The Neag School of Education is continuing initiatives designed to combat Connecticut’s teacher shortage, reduce bias and provide coping strategies for children.
The Neag school restructured their Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates (TCPCG) to reduce costs and the program length. The “Breaking Bias and Creating Community” project used virtual reality and videos of Holocaust survivor testimony to bring Holocaust education to the local E.O. Smith High School. Preschool and elementary school students continue to use the “Feel Your Best Self” project to access coping strategies.
The TCPCG, which offers master’s degrees in teaching for college graduates who decide to become teachers later in life, was recently restructured. The program previously consisted of four semesters, including two semesters in the summer term. After removing a second summer semester, coursework was shortened to 10 months and costs were reduced by almost $10,000.
“Some of [the reason for the change] was in response to the cost,” said program director Tracy Sinclair. “UConn was the most expensive master’s certification program in the state for a public institution. And we also wanted to look at streamlining the courses. The restructure has moved from two semesters in the summer to one semester.”
Cutting costs from almost $40,000 was designed to make it more feasible for college graduates to become teachers.
“There’s been an increase in the number of teacher shortages,” said Sinclair. “Not as many people are going into educator prep programs to become teachers to fill those vacancies.”
UConn professor Alan Marcus led the “Breaking Bias and Creating Community” project to bring Holocaust education to the local E.O. Smith High School. The project, which featured a virtual reality tour of the Auschwitz concentration camp and conversations through recorded videos with Holocaust survivors, had the goal of creating empathy in school and in the community.
“One of the things that this does that doesn’t happen in a lot of schools is making connections to today,” said Marcus. “Today students will talk about their own identities and how their identities shape their experiences in the world.”
Marcus also discussed the technological component of the project. The conversations with Holocaust survivors were not live, but the Shoah Foundation has about eight survivors people can talk to in an interactive format. The Shoah Foundation has also recorded over 57,000 video testimonies.
“One of the most important parts, in my view, of Holocaust education has been the ability of survivors to tell their stories,” said Marcus. He stated that the Shoah Foundation was also filming survivors of other genocides. “Potentially in a hundred years, you might have thousands of people you could talk to who lived over the previous hundred years from all walks of life.”
Common Circles ran a similar project in White Plains, New York public schools during the 2022-23 school year. It did not have the virtual reality component but included conversations with Holocaust survivors. Marcus said that Neag was in discussion with several Connecticut schools about expanding the program.
“Feel Your Best Self” is a free online toolkit featuring coping strategies to help children deal with challenging emotions.
“Our team at UConn has worked to develop this evidence-informed toolkit in collaboration with educators (e.g., teachers, school-based mental health professionals), family caregivers, and community partners,” said implementation coordinator Molly Ferreira in an email.
Ferreira said that, while it was difficult to track usage, Neag has collaborated with many schools, including Tolland Intermediate School, Windham Public Schools, West Hartford Public Schools, Waterbury Public Schools, East Hartford Public Schools and Natchaug School to implement the program.
“Most recently, we collaborated with a school counselor from Alabama whose school has been using FYBS for the past year. She reported to us that students are using the FYBS strategies in both the classroom and at home,” said Ferreira. “It really goes to show that these strategies are being used universally and children are responding well to them.”
Correction: This article was updated on Aug. 31, 2024 to correct the number of survivors the Shoah Foundation has recorded.