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This project proposes to disseminate a previous FIPSE project in which faculty from the College of Staten Island’s Discovery Center worked with high school teachers to develop integrated, discovery-based sets of curricular activities designed to help average students graduate with an academic diploma without need for remediation in college. The project succeeded in developing a preventative solution to the huge remediation problem faced by open-admissions colleges. Project Discovery students graduated in the academic track at more than five times the rate of a control group.
Evaluations indicated that while development of discovery activities and of themes cutting across disciplinary lines heightened student interest and achievement, the program succeeded mostly because teachers were encouraged to develop their own personal approaches to the required curriculum. Their resulting enthusiasm and sense of empowerment were deemed to be the critical factors.
The dissemination plan for this project was originally to work with three additional colleges and their affiliated high school teacher teams. The colleges were selected to represent varied socio-economic and learning environments: suburban, high risk, and urban in another state. This offered the prospect of testing the Project Discovery model in a much wider context. However, due to a confluence of circumstances, the original plan has been substantially modified. Despite concerted efforts over the project’s first two years, none of the three colleges that had originally agreed to participate was able to contribute significant effort to its implementation. The reasons varied from changes in the original personnel to the press of other obligations.
In the meantime, a new opportunity for dissemination developed during the project’s second year, and this was seized upon. This was a new project (College Now) within the City University of New York, of which the College of Staten Island is a part, to work with local high schools to help improve academic achievement and eliminate the need for remediation when students enter college. Since this was exactly the thrust of the original Project Discovery, the dissemination program was re-directed during the past year to include 12 local high schools. In addition, it has been proposed as a model for the College Now program throughout the University, and during the coming year dissemination of the Project Discovery approach will take place in a number of other City University colleges.
ONLINE REFERENCE:
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Leonard Ciaccio
Project Director
College of Staten Island
Discovery Center
1A-211
2800 Victory Blvd
Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel: 718-982-2325
Fax: 718-982-2327
James Sanders
College of Staten Island
Discovery Center
1A-211
2800 Victory Blvd
Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel: 718-982-2325
Fax: 718-982-2327
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