Many teachers using summer to learn

Many of Arizona's 50,000 teachers have been returning to classes this month better prepared for the coming school year.

Over the summer, they often hear the same wistful comment: It must be great being a teacher and having summers off.

But that's becoming less the case.

With technology revolutionizing classrooms, the state creating new regulations for schools and education generally becoming more complicated, many teachers find they have to work for weeks in the summer just to keep up with changes.

They take college classes, attend workshops or do independent research to stay on top of their subject matter as well as the latest rules on how to deliver that information.

One example of the shifting world teachers must adapt to: Arizona recently updated its standards outlining what children should know about in social studies.

As part of a $1 million federal grant, Mesa Public Schools teachers spent a week in July at the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute in Williamsburg, Va. There they got extensive background in colonial history, from the first English settlement at Jamestown to the American Revolution and surrender of the British at Yorktown.

Terri Welsh, Mesa secondary social-studies specialist, said with the emphasis on state testing on math and English, other subjects such as history can get short shrift.

"Summer internships such as the one in Williamsburg help build background knowledge that teachers may not have gotten in (college)," Welsh said.

The 12 social-studies teachers returned to their schools last week and will share what they learned with other teachers and incorporate it into their lesson plans.

"I don't slow down in the summers," said Stevenson Elementary teacher Jennifer Leonardi. "There's always something to do in the summer."

Not every teacher spends weeks away from home, said John Wright, president of the 34,000-member Arizona Education Association. But most are busy with workshops and short courses ranging from science to writing, from hands-on math to creative discipline.

"Teachers are always taking courses in the summer to grow and to learn," Wright said.

Teachers also have a financial incentive to study in the summer: Earning a graduate degree generally means higher pay and more marketability. And teachers have to take course work every six years to keep their certification.

Mesa Superintendent Mike Cowan, who has worked in the district for more than 20 years starting as a teacher, said the public's expectations of teachers have risen steadily since his career began. Many teachers have little choice but to use the summer break to improve their skills.

Phil Root, who teaches advanced chemistry at Chandler High, spent three weeks this June at Arizona State University, where professors offer science teachers what's called the Modeling Instruction Program. Root learned new ways to teach hands-on science lessons for his advanced students.

"The classroom becomes student-centered rather than teacher-centered lectures," Root said.

Even teachers with up-to-the-minute knowledge of the subjects they cover in class still can learn more about how to incorporate technology, said Mary Jenkins, science curriculum-instruction specialist at Deer Valley Unified School District, which began classes Monday.

She estimates that 85 percent of the district's teachers will do at least some work before school resumes, including the 27 science teachers who learned about the new data-collecting device called LabQuest.

"It's portable and lightweight, so it can be taken outside or used in the lab," Jenkins said. "Every child has experience with technology, and we really want to tap into that and bring it into the science room. There's no doubt that we're asking more and more of teachers."