Promising Practices Letter

                                                                                                                              November 3, 2014

Dear Elizabeth Ochs,

Thank you for your Expanded Learning Opportunities presentation during the Promising Practices conferences at RIC. It was great to learn more about the different ELO’s at Central Falls High School and how they allow students to get involved with their community while working with teacher mentors and earning credits and community service hours. It was especially enjoyable to learn about the School/Community Emergency Response Team and Community Garden first hand and how they provide students with after school enrichment and learning opportunities. I really enjoyed the presentation on robotics from the former CF High student and community hero who saved a child’s life using his training from the SCERT ELO.  He is a prime example of how these ELO’s work.

            I found that this session connected to the ideas discussed by Dr. Christopher Emdin and promising practices theme of how there are necessary changes that need to be made in education. These ELO’s are a form of alternative learning that get student out of the classroom and allow them to learn from things that they are interested and passionate about. I also feel that it relates to a common theme that keeps coming up whether it is in Dr. Emdin’s address or my SED 407 class. That common theme is taking risks. I’ve learned that in education taking risks is necessary to facilitate change. Through taking risks you may fail but you learn from these failures and move on. I believe that these ELO’s are a way for both teachers and students to take educational risks and try new things. That is why this session stuck out for me.

            This session has me thinking about changes that must be made in education and how we must try to transform our classrooms from “traditional” classrooms to classrooms that use new and exciting methods of learning. Do you think it might be possible for any of these ELO’s to be offered as a class during the school day for students? Do you think it should be a mandatory requirement for graduation that all students participate in an ELO so that they gain real world experience and skills? I personally think that perhaps there should be some kind of class that students are required to take during their high school career that is done during the school day and requires students to do ELO like activities that they are interested in. I also think that it might be beneficial for students to be required to join an ELO for at least one year of their high school career. Overall this session was incredibly valuable to me as a future educator and I learned a great amount from it.

Sincerely,

Jennifer McGill