars include a Learning to Teach binder, teaching guides, training video tapes, and other current materials.
National Goal for Education 3 states that students will demonstrate competency in challenging subject matter after grades 4, 8, and 12. Houston Teaching Academy students have demonstrated their competency through their achievement scores, which have significantly improved since LTICS was adopted. The students performed better than most other schools in the district and were above average for the state.
Evidence of Effectiveness Experimental student teachers (ESTs) changed their instructional behavior in the desired direction significantly more than control student teachers (CSTs). Students' off-task behavior in ESTs' classrooms decreased significantly more than in CSTs' classrooms. Also, more ESTs are teaching in inner-city schools after completing student teaching than CSTs.
Requirements School district requirements include financial support for one school site, principal's commitment, teacher's union commitment, school faculty willing to have student teachers, observers, or tutors in the classroom, and a commitment to hire and train observers.
College requirements include dean and faculty commitment to partnership, one faculty member committed to serving as college director, student placement office willingness to concentrate a large number of students in the academy, faculty supervisors trained and committed to teach seminars, methods faculty committed to teach their classes at the school site, and commitment to collect and evaluate observation data.
Costs Costs must be considered for teacher incentives, school coordinator, training to develop certified trainers, lap-top computers and observer profiles software, college director and seminar instructor, software for processing evaluation data, materials and supplies, and videotapes.
Services LTICS staff provide staff development activities (awareness sessions, interaction with superintendents and college faculty, updating seminar materials), interaction with adopters on a regular basis, collection of adoption materials, and monitoring and evaluation of quality at sites.
Developmental Funding: Houston Independent School District, The University of Houston College of Education.
PEP No. 89-14 (7/21/89)
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[National Faculty Teaching Project, The]