Community and the

Classroom
By: Marco Gamboa
Standards

Standards Addressed

Teacher Leader Standards - Domain 6 - Improves Outreach and Collaboration with Families and Community

e) Collaborates with families, communities, and colleagues to develop comprehensive strategies to address the diverse
educational needs of families and the community.

National Board of Professional Teaching Standards - Proposition 5: Teachers are Members of Professional Communities

1. Teachers Collaborate with Other Professionals to Improve School Effectiveness

3. Teachers Work Collaboratively with the Community

Standards

California Standards for the Teaching Profession

​Standard 1 CSTP: Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning

1.3 Connecting subject matter to meaningful, real-life contexts

Standard 6 CSTP 6: Developing as a Professional Educator

​6.5 Engaging local communities in support of the instructional program

How can we connect students with content?

As educators, our goal is to inspire students to new heights. But this lofty goal is
easier said than done. While we work hard on lessons to draw in student’s to the
content, sometimes we may need an extra hand to achieve this. Studies have
shown that relevancy can be a powerful teaching tool and that it can show real
world application an academic and emotional level (Bernard). Can you all
discuss and share some of your own strategies to address this issue?
Discuss

Take five minutes to discuss among yourselves...

A Solution, Community Involvement

How many times have we heard this from students, “Why am I learning this?” It
is becoming clear that community outreach is something that can be highly
effective in incorporating relevancy in the classroom and challenging that
phrase. My project proposition is how important community outreach is and
how community involvement can help create or more dynamic educational
environment.
The Purpose

Why community involvement? Simple, students need to see what they are
learning has relevance and outside purpose. What better way to do this than
actually having someone involved in that field of study addressing the
classroom. A lesson or lab can be great, but for students to actually interact
with someone directly involved in something they are learning about can be an
empowering experience. The subject is no longer abstract, but in reality the
concepts come to life.
Benefits of Outreach in the Classroom

Guest speakers expose students to real world experience that is connected to

their area of study especially in Science and Mathematics, this is key. (Cox)

Students see a REASON to do a project, it no longer not just an assigned task for
a grade (Simkins)

Studies have shown that through real-world applications students can learn
effortlessly and make classroom connections to the real-world (Ruddy)
Outreach Sources

Some areas may not have obvious sources of STEM careers at their disposal,
teachers and schools need to realize that their local communities are full of
educational sources. Community resources like the fire department, police, and
local utilities all have STEM related connections (Cox). Fire control and ecology
have a direct relationship that can be reinforced with inviting someone from the
Fire Department.
Sources of Community Outreach

Local: Fire Department, Police, Utilities, Local Businesses, and Educational

Institutions.

Personal: Ask family, friends, and colleagues for ideas for subject specific
speakers. You will be surprised what options are right in front of you.
Communicate and ask!
Sources of Online Outreach

Online: The internet is an easy place to find collaborations with various

professionals or even other teachers from around the country or abroad. Both
these sites allow for teachers to make connections
https://www.skypeascientist.com/

https://cilc.org/Home.aspx

http://tcge.ca/
Thank You

Thank you for your attention and I hope you consider having a guest speaker or
reach out for line for an interactive collaboration. We will be having a guest
speaker on April 4 in Ms. Fyvie’s Physical Science class so please make it if youc
can!
Project in Action

The next slides were not presented during my presentation to my colleagues.

The next slides are to reflect the results of the project as well as improvements I
can make to it.
Guest Speaker

The guest speaker was actually my mentor’s husband, who is an audio engineer.
His experience with audio engineer made him a great source to expand the
importance and function of waves in audio engineering as well as the role of
electromagnetism in recording and speaker design. This content was a direct
link to what was being covered in my mentor’s physical science class. His
presentation was detailed and took the majority of the class time followed by
some q/a. Other staff and the principal also observed the guest presentation.
Student Interviews

I decided to interview 3 different students, I mainly selected them based on their

perceived engagement:

JM: He was by far the most engaged student who had the most questions
during the presentation. What is interesting is that he was a guest to the
presentation and not enrolled in the class and is actually a younger student. He
was comfortable with the technical jargon and was fascinated with the role of
magnetism in analog recordings. He mentioned he would like him to come again
and maybe expand on a different aspect of audio such as speaker design.
Student Interviews

NU: This student was fairly quite during the presentation and was at times
distracted by a classmate. Even with the distraction he was able to give
feedback on the presentation. He mentioned that the presentation was
informative and interesting and most importantly he felt it was relevant to the
topic being discussed in class.

SD: Student was quite in class and did not ask questions but was taking notes
during the presentation. She said the presentation was informative and it was
cool seeing some of the audio equipment up close.
My Response/Results

I must admit during the presentation I was afraid that the content was a bit
overly technical but to my surprise none of the students I interviewed felt that
way. Overall my mentor and I felt that the having guest speaker was a success
and it helped bring a unique aspect to the lesson and showed real-world
application of the subject matter.
Goat Farm Meeting

In class we were currently discussing carbon footprint and ecology. We

discussed how something as innocent as food can have an impact on carbon
output. We looked at beef and cow milk consumption so as a way to contrast
and expand on this concept I decided to visit a nearby goat dairy farm. It was an
interesting experience and a great example of using resources literally just down
the street from our school.
Goat Farm Meeting

It was indeed an eye opening experience and realized how low impact goat milk
and meat is in comparison to beef and cow milk. The most shocking statistic
was how much water one cow needs and it ranges to 30 to 50 gallons a day! A
goat requires 1 to 2 gallons, less land needed, less methane production, and a
varied sustainable diet. It was clear that goat milk and goat meat were far more
sustainable from a carbon standpoint than beef. I shared this information with
my class and some added the information to their climate change lab. I wanted
to organize a tour to the dairy for my students but unfortunately there was not
enough time on both our ends to organize a tour in the remaining school year.
Conclusion

How can community involvement improve student engagement, learning, and

overall understanding of the subject matter?

Overall I was happy with the response I got from the guest speaker and my
meeting with the dairy farm. While I do feel that engagement and overall
understanding improved, it still remains to be seen if there was an academic
improvement. Before I decided to do this project, I read an article about a similar
project where she also had mixed results. Students responded fairly well to the
guest speakers but it was difficult to measure the academic success if any.
Conclusion

From my own experience and research done on the topic, guest speakers and
community needs to be well thought out and focused to be effective. I also wish
I had more time to plan and arrange more events for the project. It was also a
tough time to have the project with so much testing on the horizon and other
teachers did not have the time to engage in their attempts at community
outreach. On a positive note, I chose this topic to improve on my community
engagement and I feel like I succeeded. I plan to continue this and I feel that it
would be far more effective if it started at the beginning of the school year.
Sources

Boss, Suzie. “Real-World Applications of Classroom Learning.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 17 Aug. 2017,
www.edutopia.org/article/real-world-applications-classroom-learning.

Osuba, Amber. “Bringing STEM Guest Speakers into the Classroom.” EVERFI, 28 Nov. 2018, everfi.com/insights/blog/bringing-
stem-guest-speakers-into-the-classroom/.

Ruddy, Autumn. “We Need the Real-World!” TeachingOnPurpose.org, teachingonpurpose.org/journal/we-need-the-real-world/.

Simkins, Michael. “Chapter 3. Making a Real-World Connection.” Making a Real-World Connection,

www.ascd.org/publications/books/102112/chapters/Making_a_Real-World_Connection.aspx.

Ward, Shari. The Impact of Guest Speakers in The Science Classroom.

scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/2502/WardS0811.pdf.