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Developing teaching skills through community engagement

August 5, 2022 by Savannah A. Keller

Classroom with stuffed animals and a rug.

Community awareness is an essential component of teaching.  

“Teachers are community workers. Effective teaching requires ethical leadership and cultural literacies,” Dr. Jennice McCafferty-Wright said.  

“This is especially true when we engage with the newest members of our community and those who have fled exploited and war-torn homelands.” 

Wright is an assistant professor in the department of childhood education and family studies at Missouri State University. She teaches courses that help students become educators. 

To help her students develop teaching skills and community awareness, Wright incorporated a service-learning practicum into her course, Methods of Teaching Social Studies in Elementary Schools. 

Making a lifelong difference 

The English Language Institute at Missouri State provides free English classes for adult refugees from Afghanistan. While the parents are in class, Wright’s students engage with the parents’ children.  

A few evenings a week, the students provide a safe learning environment for the children to learn through play.  

The students follow the children’s lead. They engage with the children in English to help them learn the language, and express interest in the children’s cultures and home languages, Dari or Pashto.  

The students’ efforts have a profound impact on the children and their families.  

“Some of the mothers of these young children are preliterate. The Taliban did not permit them to learn to read or write in their home languages when they were younger,” Wright said.  

“Now, they live in a country where literacy is an essential requirement for providing for their families. The skills learned in their English classes are essential to their families’ survival in the United States.” 

Molding to the community’s needs 

Through service-learning, the students develop a deeper understanding of their course material.  

Students can connect course topics, such as teaching for global understanding and civic engagement, to their practicum experience.  

By working with children who are refugees, the students learn valuable skills that will help them teach students from all backgrounds.  

“The students practice strategies for working with children who are English Language Learners,” Wright said.  

“They also support the development of vocabulary that will help the children engage with social studies and other school subjects.” 

It is crucial that teacher candidates learn how to adapt their teaching approach to meet their students’ needs, especially those from vulnerable communities.  

“In a perfect world, there would be no need for teachers to know how to support victims of manmade crises,” Wright said.  

“But we must teach both for the world in which we live and the more perfect world our students have the potential to create.”   

Wright plans to incorporate the practicum in future courses to continue serving the community and helping her students become well-rounded educators.  

Learn more about education programs

Filed Under: COE Faculty, Elementary Education Tagged With: childhood education and family studies, college of education, Jennice McCafferty-Wright, service-learning

Building teacher candidates’ cultural understanding

July 28, 2020 by Sydni Moore

Dr. Jennice McCafferty-Wright sits in front of architecture in Morocco.

Missouri State University’s College of Education (COE) teacher candidates will soon connect with peers as far as North Africa through a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. The Virtual Exchange for Teacher Candidates program is made possible by a grant from the Stevens Initiative. 

“The Stevens Initiative is an international effort to build global competence and career readiness skills for young people in the United States and the Middle East and North Africa by growing and enhancing the field of virtual exchange,” a press release states. 

Missouri State is one of only 17 grantees to receive funding for a virtual exchange program. 

Promoting global understanding 

The Virtual Exchange for Teacher Candidates, in cooperation with Moroccan Regional Centers of Education and Formation, will build inclusive teacher education curricula that supports future teachers from Morocco and the United States as they learn with and from each other.  

The program will launch during the fall 2020 semester. The project’s coordinator is Dr. Jennice McCafferty-Wright, an assistant professor in the childhood education and family studies department. 

“The largest component of the project, an eight-week series of student dialogues, will be ready for students in our elementary social studies methods courses in September,” McCafferty-Wright said. “Other components of the exchange, such as an international colloquium series, will be open for the entire COE community. We’ll add more exchange features as the project grows.” 

While traditional, in-person exchange programs have been canceled, programs such as MSU’s will be a sustainable and accessible global learning tool.  

McCafferty-Wright said participating teacher candidates will build critical cultural understanding and literacies, as well as a commitment to global education. The program will help students enter careers with international, professional relationships to create their own virtual exchanges.  

“Teaching requires an understanding of the world. Connecting with teacher candidates in other parts of the world helps us better understand ourselves and our place in the world as educators,” McCafferty-Wright said. “Additionally, students with educators who teach for global understanding are better prepared for critical civic engagement in a diverse democracy.” 

Sharing knowledge 

Created in 2015, the Stevens Initiative is committed to expanding the virtual exchange field through three pillars of work: investing in promising programs, sharing knowledge and resources, and advocating for virtual exchange adoption.  

The Virtual Exchange for Teacher Candidates is supported by the Stevens Initiative, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. Government, and is administered by the Aspen Institute. The Stevens Initiative is also supported by the Bezos Family Foundation and the governments of Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.

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Filed Under: COE Faculty, COE Students Tagged With: COVID-19, exchange program, grant, Jennice McCafferty-Wright, teacher candidates

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