Community and Global Engagements

T.S. Weightman Middle School (Dr. Eileen Austin, liaison)

In 1991, Thomas E. Weightman Middle School became USF’s first Professional Development School.  From its inception, the school set apart special USF office space for our faculty use.  Weightman staff members see themselves as active partners with the College of Education

Goals for the partnership include:

• Ongoing partnership to mentor teachers so our students experience positive early field experiences in all secondary program areas.

• Helping to coordinate early field experiences for students in secondary program areas.

• Matching up student interns with cooperative teachers who are positive role models and eager for us to have input from USF program faculty.

• Helping to coordinate with the USF Internship Office to screen and invite students to do their final internship at Weightman.       

• Holding meetings with cooperating teachers in all content areas outside the classroom and with our Weightman interns after school in the USF office space.

• Helping to facilitate the relationship and connect USF faculty who wish to conduct research at the school with the correct administrators and faculty to meet the research need.

• Representing the entire spectrum of graduate (both masters and doctorate) opportunities to Weightman school faculty and other Pasco County staff.

• Inform Weightman faculty of USF research /grant opportunities like Intel Teach to the Future.

Middle School Tutoring Project:

Secondary Education chair, Dr. Stephen Thornton, in collaboration with the College’s Sun Coast Area Teacher Training program, has helped launch a new program for Secondary Education majors. It is a middle-school tutoring project. The idea originated with local philanthropist Olin Mott and funders include the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office. The tutors work with at-risk children in local sites such as Greco Middle School in Temple Terrace. In addition to academic gains, the program is premised on the belief that success in academics can lead children to assuming greater social responsibility. Begun with 3 schools, it is now expanding to 10. It is, for Secondary Education students, a valuable additional opportunity to build their teaching skills as well as support local communities.

Dominican Republic and Haiti Project:

 Through the work of Dr. Barbara Cruz, the Department has been awarded a $340,000 grant by the U.S. Department of State to bring 35 teachers from the Dominican Republic and Haiti next summer.  They will stay on campus for 5 weeks (during summer session B) attending a workshop entitled, Towards Democracy and Diversity: Increasing the Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Skills of Caribbean Social Studies Educators.

The central focus of the workshop will be achieved by reaching the following four goals: (a) enhancement of English language skills; (b) development of teaching skills based on cutting-edge pedagogy; (c) expansion of content-area expertise, with particular focus on how various disciplines (i.e., History, Economics, Political Science, and Anthropology and Geography) produce knowledge about the practice of democracy and diversity in the United States and elsewhere; and (d) development of advocacy and leadership skills that will allow the teachers to form a cadre of educational leaders who will be able to promote educational and social reform in their home countries.

Local teachers will be involved as peer guides and will engage in cross-cultural sharing of curricula and instructional strategies.  At the completion of the on-campus workshop, we will take the teachers on a 3-day field trip to Washington, D.C. where they will have an opportunity to visit American institutions such as the U.S. Congress, the Department of Education, and the U.S. Supreme Court.