Neag School Class of 2019 graduate students celebrate outside of the Student Union this May. (GradImages)
Commencement Weekend kicked off for the Neag School with a celebration for the graduates of the Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) program on Friday, May 10, followed by a special pre-ceremony reception at the Student Union on Saturday, May 11, for all Neag School master’s and sixth-year graduates completing advanced degrees in such disciplines as school psychology, school counseling, school administration, and teacher education. The beautiful weather offered graduates and their guests plenty of opportunities for fun photos with Jonathan the Husky mascot and a chance to connect with their faculty mentors and fellow students.
On Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 12, 148 undergraduates celebrated their Commencement at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. Associate Professor Alan Marcus served as lead faculty marshal, joining Jonathans XIII and XIV in leading the undergraduate student procession from the Gentry building to Jorgensen during a pause in the day’s rain showers. At Jorgensen, family members and guests watched a livestream of the student procession to the tunes of the “Rocky” theme and of “Eye of the Tiger.”
‘We Need Leaders With Courage and Charisma’
Featured as the Neag School keynote Commencement speaker was Karissa Niehoff ’10 Ed.D., the first female executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, which reaches more than 19,000 high schools across the U.S. and 12 million participants in high school activity programs.
Shanza Hussain, Asfia Qutub, and Anne Denerville (from left), graduates of the IB/M program, celebrate on Saturday, May 11. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
Class of 2019 undergrads leave Gentry on their way to the Commencement ceremony. (Frank Zappulla/Neag School)
Neag School Class of 2019 undergrads process with Jonathans XIII and XIV to Jorgensen. (Frank Zappulla/Neag School)
Class of 2019 undergrads, wearing caps with decorations they designed, prepare for their procession to the Commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 12, 2019. (Frank Zappulla/Neag School)
Niehoff is an alumna of the Neag School’s educational leadership doctoral program, a 2016 recipient of the Neag School Alumni Board’s Distinguished Alumna Award, and has served as a physical education instructor, athletic director, assistant principal, principal, and as a coach at the high school level for five different sports.
“It’s terrific that we are honoring both education and sport management graduates at the same time, as I believe academic learning and sports education truly complement one another,” she said.
She went on to advise the Class of 2019 to listen to themselves, to continue deepening their education throughout life, and to seek opportunities for leadership. “More than ever,” she said, “We need leaders with courage and charisma; leaders who create a culture of growth, engage hearts and minds, capture collective intelligence and talent, and inspire others to shape new pathways toward success.”
Jesús Cortés-Sanchez ’18 (ED), ’19 MA tells the Class of 2019 his personal story. (Frank Zappulla/Neag School)
Grad students celebrate at the Neag School master’s and 6th-year Commencement reception. (GradImages)
Class of 2019 music ed majors perform at the Undergraduate ceremony. (Roger Castonguay/Defining Studios)
Alumna Karissa Niehoff ’10 Ed.D. addresses the Class of 2019 during her keynote. (Roger Castonguay/Defining Studios)
“I want to change lives through the gift of music,” he said to cheers from the crowd. “I am not the only Dreamer in this space. The truth is that you and I — we are all dreamers, no matter where we come from, or what our legal status, gender, religion, race, or ethnicity may be. We are all dreamers who dream of a better society – and who have the power with our education to make a huge impact and break down any walls that are put in our way.”
Cortés-Sanchez will begin his first year as a music teacher this fall in West Hartford (Conn.) Public Schools.
Following his address, the Neag School’s Class of 2019 music education majors, who had sung the national anthem at the start of the ceremony, joined him in a moving performance of “A Million Dreams,” complete with acoustic guitars, keyboard, Cajón box drum, and ukuleles. Cara Bernard, assistant clinical professor, led the group.
Neag School grad students get together with Jonathan the Husky for a photo. (GradImages)
Associate Professor Devin Kearns (center) celebrates with master’s candidates. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
Supporters of one Neag School graduate cheer as the diplomas are delivered at Jorgensen on Sunday, May 12. (GradImages)
Grad students take a selfie with Jonathan the mascot on Saturday, May 11. (GradImages)
After Vice Provost for Academic Operations Jeffrey Shoulson conferred the undergraduates’ degrees and the recessional was complete, a reception held afterward at the Student Union offered graduates and their families shelter from the rain, but also a free photo booth, photo ops with Jonathan the Husky mascot, and refreshments.
