The Center of Excellence for College and Career Readiness at Francis Marion University partnered with Florence One schools to offer three weeks of Literacy Camps at several area schools in June 2022. Pre-service education major students attended several sessions with Center Co-Director Dr. Polly Haselden, being instructed in project-based learning, prior to the camps. The Literacy Camps focused on teaching the soon-to-be teachers how to implement the project-based learning method and design the framework for a student project called Mission to Mars.
The trained pre-service teachers were then paired with current teachers from Savannah Grove Elementary School, North Vista Elementary School, and Brockington Elementary School, in Florence One, and together they taught elementary students from those schools how to design, plan, and implement a project to travel to and live on Mars.
Specific reading strategies and skills were targeted each day and were implemented into the Project-Based Learning project. Students were placed in groups and had to collaborate, research, and build projects to present to each other.
The Literacy Camps were held over three weeks in June. Eight teachers and preservice teachers were involved in delivering the instruction to the elementary students over the course of the camps. Approximately 200 Florence One students participated. Camps were held June 6th – 9th, 13th-16th, and 20th-23rd, 2022, at all three schools.
The Center of Excellence for College and Career Readiness at Francis Marion University was started in 2014, and serves as a statewide professional development and resource center, designed to work with teachers and students to improve students’ readiness for post-secondary opportunities. For more information on the Center, visit www.screadiness.org.
