SECTION II: Narrative Information

2. What aspects of your program do you think are most successful (have the greatest impact)? Why?

Student Services

Significant numbers of students are benefiting academically and personally from the individualized attention provided by college student tutors and mentors. By matching high school and middle school students in relationship with young adults who are successful academically, the students are able to make stronger connections between their own education and the world of work. In addition, many of the young adults are members of the same ethnicity and culture as the students, thereby deepening students’ belief that they can also be successful. Many of the tutoring programs offered in the networks now reflect these beliefs. Tutoring in the different networks include tutors who are alumni of the different high schools, those who participate as a part of their work-study program or as a requirement of their service learning commitment at universities which are geographically close to elementary school; and tutors who are volunteers from the surrounding neighborhood. Our tutors act as models of success for our students.

The summer programming options offered through GEAR UP also contribute to enriching the educational experiences of the students who participate. Working in small groups with parents, college tutors, artists and teachers on inquiry-based projects has aided in raising students’ educational aspirations. Networks often host a small summer experience for their incoming 7th and 8th graders that engage them in math, reading, technology and the arts in courses that the students find interesting and that would not be offered at their elementary schools. STEP UP, a Chicago Public Schools program for incoming 9th graders that grew out of GEAR UP’s B.L.A.S.T. program (2002), is often supported by each of the networks with the addition of tutors, fieldtrips, incentives, attendance monitoring, and a lower ratio of students to mentors. B.L.A.S.T. II, offered to 9th-11th graders, challenges students in the core subjects by enriching the instruction and infusing college readiness (researching of colleges and universities, essay writing and filling out of applications and FAFSA). Now in their 5th year, Saturday Schools are programs that allow 8th graders to earn high school credit and ease their transition into 9th grade. In the Saturday School held at Wells High School, more than 25% of 8th grade GEAR UP students from the West Town Learning Network earned credit over the past two years, with a total of 750 students earning credit since the program’s inception.

Educational field trips that include college tours and visits to cultural institutions are highly favored by students (and their families) and expand their sense of possibilities. Their growing knowledge of what “college” means and their level of comfort in areas of the city outside their own neighborhoods, combined with exposure to people of different cultures and backgrounds, are important experiences that will help ease their transition to postsecondary education. College tours taken by 7th and 8th grades, such as one taken to DePaul University, featured the men’s and women’s basketball coach who inspired the students to “seek the support you need to succeed.” Students received a tour of the campus, freshman dorms, and the campus library. These tours are important because they begin to change students’ perceptions of post-secondary education; students begin to realize that it is accessible.

Experiential education via cooperative games and team building continue to strengthen students’ ability to problem solve, develop leadership and demonstrate the various ways in which they have the capacity to achieve success.

Scholarshop Jr. and Scholarshop provide schools with a comprehensive, flexible curriculum that gives students information regarding careers and post-secondary educational opportunities. The curriculum is project-based and student-centered. The goals of the program are for students to achieve greater self-awareness to develop an understanding of career options, and to increase the ability to set goals for the future. It shows the relevance of school to students’ futures and promotes academic achievement while enhancing student self-awareness and sense of self-worth.

Professional Development

Professional development to increase student achievement has focused on improving instruction, increasing teacher content knowledge, and supporting teacher leadership in disseminating new ideas and curricula to colleagues. GEAR UP professional development facilitates change by providing teachers with access to innovative and interactive experiences that stem from research-based practices. Key activities we have found to be successful in providing teachers with high quality professional development and leadership opportunities include the Inquiry and Design Institute, Inquiry Based Seminars, Endorsement Courses, Teacher Leadership Conference and the Young Adult Literature Conference. These activities are supplemented and supported by professional development experiences offered at an individual school, i.e. meetings or workshops, as well as outside of the school building, i.e. conferences or classes. Most professional development experiences include follow up support and opportunities to pilot curricula to better impact professional growth and build capacity.

Follow up support consists of an in-class “coach” who assists the teacher in planning and/or implementing the new instructional strategy or method. Coaches and teachers form partnerships to best support the teacher. Coaches plan and model strategies or simply co-present with the teacher. Weekly meetings or monthly one on one “check-ins” further the professional dialogue to meet teacher needs and growth.

Opportunities to pilot new curricula and strategies in settings supported by the GEAR UP staff and consultants include Summer Academies, After-School and/or Saturday School programs and/or classroom collaboration and coaching by GEAR UP staff, artists and consultants. This process facilitates the transfer of new ideas to the regular classroom setting by allowing teachers greater freedom to take risks in restructuring their classrooms to be more inquiry-based and learner-centered. The cycle is complete as teachers are supported in sharing their curricular units and new strategies with colleagues in the Teacher Leadership Conference and take on leadership or instructional roles in the professional development activities from which they started. For example, teachers return to the Young Adult Literature Conference and the Inquiry and Design Institute to share best practices and curricula developed as a result of their past participation and continued support.

New teachers are mentored and supported in GEAR UP schools in a variety of ways, including DePaul’s New Teacher Network, in which new teachers meet bi-monthly in sessions facilitated by the University of Chicago’s Center for School Improvement.
Our ‘network of networks’ model draws upon the variety of expertise and programming of our four universities to support all the schools in GEAR UP. Advanced placement training and math/science professional development for teachers offered through Loyola University, a variety of programs in literacy, arts integration and inquiry-based instruction through Northeastern Illinois University and support for National Board certification offered through Roosevelt University are just some examples of the various activities sponsored over the 6 years of the project.