The PBIS Academy, developed in 2014 with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and UConn’s Center for Behavioral Education and Research, is the longest-running academy in Massachusetts and has earned nearly $4 million in total funding. (Stock image)
For the past four years, the Northeast Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports(PBIS) Academy, an evidence-based professional development program in the area of social-emotional development, has been used across the state of Massachusetts. Administered by the Neag School of Education through its affiliation with the Northeast PBIS (NEPBIS) Network, a loose affiliation of state education leaders in the Northeast, the PBIS Academy has announced it will continue its partnership with Massachusetts through the spring of 2022, after a bid to renew its contract for four additional years was recently approved.
The Academy, developed in 2014 with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education(DESE) and UConn’s Center for Behavioral Education and Research, is the longest-running academy in Massachusetts and has earned nearly $4 million in total funding. It provides training to schoolwide leadership teams and coaches, as well as a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) to meet the academic, social, and behavioral needs of all students.
In implementing the program, the DESE prioritizes those schools that are performing in the lowest 20% of schools statewide, and that demonstrate readiness not only to establish a representative PBIS leadership team and internal coaches, but also to ensure participation and support from school administrators and staff.
Adam Feinberg, NEPBIS Network director and assistant research professor at the Neag School, works with three other Neag School faculty, Brandi Simonsen, Jennnifer Freeman,and Susannah Everett, to coordinate the NEPBIS Network. Each has professional training and experience in implementing MTSS at regional and national levels.
“MTSS is a framework which helps organize how schools really identify and support systems that support staff, data that supports decision making, and practices that support students across a three-tier prevention model,” says Feinberg.
“One of our middle school teams has been incredibly successful and just keeps building and building. It has really gone beyond our expectations.”
—Mary Ann Jackman, assistant superintendent, Weymouth (Mass.) Public Schools
The PBIS framework’s three-tier prevention model consists of the following:
Tier I: Establishes cohesive behavioral expectations and a consistent application of positive reinforcement to improve overall school climate;
Tier II: Helps schools develop systems to support students who are not responding to the universal practices due to social, emotional, or behavioral challenges, and need more focused attention;
Tier III: Provides individualized and intensive interventions and support to students who are not responsive to the primary and secondary levels of prevention, in order to reduce problematic behaviors and improve life outcomes.
To support implementation of the PBIS framework, each school forms a team of six to eight representative staff members to participate in a three-year training program, with individual training days allocated to team training, coaches’ training, and on-site technical assistance. Two members of the PBIS team serve as coaches, or internal experts and facilitators who lead the school’s implementation of the PBIS framework. The technical assistance helps apply the training content to the individualized needs and priorities of each school.
Following the six days of training in the first year, teams meet for three days in the second year to assess implementation, deal with any issues that come along, and deep-dive into certain topics, such as classroom domain support and crisis response.
“The first year is the most intensive because the schools are really building their framework,” Feinberg says. “The focus is to develop products of their plan, send it out to staff for feedback and revisions, and then get ready for what will hopefully be an implementation year in Year Two.”
The third year consists of two training days that serve as a time to get routines down in the implementation process and share ideas with other participating schools through roundtable talks and a poster-sharing session.
“Teams really like the structure of the training because they get content, but then they really get a lot of time just to work on their product as a team,” says Feinberg. “They are also given tools to help them track their progress and help with data-based decision making.”
The PBIS Academy utilizes a yearly self-assessment, the Schoolwide PBIS Tiered Fidelity Inventory, and a PBIS Team Implementation Checklist, which schools complete two to three times a year to evaluate PBIS implementation in schools and create action plans to address areas that need improvement.
“The PBIS program has made our students aware of what the behavioral expectations are, and it has allowed us to be responsive to behavior before it becomes crisis behavior.”
— John Crocker, school mental health and behavioral services director, Methuen (Mass.) Public Schools
Methuen (Mass.) Public Schools began implementing the PBIS framework during the 2014-15 school year. John Crocker, director of school mental health and behavioral services at Methuen Public Schools, serves as the coordinator for the Methuen High School PBIS team and oversees all PBIS teams across the district. He says PBIS has allowed Methuen schools to identify behavioral problem areas and direct action plans to resolve those problems.
“I am really proud of how we use data,” Crocker says. “We are making data-driven decisions, and we are using data to support our aggregate-level needs and inform our intervention needs for groups and for individual students.”
Crocker also credits the PBIS program with the opportunity it has created for many more students to be recognized for what they do. Methuen Public Schools have established a “Ranger Pride” point system to reinforce positive behavior, a practice that personalizes the PBIS program to reflect the district’s community values and expectations.
