UCSC Review Summer 1996

Joining forces to strengthen K-12

One of the richest areas of research collaboration at UCSC is the work being done with K-12 schools. More than 85 partnerships exist between UCSC and public schools, including 23 projects in math and science. Teaming up with schools marks a departure from the "old days" of educational research in which university researchers critiqued schools from their offices in the ivory tower, explains associate professor of education Trish Stoddart.

That approach used laboratory models of classrooms to study student-teacher interactions, but labs fail to capture some important aspects of the classroom, and teachers rightly felt mistreated by a process that relegated them to the sidelines, says Stoddart.

"Now we do most of our research at the school site," says Stoddart. "We're doing it in real classrooms, and we do it in partnership with expert practitioners--the teachers."

Because teachers are involved from the beginning, they are more receptive to the research recommendations. "We've learned that you can't reform education from the top down," she says.

One of many faculty involved with K-12 collaborations, Stoddart is coordinating several ambitious partnerships with public schools, including the Language Acquisition in Science Education in Rural Schools, or LASERS, project. That five-year, $4.4 million project with the UCSC-based Life Lab Science Program will reach out to bilingual students in grades K-6 to improve science education in three rural counties of central California.

Stoddart is also the lead researcher on a project in which UCSC is helping K-12 teachers develop instructional strategies to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse student populations.

UCSC is also evaluating new methods of teaching being used with sophisticated computer technology in six public schools in Monterey. The computers allow students to take "electronic field trips" by providing on-line access to resources and information beyond their reach, including real-time images gathered from the depths of Monterey Bay.

To encourage collaborations among UCSC and other educational entities in the Monterey Bay Area, Chancellor Karl Pister hired education specialist Carrol Moran to coordinate the Monterey Bay Educational Consortium, a group established in 1994. "The university must be an active partner in education at all levels, and we must share our resources with K-12 education," says Pister.

--Jennifer McNulty