Community Partnerships

Learning science, especially under the rigorous new Next Generation Science Standards, comes with complex linguistic demands for students.

For English language learners (ELLs) and their teachers, those demands can present a barrier to engaging in complex forms of scientific sense-making and decrease students’ future opportunities in STEM disciplines.

For the past several decades, education research typically meant conducting a study, publishing a paper about what the researcher learned and hoping practitioners would actually put it to use in a school or classroom.

Philip Bell is working toward a future where education research and practice is an intertwined, ongoing partnership. Where researchers and teachers work together improve student learning and solve issues as they arise.

In Washington's growing Sumner School District, spring is crunch time for Marc Brouillet.

Sumner's assistant superintendent for human resources is looking to hire approximately 80 teachers to fill its openings for the coming school year while the state contends with a teaching shortage that has put many districts in crisis mode.

What keeps kids strong? How can a sense of brotherhood support young men of color and empower them to thrive? Is it possible to make school bureaucracy a key driver of improved learning?

These and other pressing issues in education were the focus of EDU Talks, a fast-paced series of talks by University of Washington College of Education faculty members working to unlock the potential of all students. Each faculty member had five minutes and one image to explore their current research partnerships with schools, districts, families and community organizations.

As a teacher at a San Francisco preschool, Kathleen Kuhl experienced first-hand the gap between the daily practice of teachers and policies created from afar.

“While teaching I felt that I was experiencing every facet of the field of early childhood education that makes it complicated and profoundly challenging and deeply rewarding,” Kuhl said. “All throughout my time teaching I felt cut off from any sort of policy or leadership decisions, and increasingly confronted with the differing quality of programs for children from different neighborhoods in San Francisco.”

If the students of Chinook Middle School are surprised to see aspiring school leaders gather in the foyer and sit in on their classes they take it in stride. These middle school students are an integral part of a living textbook designed to deepen understanding of instructional leadership and offer authentic practice to the University of Washington’s Danforth Educational Leadership Program cohort.

Nearly 200 educators, community leaders and education advocates joined UW College of Education faculty and students on Dec. 2 to discuss their shared dedication to equity, inclusion and access in schools.

During the College's "Together Undaunted" event at the Northwest African American Museum in Seattle's Central District, community members met new dean Dr. Mia Tuan and learned about the College's focus on building deep, authentic partnerships with schools and communities.

The latest edition of Research That Matters, "Passion & Promise," explores how the UW College of Education is approaching the biggest challenges in education with a spirit of possibility. The following story about the College's Partnership for Science & Engineering Practices with the Seattle and Renton school districts also appears in the online version of the magazine.

On a Thursday morning last July, young campers tramped up the bluff and down to the beach at Discovery Park. On the way, three boys, aged ten to twelve, pretended to be different parts of the ecosystem around them.

“I’m a sword fern,” said one.
“I’m a crabapple tree!”
“I’m a big leaf maple.”
“I’m a magical dolphin and a big leaf maple!” They broke into giggles, then started imagining environmental challenges for one another until they got to the beach.

The latest edition of Research That Matters, "Passion & Promise," explores how the UW College of Education is approaching the biggest challenges in education with a spirit of possibility. The following story about the College's research examining resiliency and African American girls in the foster system also appears in the online version of the magazine.