“The PBIS program has made our students aware of what the behavioral expectations are, and it has allowed us to be responsive to behavior before it becomes crisis behavior,” says Crocker.
Weymouth (Mass.) Public Schools is a PBIS participant consisting of eight primary schools, two middle schools, and one high school. Mary Ann Jackman, assistant superintendent of Weymouth Public Schools, says Weymouth chose to implement PBIS because there was a need for a systematic support structure for social-emotional learning and student behavior, as well as a need for continuity across the district.
“The PBIS team members are very excited to be a part of the teams and have, for the most part, been consistent throughout,” Jackman says. “One of our middle school teams has been incredibly successful and just keeps building and building. It has really gone beyond our expectations.”
The next step for Weymouth is to utilize the teams of teacher-leaders to introduce social-emotional learning into the PBIS framework and to launch a full, sustainable implementation of PBIS at the seventh- to 12th-grade levels, says Jackman.
As for the PBIS Academy, Feinberg identifies three major goals for the program moving forward:
Help schools more quickly set up systems to look at data so that they are able to track outcomes and look at data more effectively;
Draw more attention to culturally responsive practices so that schools can locate disproportionality much quicker and work toward fostering equity across the school;
Build easy ways to support district management so that district administrators are able to direct PBIS after the three-year training and sustain the positive impacts.
“Schools report a general overall improvement of school climate and much more prosocial behavior since implementing PBIS,” says Feinberg. “Routines across the school are better understood by staff and students, which makes the flow of the day a much more positive experience.”
Many school districts across Connecticut hold Neag School of Education teacher education graduates in the highest regard for potential employment.
Throughout the Neag School’s partner school districts, juniors and seniors in the Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s (IB/M) program get firsthand student teaching experience in urban and suburban classroom settings; during their fifth year in the program, students receive further preparation through various professional development offerings and on-site internships.
Christopher Wethje ’02 JD, human resources director for East Hartford (Conn.) Public Schools, has been active in supporting professional development efforts for Neag School students throughout the year. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
Feedback From Schools “Neag School students are some of the most intelligent and hard-working students we have the honor of working with,” says Christopher Wethje ’02 JD, human resources director for East Hartford (Conn.) Public Schools. “They receive an incredible education and present themselves with a maturity and professionalism not often see in other educator preparation programs.”
“We have been fortunate to hire Neag students every year and are consistently impressed with their ability,” he says.
Samuel Galloway ’01 6th Year,director of human resources at Bristol (Conn.) Public Schools, participates in campus visits, during which he shares insights with seniors at the Neag School. “I enjoy sharing information with the students. They are very engaged and ask great questions,” he says. “I am proud to say that I hired Amanda Powell, who is the [2019] Bloomfield Teacher of the Year. She helped me build an outstanding math department at Bloomfield High School.”
“Neag School students are some of the most intelligent and hard-working students we have the honor of working with.”
— Christopher Wethje ’02 JD, human resources director, East Hartford (Conn.) Public Schools
Joseph Macary ’94 (ED), ’08 ELP, ’16 Ed.D, superintendent of Vernon (Conn.) Public Schools, speaks with a student during the Neag School’s Spring 2019 Education Career Fair. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
Joseph Macary ’94 (ED), ’08 ELP, ’16 Ed.D, superintendent of Vernon (Conn.) Public Schools, says Neag School graduates “are by far the best prepared students for education in the state of Connecticut,” he says. “The Neag program is rigorous, and the faculty hold students to high standards.”
“Our school district has hired dozens of Neag graduates, and we are very pleased with their performance and abilities,” he adds. “Last year, we needed three elementary music teachers, and we hired all of them from UConn – they have shined in their classrooms, and students are enjoying the musical arts thanks to their talents.”
‘Poised, Professional, and Well Prepared’ IB/M students start off the fall semester of their fifth year with a résumé and cover letter writing workshop, according to Mia Hines, an academic advisor in the Neag School’s Teacher Education program. “We coordinate with the UConn Center for Career Development, and their liaison hosts the workshop,” she says. “We don’t want to overwhelm [the students]; we want them to just start thinking about their résumé and cover letter.”
In their master’s year, students are also assigned to a seminar class led by Neag School faculty. The seminar provides a space where students develop their master’s-year inquiry project, engage in ongoing professional learning, and learn about job searching tools and resources that they will ultimately use in the interview process. Recent graduates also return to campus to share their experiences regarding the job search and their first year of teaching.
