Bob Jervis will develop curriculum for the News Literacy Project

Bob was responsible for developing the county schools’ social studies curriculum for kindergarten through 12th grade. After retiring in 2001, he spent five years with the Maryland State Department of Education assisting low-performing schools in improving student achievement.

Bob is currently teaching the social studies methods courses in the Master of Arts in Teaching Program at Goucher College in Baltimore and is working with the Council of Chief State School Officers to develop teaching units for online use. He has served as a consultant to the Delaware Department of Education; the Los Angeles Unified School District; the Colonial School District in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania; the Council of Chief State Schools Officers; and the Goethe-Institut Washington/Transatlantic Outreach Program.

Bob has also collaborated with Jay McTighe in developing social studies materials incorporating the principles of Understanding by Design, into classroom instruction. Understanding by Design is an instructional planning model focusing on critical thinking skills and teaching the big ideas in each content area.

In his role with the News Literacy Project, Bob will take the lead in developing original curriculum for both middle schools and high schools; determine the best way to present the material and maximize the impact of the journalists’ time in the classroom; incorporate state teaching standards into the curriculum; devise methods to assess the project’s impact on students; craft a training process for teachers and journalists, and assist in implementing, monitoring and evaluating the initial program in schools in New York City and Montgomery County, Maryland.

Bob says he excited about working on the News Literacy Project because “education should be about preparing students for life. In addition to promoting critical-thinking skills, this project will enable students to interact with people in the news media and learn how to apply these skills to issues of concern to each of us.  This ability to use critical-thinking skills to judge the reliability and credibility of media is a skill they will use throughout their lives.”