Team Ed Maxa, State 4-H Office; Robbie Furr, Rowan; Danelle Barco,
Tyrrell; Suzanne Rhinehart, Alexander; Iris Fuller, Orange; Janine Rywak, Anson;
April Bowman, Stokes; Jackie Helton, Forsyth; Danny Butler, Martin; Tracy
Carter, Davie; Tammy Elliott, Lenoir; Lesa Walton, Edgecombe; Rebecca Liverman,
Washington
Objective
10 School based youth educators and administrators will be actively
engaged in the design, delivery and revisions of programs, which enrich
school-based curriculum design and delivery; resulting in improved academic
performance.
Program Description School based services apply mainly to those
programs classified as school enrichment. School enrichment, offers to the
classroom teacher an alternative mechanism for addressing the various
competencies that are part of the National Science Content Standards and
Standard Course of Study for NC at specific grade levels. This delivery strategy
involves at least six hours a classroom instruction by the teacher who has been
trained by the Extension 4-H agent/specialist. The program implementation
strategy is county determined but should be both effective and efficient.
Curriculums used in sanctioned school enrichment programs have passed the
national jury process and therefore adhere to rigorous 14-point criteria.
Situations Statement School enrichment has been a successful 4-H
delivery mode since 1987 and reaches approximately 80 to 90,000 students each
year. In implementing successful school enrichment program the agent must first
secure permission from the responsible authority within the public school
system. This person will vary depending upon County; some possible positions
include superintendent, principal, the lead science teacher, grade level
teacher, or the classroom teacher themselves. It is most important to ensure
that the program replace standard course of study objectives that the teacher
has to teach as opposed to giving the teacher something additional to do. Often
times, teachers are placed in the position of having to make a choice between
teaching for the test and teaching for learning. These teachers often find
themselves pressed into lecturing as opposed to offering the learning in an
experiential manner.
Teacher’s will attend subject matter specific training in the Embryology
school enrichment programs. The subject matter specialists, the curriculum
specialists, or a trained agent shall conduct this training. The training length
will vary but should be at least two hours. Because this training will be
experiential, the teacher will learn best management practices for implementing
the curriculum.
Research According to a national school enrichment survey done by
Diem (2000) the following was found in a study of all 50 states with 873
respondents.
Topics offered were based on school personnel request (33 %), interests or
expertise of staff/volunteers (as 25%), standards (16%), and other (26%)
Method of delivery-
school personnel trained by extension (27%)
trained by extension with additional materials by teachers (18%)