These opportunities have proven beneficial in preparing students, says Ann Traynor ’05 (ED), ’16 Ed.D., director of advising and certification at the Neag School. School administrators who attend the Neag School’s springtime career fair, she says, “often remark how poised, professional, and well prepared our students are.”
Additionally, many faculty and staff work with students individually on the job search. “For example, David Moss and other faculty members often speak to students who are interested in teaching internationally,” says Traynor. “All of us encourage students to spend sufficient time on reflection, preparation, and stress management during the career search.”
One seminar leader, Professor Todd Campbell, notes how “seriously the Neag School faculty members take the importance of connecting and collaborating with state, district, and school leaders and teachers to focus on continual improvement that not only benefits schools, but also Neag students who take part in shaping innovative work in schools.”
“The Neag School students presented themselves very well at the recruitment fair; they were engaging, passionate, and ready to lead classrooms. The students are ready to teach on day one.”
— Samuel Galloway ’01 6th Year, director of human resource, Bristol (Conn.) Public Schools
Also in their final year in the IB/M program, students attend a workshop on the teacher certification process, run by Traynor, as well as an interviewing workshop, during which local school administrators — some of whom are alumni — are invited to class to work with students on mock job interviews.
Dominique Battle-Lawson ’07 (ED), ’08 MA and Mia Hines, academic advisors in the Neag School, greet guests at the Spring 2019 Education Career Fair. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
“They talk to our students about interviewing and answer all the students’ questions, how should they respond to an offer, how to use their portfolio to talk about what they’ve learned throughout their years in the program,” says Hines. “They’re all worried about if their experience is going to be enough to get a job. That session puts them at ease. The HR representatives usually tell our students, ‘Students in the Neag School are highly sought-after.’”
The last workshop is focused on preparing for the Neag School’s education career fair, which is held each April. This workshop, a collaborative effort with UConn’s Center for Career Development and the Neag School’s Office of Alumni Relations, is led by Hines.
“We were already working with the Center for Career Development and brought in our alumni relations director, Caitlin Trinh, who shared that alumni were reaching out to her, asking how they could help with students and get involved,” Hines says. “We came up with the idea of having our alumni come back for [a] panel to talk about their experiences.”
Dominique Battle-Lawson ’07 (ED), ’08 MA, another academic advisor and a Neag School grad herself, shares with students her insights on completing the Teacher Education program and then teaching at a school, and works closely with the students as they move through the program.
Wethje, the human resources director from East Hartford, is also brought in to help with the workshop, offering guidance on the online application process that almost every Connecticut school district uses.
He is impressed not only with the students themselves, but also the advisors at the Neag School. “Neag students are incredibly fortunate to have mentorship from Dominique Battle-Lawson and Mia Hines, who prepare students for the challenges of preparing for career fairs, interviews, and general advice about teaching,” he says. “Many educator preparation programs do not offer this type of support, and it is clear that Mia and Dominique’s assistance is what helps set Neag students apart from other educator programs.”
Career Fair – The Big Day UConn’s Education Career Fair was run by the UConn Center for Career Development from 1996 until 2009, when the Neag School took over. “We have seen the number of participating school districts increase significantly over the past seven years, from 40 districts to a high of 67 districts in 2019,” says Traynor.
After months of preparation, roughly 200 graduating teacher education students have the opportunity each spring to interview with school district representatives for positions in teaching, counseling, and school psychology.
This past April, school districts from across the state packed into the Student Union Ballroom for the annual Education Career Fair, with some districts overflowing into adjoining conference rooms to connect with students. Some students certified in shortage areas — including math, science, and world languages — had job offers before the Career Fair.
During the Career Fair, students interact with school district representatives, and many secure job interviews for later that same day.
“[It] is the largest career fair East Hartford Public Schools attends, and we’re always amazed at the level of preparation we see from students at this event,” says Wethje. “Students represent themselves very professionally, and as a human resources director, I always appreciate the opportunity we have to interview candidates. The quality of programming at Neag is second to none!”
Samuel Galloway ’01 6th Year, director of human resources at Bristol Public Schools, reviews a student’s resume during the Education Career Fair. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
Galloway, of Bristol Public Schools, had similar feedback. “The Neag School students presented themselves very well at the recruitment fair; they were engaging, passionate, and ready to lead classrooms. The students are ready to teach on day one.”
