The Oklahoma City University Education Department (Petree College of Arts and Sciences) received the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Teacher Education Grant. Dr. Laure Wilhelm and Dr. Liz Willner submitted a proposal to fund Connecting Across Cultures 4.0. Faculty members Dr. Lois Lawler Brown, Dr. Lisa Delgado Brown, and administrative assistant Christyn Byler are working with Wilhelm and Willner to host the event. The goal of this project is to prepare future teachers with knowledge, understanding, and strategies to best support their students who live in poverty. Education majors and teacher education faculty members from approximately 15 Oklahoma universities will attend the February 27 event on the OCU campus. Local teachers who work with students facing poverty, many of whom will be OCU graduates, will serve as resources at the conference.
The Regents Grant funds two keynote presenters, Bob Brandenburg from the Oklahoma Association of Community Action Agencies and Patricia Webb with the Resiliency Project. Mr. Brandenburg will place participants in various family groups and they will deal with limited income, parenting issues, and other challenges for a "month" through a well-developed poverty simulation. Ms. Webb will guide conference participants to consider classroom activities that have been found to foster resilience and help counteract effects of poverty on students.
