Innovator Vol. 38 No. 1 - Fall 07: RE-IMAGINING TEACHER EDUCATION
Return to contents Many a major university was home to a “lab school” during the early twentieth century. Inspired by education philosopher John Dewey, universities built elementary and secondary schools right on their campuses, and used them as sites to educate prospective teachers and local children. Now, at the University of Michigan School of Education, the idea of “educational laboratory” is being revived and retooled for a new time.
In July, a bright yellow Ypsilanti school bus pulled up
to the School of Education, and children streamed out,
eager to participate in the Elementary Mathematics
Laboratory. The lead teacher, Dean Deborah Loewenberg
Ball, engaged the diverse group of 28 fifth graders in
2 ½ hours of stimulating, intensive problem work daily
— under the attentive gaze of adults, who observed
while sitting on nearby risers or watching live video of the
whole event in a classroom nearby. Mathematicians and
mathematics educators came from as far away as India,
California, and Kentucky, to analyze the instructional
moves of a self-described “pedagogical daredevil” and to examine the ways children made sense of complex
mathematical ideas.
Across campus, a second bus unloaded Ypsilanti middle schoolers at the brand new Undergraduate Science Building. For two weeks, these children explored the frontiers of science—with a special focus on nanoscience, the “science of tiny”—guided by doctoral students, medical students, research scientists, and School of Education Associate Dean Joe Krajcik.
“Our students engaged in meaningful and intensive academic exercises that I‘m confident will translate into increased student achievement,” says Ypsilanti Superintendent Jim Hawkins. Unlike typical summer camps, these new opportunities are pioneering “designed settings”—new, carefully conceived and created contexts for learning that can be utilized by multiple constituencies: local children, prospective teachers, practicing teachers, and educators across the nation and around the world.