Many graduating students, including Jesús Cortés-Sanchez ’18 (ED, SFA), ’19 MA, say they felt prepared to interact with school district representatives, thanks to the months of preparation and workshops. “Having people like Chris from East Hartford Public Schools and Sam from Bristol Public Schools, providing tips on how to prepare for interviews was so helpful,” says Cortés-Sanchez, who has landed an offer to teach music education in West Hartford (Conn.) Public Schools for this fall.
Jenna Bordieri, an aspiring high school Spanish teacher, says she wanted to get the best experience possible out of the Career Fair. “I had my résumé edited multiple times by my friends and the career services office,” she says. “I created business cards and did research on the districts I wanted to speak with. I also created a list of questions that were important for me … to ask during our conversations.”
The Career Fair, she says, “was an effective and organized way for us to get one-on-one conversations with the school districts before the formal interviews. We were able to get a feel for the administration and ask questions to narrow down our search for the right school. Even if you did not decide to apply for a district, it was a great networking event for us to make connections.”
Students take a selfie with Jonathan the Husky at the Gentry Building during UConn’s Giving Day this spring. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
UConn’s second annual Giving Day, a University-wide fundraising event held in March, raised more than $400,000 for the University of Connecticut as a whole — all within the span of 36 consecutive hours.
As part of the institutional campaign, each of the Neag School of Education’s three departments, as well as its Alumni Board, promoted a specific Neag School-focused project, seeking contributions in any dollar amount from donors far and wide. In the end, gifts to these four education initiatives alone resulted in more than $22,000 in support for the Neag School.
“This was a months-long effort in the making, and we could not be more pleased with the outcome,” says Neag School Dean Gladis Kersaint. “Our Neag School community, our Alumni Board, our Dean’s Board of Advocates members, as well as the many generous supporters and friends of our School from UConn and beyond, have given us many reasons to celebrate. Our project leaders are thrilled to have inspired more than 400 individuals to choose our students and initiatives as deserving of support on Giving Day. A sincere thank-you to everyone who contributed to our causes.”
PDF view of Giving Day 2019 Results.
Education Policies in Action
The Neag School’s Department of Educational Policy organized a project titled Education Policies in Action, focused on expanding the reach of the Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA) Speaker Series. The series brings experts from universities nationwide to campus throughout each academic year to speak with educators, community members, and researchers to discuss some of the toughest challenges facing education today. With 36 donors, the project raised more than $1,700 on Giving Day.
Forging a Path for Aspiring Educators
Forging a Path for Aspiring Educators, a project centered on defraying the rising costs associated with entering the profession of teaching, was spearheaded by the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. With more than $2,700 raised by 50 donors, the project will help to subsidize a variety of expenses facing UConn’s teacher education candidates– from fees for required licensure exams to the transportation costs that aspiring teachers incur in community to local schools for their internships.
Think About the Link
A third Neag School-affiliated project, Think About the Link: Resources for Schools, sponsored by the Department of Educational Psychology and the Collaboratory for School and Child Health, sought donations that would assist schools in supporting child well-being through a model known as Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC). The production of toolkits funded through this effort will help schools link learning and health initiatives in order to coordinate services that support whole child success.
Think About the Link raised more than $4,500 on Giving Day and ultimately landed in second place University-wide for garnering nearly 300 contributions — the second-highest number of individual donors during UConn’s 36-hour Giving Day campaign.
“Our Neag School community, our Alumni Board, our Dean’s Board of Advocates members, as well as the many generous supporters and friends of our School from UConn and beyond, have given us many reasons to celebrate.”
— Dean Gladis Kersaint
Jonathan the Husky celebrates UConn’s 2019 Giving Day with Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Sandra Chafouleas and Professor E. Carol Polifroni (right), co-directors of the Collaboratory on School and Child Health, at the Gentry Building in March. (Shawn Kornegay/Neag School)
As a result, the project secured not only its 293 direct contributions, but also nearly $10,000 more in matching gifts following the campaign’s final tallies. Coming in second place in the Giving Day overall leaderboard challenge earned the project a $3,000 University match. In addition, having scored the highest number of individual donations out of the four Neag School-based projects, Think About the Link received an additional matching gift of $6,500, generously funded by the Dean’s Fund and several individuals serving on the Dean’s Board of Advocates — all told, bringing more than $14,000 to support this specific cause.
Supporting Tomorrow’s Educators
The Neag School Alumni Board also led a Giving Day project focused on raising funds for scholarships that will help graduate students in education at UConn, titled “Supporting the Passion and Talents of Tomorrow’s Educators.” In total, the effort raised nearly $4,000 with 24 donors during the 36-hour campaign.
