July 6, 2005
Dramatic Gains in 3rd Grade Students’ FCAT Scores in Reading and Mathematics
Results show University of Miami and Dade County Public School Research Partnership works
Coral Gables, FL – New learning tools have changed how 45 Miami-Dade County teachers teach science and engage their more than 1,100 third graders. P-SELL, Promoting Science among English Language Learners within a High-Stakes Testing Environment, is a research and development partnership between the University of Miami (UM) School of Education and the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) which helps teachers to more effectively teach science and incorporate science into the curriculum. Within its first year, these new learning tools have paid off in higher FCAT scores in reading and math.
Third graders in P-SELL classrooms are doing science experiments, sharing ideas, debating and challenging ideas, working on group science activities, and applying what they learn through the science curriculum provided by P-SELL. Furthermore, teachers incorporate mathematics, reading, and language arts into the science lessons to prepare students for FCAT. From third to fifth grades, P-SELL program includes teacher guides and student booklets for all science topics tested by FCAT Science. P-SELL program also provides teacher workshops and all the supplies necessary to effectively teach and engage students in these subjects.
In only one year, all seven P-SELL schools demonstrated dramatic gains in their FCAT scores. P-SELL schools gained 20 points in math compared to only 4 points in comparison schools; reading scores jumped 8 points in P-SELL schools compared to only 3 in comparison schools. These gains will greatly improve classroom overcrowding due to lower retention rates of students.
“Our science curriculum reinforces what is taught in other subjects, including mathematics, reading, language arts, and English as a second language,” says Okhee Lee, UM School of Education professor. “Through our professional development focusing on student reasoning, we are changing how these teachers think about their practice and how they teach and assess science. This results in both better student comprehension of science and higher student performance on all of subjects tested in the Florida’s high-stakes testing environment.”
“This is a wonderful opportunity for Miami Dade County public schools to be involved in education research,” says Kathryn Carr-LeRoy, Executive Director of the M-DCPS Division of Mathematics and Science Education. “It is great for teachers to be part of this project that can improve classroom practice and impact student achievement. We hope the project will benefit Miami-Dade students in the future."
In the past, elementary school teachers often did not know how to engage students with science within a school day that was already crowded by a single-minded focus on reading and mathematics. Many teachers would sacrifice student understanding just to cover the material or simply not teach science since it is not included until the fifth grade. Fifth-grade teachers and students are then overwhelmed by doing in one year what should have been done over several years of consistent instruction. Teachers and school administrators were the first to attribute their students’ higher than expected academic achievements to P-SELL.
P-SELL students are not just any South Florida third graders. All schools selected were traditional C and D schools, that enroll large numbers of children who qualify for free and reduced lunch and who are English language learners speaking Spanish or Haitian-Creole at home. These schools are under pressure to improve students’ academic performance. Because of the unique nature of the P-SELL student population, additional approaches are being developed to teach science in a way that helps students improve their mastery of English speaking and listening, reading and writing. New efforts will include special attention to helping students apply critical language and mathematics skills in science and to helping teachers ensure that students develop and apply those skills as necessary.
Over the next five years, P-SELL will involve over 300 teachers across third through fifth grades and over 7,000 students, all drawn from 12 to 15 M-DCPS schools.
P-SELL is funded by the National Science Foundation.
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Media Contact:
Annie Reisewitz
a.reisewitz@miami.edu
305-284-1601
