The teacher shortage is urgent, especially in urban schools. When school started this year, more than 200 Milwaukee Public Schools didn’t have licensed teachers.
That’s why the project Angel Hessel, distinguished lecturer, and Liz Daniel, teaching faculty, are working on in an effort to retain students in the elementary and middle education programs. While “one program can’t solve all the problems,” said Hessel it’s vital to keep trying. Over her years of teaching, she’s had students tell her about a teacher that literally saved their life.”
In the fall of 22, said Daniel, the Elementary Middle Education (EME) program saw a 30% decrease. Daniel asked, “Why did the program experience this decrease in teacher candidates?” The data and her question laid the foundation for the goals of the grant.
To address the issue, the two faculty members selected student leaders from the program’s classes and recent graduates to help work on issues. The group met Saturdays, Sundays and some weekday evenings to address areas of strength and brainstorm specific changes to increase retention in the EME program. Hessel and Daniel shared the feedback at monthly EME program meetings.
The students chose the acronym RISE (Retaining and Inspiring Student Educators) for their group.
“We wanted students in each class who were leaders and would be honest,” said Daniel. The project leaders also wanted to give students a voice as well as developing leadership skills.
Current EME students were provided with teaching resources that were intentionally selected to exemplify their current methods courses. One practicing teacher in the group, who like many teachers faced supply shortages in his classroom, used his grant funds to purchase 200 pencils.
“We learned a lot about what inspires students,” said Hessel.
Students shared feedback about being in the field all day, and then going to a lengthy seminar class, creating a 14-hour day. As a result of this feedback, Daniel took the lead in making a schedule change to fix this issue.
Another idea that has come out of the project was creating a new teacher network to support those in their first years of teaching. They’ve had teachers tell them, said Hessel, “I’m in my second year of teaching and I’m ready to quit.”
Students who are part of the grant are working on developing videos to support students throughout the EME program. The goal is to share the video tutorials in courses and feature them on the EME website. The RISE group is also working on planning a retention event for all current EME students on Dec. 10.