Holmdel schools partner with Monmouth University

HOLMDEL — The Holmdel Township Public School District has established a collaborative partnership with Monmouth University of West Long Branch, a relationship that aims to improve student achievement.

In June, the district agreed to become a university-school partnership site with Monmouth to provide field experiences for students and ongoing professional development for teachers and administrators, at no cost to the district.

“We are very grateful for the support of Monmouth University,” said Assistant Superintendent Mary Beth Currie at the Holmdel Board of Education meeting on Sept. 15. “Our new partnership with the university demonstrates the value of community collaboration.”

School administrators held their first retreat with university officials on Aug. 17-18, during which new teaching methods and technology initiatives were outlined.

As part of one of the first partnership efforts with the university, Monmouth professor Dr. Joseph Corriero reviewed an educational process called Understanding by Design (UbD) from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) with district administrators, a framework for designing curriculum, assessments and instruction.

“What we do in academics is we look at what is the assessment, what are the demonstrations of learning and what are the steps that get to that,” Currie said during an interview after the meeting.

Under the guidance of Assistant Principal Dionne Ledford at Village School and Assistant Principal Donato Sappanaro at Indian Hill School, district administrators discussed an educational reform research report called “Changing the Odds,” published by Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL).

The five touchstones of the McREL learning method include: guaranteeing challenging, engaging, and intentional instruction; ensuring curricular pathways to success; providing whole-child student supports; creating high-performance school cultures; and developing data-driven, high-reliability district systems.

“We were looking at those five key areas and connecting them to Understanding by Design and how those make a difference in student achievement,” Currie said. “We want to look closely for those items while we are observing in the classroom.”

Based on this information, school officials connected the Understanding by Design framework and the analysis presented in the “Changing the Odds” research report to address the role that faculty members face every day: teaching the students.

According to the McREL report, public school teachers must foster engaging learning environments and meaningful relationships with students, as well as matching instructional methods to individual learning goals.

The report notes that school administrators must address the deep causes of student performance, including home environment, prior knowledge, interest and motivation.

“This is an area of continued professional development in American education, and Holmdel strives to use the best research to inform that process,” Currie said at the meeting.

The research also encourages students to be lifelong learners by setting high expectations and challenging curriculum.

“I don’t think it [learning] is just about test scores,” said board member Phyllis Pascucci in an interview after the meeting. “It [the program] is about applying it, growth and knowledge. It’s not just about reiterating the facts or regurgitating what you learned in the textbooks. It is about so much more, and I think it’s about time that states come around to this.”