“We are truly appreciative of the many supporters who came out to show that UConn is committed to the well-being of children and schools,” says Sandra Chafouleas, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology and director of the Collaboratory of School and Child Health. “The UConn Gives campaign was a great opportunity to bring together the many partnerships that the Collaboratory on School and Child Health has worked to build, with thanks to the Department of Educational Psychology for believing in the project and the Public Health House Learning Community and school psychology graduate students and alumni for being our boots-on-the-ground champions. We are excited to continue our ‘think about the link’ work to help schools integrate learning and health initiatives.”
Contributions to UConn came from donors around the world, via online giving, over the phone, through pledge forms, as well as from in-person contributions during events held across each of UConn’s campuses over the course of the 36-hour Giving Day campaign.
Events in the Neag School’s home Gentry Building in Storrs, including a two-day Think About the Link workshop, a CEPA Speaker Series event featuring Preston Green, and a tabling event in Gentry’s atrium featuring Jonathan the Husky mascot, all brought together students, faculty, and staff in buoying the fundraising effort. With final results calculated, the University-wide campaign has officially broken all previous records for any UConn giving initiative.
Dean Gladis Kersaint, third from right, gathers with (from left) IB/M student Kyre McBroom; Dominique Battle-Lawson, academic advisor; Anne Denerville ’18 (ED), ’19 MA; Danielle DeRosa, program coordinator with Husky Sport; and Mia Hines, academic advisor, to celebrate L.I.D. and Husky Sport’s first-place showing in this year’s Ignite campaign.
Meanwhile, the University’s annual Ignite fundraising campaign, a crowdsourcing campaign that engages students and alumni in raising money specifically for UConn student organizations, was held in tandem with UConn Giving Day. The Ignite campaign’s first-place slot was secured by two Neag School-affiliated student organizations: Husky Sport and Leadership in Diversity (L.I.D.). The combined effort of these two student groups locked in first place for the second year in a row among all Ingite student organization fundraisers University-wide, raising more than $5,000 in donations. Having come in first place, they also will receive an additional $5,000 in matching prize money from UConn.
Editor’s Note: The following article, authored by Neag School alumna Lisbeth Dizney ’99 (ED), ’00 MA, was originally published on LinkedIn.
Opportunities for students to take notice and observe the world around them are essential to the inquiry process. In any investigation, students practice patience while closely observing, collecting and organizing evidence, and synthesizing ideas. Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) has the potential to develop these skills, and can be integrated into almost any content area.
“Scientific inquiry starts with observation. The more one can see, the more one can investigate.”
— Martin Chalfie
My interest in bringing CSI into the classroom began when I took a course during Confratute, a summer institute, at the University of Connecticut. When I returned to school that fall, eager to provide unique experiences for my students, I invited experts in the field into my classroom. Our school resource officer graciously accepted. He not only worked with students in the fall, but made himself available to students and, later in the year, brought in a local CSI team.
Even if you are unable to bring in an expert, you can still integrate CSI in your classroom by creating content related crime scenes. One of scenes I set up in my classroom introduced ocean pollution. Additionally, I have used CSI for units on parallel and perpendicular lines, symmetry, and electricity.
To create the crime scene, I collected nine of the top ten items polluting our oceans and scattered them on the floor.
An just how does CSI meet the learning objectives? Students, during any scenario, assume the roles of crime scene investigators. Their initial observations set inquiry into motion. In the real world, an investigator arrives to and secures the scene. To do this in a classroom, I set up the scene while students are out of the room (at a special, lunch, recess) and block off the area. You can introduce the scene in several ways. You can prep students before they enter, letting them know they will be walking into a mock crime scene. Or you can just let students enter and provide information as needed. Once the scenario is explained, students walk around the crime scene and generate questions and theories based on their initial observations. We come back as a whole group, and, through this collaboration, students discuss those observations.
During the next phase, the students begin to write. They make notes of what could be potential evidence, while being reminded not to disturb the crime scene. Students use words and sketches as they document their findings. Then, we come back as a whole group. And, once again, students share their ideas. Through this dialogue, they may add on to earlier ideas or change their theories completely.
Depending on the amount of time you have, the investigation can end here as was the case with the ocean pollution. However, depending on how much time you have, students can collect and bag evidence, dust for finger prints, and use additional forensic tools. When wrapping up this activity, in the event a students has not determined what has happened, the incident is revealed. Below is the graphic I used to explain the ocean pollution crime scene.
This image was created and distributed by Ocean Conservancy. Cigarettes were not part of the scene.
