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Think-project Funding Sought

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Parent Issue
Day
22
Month
February
Year
1973
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Washtenaw Intermedíate ' School District (WISD) officials will be resubmitting in March or April a proposal for federal funds to continue the county's Project BASICS, a pilot program to train teachers to help students learn to think. Some 29 kindergarten thrcmgh second grade teachers and their students are participating in the first year of the program which began July 1. Teachers, who volunteered to participate and who receive a $300 stipend for participating, are from Haisley, Tnurston and St. Paul's Lutheran Schools in Ann Arbor, Adams Elementary in Ypsilanti and the Mi1an Área Schools. Phyllis Brannan, one of the project directors, reported to the WISD Board of Education this week that teachers spend 42 hours of in-service time as part of Project BASICS. Many children have difficulty understanding representations (words which stand for objects), Miss Brannan says. Project BASICS helps teachers provide the basic theory to teach foundation skills for thinking. Specific areas the teachers study include: observing (ability to notice one or more attributes of objects, pictures, stories); recalling (ability to recall specific data from something observed previously); noticing differences and similarities ; ordering (determining which is the biggest or s mallest); grouping (the _ ability to put together several objects or piefures based on one or more common attributes); concept labeling (being able to give a name or label to an item or a relationship among a group oí items); classifying (ability to include items under a label or with oth'ers called by the same name). Carol Cheney, also a project director, says the staff development project to aid teachers doesn't require new materials. Project B A S I C S uses open-ended questions to help students learn to observe, recall or classify objects or experiences. Miss Cheney says teachers are discovering by asking children questions, such as "What do you remember about Halloween?" that it builds up the self-confidence of youngsters, they listen more attentively to o t h e r students, respect others' ideas and ■ spond with concentration and enthusiasm. The open-ended question usually has the child talking more and the teacher talking less, she adds. The WISD Project BASICS is the only one operating in Michigan at this time. Nationwide, 22 such projects were funded out of 176 proposals submitted last year, according to John Bowen, director of instruction for the WISD. Bowen says the district hopes to gain approval by the State Board of Education to receive the Title III funds for two more years so the project tentatively planned for three years can be expanded teachers.

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