Providing shared learning experiences between parents and teachers contributes to positive change by fostering mutual respect and increasing communication between home and school. Teachers and parents participate together in selected activities, both teacher and parent based. For example, the Inquiry and Design Institute curricular design teams include parents and teachers developing curriculum together to pilot in summer academies or after-school settings. Parents lead workshops and also attend the annual Teacher Leadership Conference, and parents and teachers participate together with students in the VOCES Conference on Spanish language and Latino literature. Literacy Links and Parent Ambassadors are programs that bring teacher and parent teams together to do home visits centered on family literacy activities. Several parent book clubs have elected to study novels that are also the focus of new curriculum being developed by teachers with culminating activities directly connecting parents and teachers in joint work. The resulting conversations and collaborations have been so successful that some teachers are asking to join the parent book clubs.

Increasing teachers’ abilities to reach all learners regardless of learning style or ability through differentiated instruction has been prominent in some networks. Northeastern’s Chicago Teachers’ Center is highly respected for its approach to professional development in differentiated instruction. Some schools within GEAR UP have requested extended work in this area through other funding sources allowing for a full complement of professional development services to be provided and integrated with one another in a seamless manner. For example, CTC specialists working with two schools to support differentiated instruction is also supporting these schools in the development of inquiry based, arts integrated units using young adult literature and adventure education strategies. GEAR UP teachers at Moses Vines high School (one of the small schools within the Orr Multiplex) followed up after a workshop on classroom management by forming a professional book club, selecting Goldman’s Emotional Intelligence as its first book. Our ability to combine multiple approaches in a coherent manner alleviates some of the barriers that arise when professional development is disconnected.

Parent Programming

The Chicago GEAR UP Alliance program has been increasing student achievement through active parent involvement since its inception. Parent involvement is pivotal to a student's academic success as parents are their children's first teachers and they are integral to their children's academic and social progress. Because the Chicago GEAR UP Alliance purposely sought out parents to participate in its programs, the Alliance has had great success working with parents and providing them with an array of workshops, classes, and other avenues of leadership within their children's schools.

The Alliance acknowledges that it is a slow process of building trust and establishing confidence within parent communities especially in the high school setting as high school students, in general, don’t want their parents at school. Other factors which hinder successful parent involvement include very busy work schedules, little or no ability to communicate in English, parents’ own negative school experiences, other child care and familial obligations, and little or no formal education in the home country. Despite these hindrances, the Chicago GEAR UP Alliance has been successful in engaging parents very actively in its programs.

In our program, parents are leaders in their schools, host television talk shows about helping children reach their academic goals, and work as paid parent advocates for the GEAR UP Program. Through a thorough needs assessment process, the parent program staff sponsors workshops about college readiness and overcoming barriers to college attendance within the African American and Latino populations. Because we have given parents a role and asked them to tell us how to reach other parents, we have had a great impact. In May of 2004, the Annual Parent Leadership Conference took place at NEIU and over 370 parents from network schools were in attendance. The Alliance doesn't just hold an event for parents and expect them to show up; rather, the parent advocates advise our coordinators about needs, issues, and barriers to attendance, and the staff responds accordingly. We work continuously to improve upon our parent program model because there are always more GEAR UP parents who can be reached.

The GEAR UP parent program has built a solid foundation where parents can learn about college opportunities for their children while pursuing their own lifelong learning at the same time. The Alliance employs staff that has expertise in working with adult learners and this is critical to working successfully with parents. The GEAR UP Alliance holds workshops and classes including: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, Adolescent Development, Behavior Management, True Colors, Team Building, ESL, GED, and Computer Literacy classes (parents receive a refurbished computer if they attend all sessions). In addition, we host family nights that focus on arts or legal issues, provide college tours, sponsor workshops on the Transition to High School, Understanding GPAs, and Financial Aid where parents and children receive help filling out the FAFSA form.

Book Clubs, connected to special events, continue to involve more and more parents in family reading initiatives. This year, parents read several books written by Victor Villaseñor, and they were able to converse personally with the author when he visited Chicago. Parents in West Town were so inspired by the book, Rain of Gold, that they and their children acted out parts from the book at the VOCES conference in the fall of 2004. The three doctors who wrote The Pact, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt, and Sampson, presented to a group of 1,495 GEAR UP students and parents at an event in December, 2004 at Chicago’s Navy Pier. Parents and children alike were very inspired by the doctors’ life stories about overcoming the odds in a poor, violent, urban neighborhood, and achieving academic success. The doctors inspired many to believe that all dreams are possible. Parents and children also read Inner City Miracle, by Judge Greg Mathis, and Judge Mathis presented an upbeat keynote address to parents and children in April of 2005 in which he exhorted all to use their talents wisely, and that failure for GEAR UP students was not an option.

Other best practices include the Third Thursday Initiative, which continues in the Woodlawn Network where parents and students attend panel discussions with local college youth who share their stories of getting into and staying in college. Parent to Parent, the cable television show where parents share ideas with other parents continues to be a vehicle to inform parents about college readiness. The GEAR UP GUTS Network has sponsored a Walk for Success, in which parents, along with students and staff, visit high school seniors in their homes and discuss college options with the family. All of these events have help make the GEAR UP message real and provided parents the support they need to make their children’s academic aspirations a reality.

Back