Major: Educational Studies<\/p>\n
CLI Courses:<\/p>\n
CLIC400: Community Learning Research Fellows Colloquium<\/p>\n
EDUC305: Immigrants and Education<\/p>\n
I enrolled in the CLI Research Colloquium during the fall of 2015 to supplement my senior research project in educational studies.<\/p>\n
I was attracted to the colloquium particularly because of the feedback from professors and fellow peers I knew I would be able to receive. As as senior educational studies major completing a research project, I wanted to produce my best possible work. Meeting with professors and other students also conducting research helped me improve my own research design, particularly because I was able to interact with people outside of my own major.<\/p>\n
While enrolled in the colloquium, I conducted a senior research project on local teachers\u2019 use of the Common Core State Standards in a Hartford Public School. The Common Core State Standards are a set of academic benchmarks in English Language Arts and Math that Connecticut schools began using a few years ago. In order to understand how Hartford teachers were using the standards on a daily basis, I volunteered as a classroom assistant in a Hartford public school and interviewed a variety of teachers. Throughout the course of the semester, I visited the school three times per week to observe classes, provide instructional support, and interview teachers about their use of the Common Core.<\/p>\n
The results of my project ultimately showed that while the Common Core State Standards may be a uniform set of academic benchmarks, the Hartford teachers I worked with took a very active approach to interpreting these standards. I saw\u00a0these educators revise and refine their teaching methods in order to use the standards as a tool for teaching important life skills. For example, the teachers I spoke with chose to view\u00a0student academic struggle as an opportunity for growth, and by adopting this mindset, they were able to use\u00a0the Common Core to teach ambition, self-sufficiency, and resiliency. Additionally, I saw\u00a0a greater shift in controversy that has taken place since the initial release of the Common Core. While many people still remain critical of the policy today, it was surprising to see that the teachers involved in my study generally accepted key elements of the standards that were once highly controversial.<\/p>\n
My senior thesis investigated teacher use of the Common Core State Standards in a local Hartford public school. My study sought to understand\u00a0how a group of educators interpret and act on the Common Core State Standards and in what ways these educators use creative teaching strategies to move beyond the expectations of the Common Core. My thesis was directly\u00a0connected to my engagement with the Hartford community, because I could have never answered my\u00a0research question without the help and input of local Hartford teachers.\u00a0Their\u00a0willingness to welcome me into their school allowed me to deepen my understanding of this educational policy in a way that would have never been possible if I had simply read secondhand accounts or studies on this topic.<\/p>\n
I would push other students interested in a CLI course to really develop a relationship with their community partner. The teachers I worked with were an incredible asset to me throughout my research experience, so I would encourage other students to view their partner within the Hartford community in this same light.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elaina Rollins Major: Educational Studies CLI Courses: CLIC400: Community Learning Research Fellows Colloquium EDUC305: Immigrants and Education Tell us a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2096,"featured_media":342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2096"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":386,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions\/386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}