Connections Project

The Connections Project at UW-Stevens Point prepares undergraduates for a career in teaching and enriches students across the state. English Education students teach diverse learners— in mostly rural high schools— to better understand literature through a virtual semester-long program for preservice teachers. To be involved, students must be enrolled in English 381- Reading for the English Teacher.

HOW IT WORKS

The UWSP English Education students, in co-teaching pairs, prepare for teaching their virtual mini-classrooms by writing essential questions, crafting learning goals, and choosing texts through a backwards design process. As they interact with their students, they create all the teaching materials, including video lectures, discussion questions, activities, and assessments. Along the way, they give feedback to the high school students on their learning. In addition, the pre-service students visit the high school classrooms both to meet their students, learn about the culture of their students’ communities, and discuss the real work of teaching. The pre-service students work as colleagues with the high school teachers to meet students’ needs and reflect on student work to revise their own teaching plans.

Having made virtual connections for weeks, near the end of the project, the high school students join their UWSP teachers on campus for a day to meet in person as a large group for the first time, celebrate the high school students’ learning, present projects, and further discuss the ideas presented in the texts.

In the UWSP Connections Project you will:

Build relationships between UWSP faculty and secondary teachers,
Gain a snapshot of leading your own class as a professional,
Develop skills writing curriculum and adapting to student needs.

This unique collaborative program at UWSP helps develop strong English teachers capable of meeting the learning needs for all of the secondary English Language Arts students across the state!

“It was really fun to pick out short stories for our students to read and learn how to build different virtual activities and questions for them to do. Assessing them was just cool to see the different ways that they answered and thought about our questions each week.”

Brionna Zygarlicke ’22 English