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| Mentoring Preservice Teachers - February 19th 2008 |
| As part of the Professional Development School Pilot Study, a one
graduate credit course called "Mentoring Preservice Teachers" (200:133g)
is being offered to Cedar Falls and Waterloo teachers involved with the
pilot. Fifty-three teachers have enrolled in the course, which meets at
AEA 267 on January 28th, February 11th, March 10th, March 24th, and
April 21st from 4-7pm. Topics include creating expectations, giving
feedback, co-teaching with field experience students, collecting action
research data with field experience students, and evaluating field
experience students. The first two sessions have drawn heavily on the
expertise of Price Laboratory School teachers, including Becky Hawbaker,
Amy Lockhart, Megan Balong, Leasha Henriksen, Kim Miller, and Mary
Doyle. Participating teachers enrolled in the course are from Cedar
Falls High School; Central and Hoover Middle Schools; Hansen, Edison,
McKinstry, Cunningham, Longfellow,and Poyner elementary schools; the
Price Laboratory School, and the UNI Child Development Center. |
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| Second Semester - February 12th 2008 |
| For the second semester the Professional Development School pilot study
has placed 99 students, including 76 Level I students and 23 Level II
students. There are 84 students placed at the four pilot schools,
including 65 Level I students and 19 Level II students. There are also
another 15 students placed with a masters degree cohort in the
Professional Development for Teachers MAE program, including 11 Level I
students and 4 Level II students.
For this semester, each of the four pilot schools conducted an
orientation for the field experience students they hosted. As part of
the orientation, students were welcomed by the principal and the site
coordinators, each of whom gave a brief talk on professional behavior,
school policies, and their expectations for the field experience.
Afterwards, students took a tour of the building and had a chance to
meet their teachers. All of these sessions were very well done and
received. |
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| Growth - January 21st 2008 |
| With one semester completed, the PDS pilot study is gaining momentum.
The infrastructure both within the pilot schools and the university has
become stronger, the number of professors participating in the PDS has
increased, the number of participating K-12 teachers has increased, and
the number of students placed within the pilot has increased. In the
second semester, the pilot will focus on extending professional
development opportunities for Waterloo and Cedar Falls teachers by
piloting new graduate coursework and exploring grant opportunities.
Creating these opportunities is a key element for improving UNI field
experiences while simultaneously “giving back” to both schools and the
community. |
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| Placement - October 12th 2007 |
| The PDS pilot study has met its initial goal of placing 60-90 students
in the Waterloo and Cedar Falls Schools. There are 28 Level I and 25
Level II placements in the four designated pilot schools of Edison
Elementary, Hansen Elementary, Central Middle, and Cedar Falls High
School. In addition, students from the Level III field experiences are
currently being supervised in a number of schools other than the four
pilot schools. These include 18 students from Dr. Jihwa Noh’s Level III
methods course “The Teaching of Middle School/Junior High Mathematics,”
who have been placed at Central, Bunger, Logan, Holmes, Price Laboratory
School, New Hartford-Dike, and St. Edwards. During the week of October
15-19th, approximately 10 students from Lynne Ensworth’s Level III
Elementary Classroom Management course will also be supervised as part
of the pilot. These students have been placed in Orchard Hill, Poyner,
Cedar Heights, and Kingsley elementary schools. |
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| References - September 17th 2007 |
One goal of the pilot study is to share references related to professional development schools and teacher education. Accordingly, there is a list of references available in this website. Additionally, you may find several books and other readings on reserve in the IRTS lab. (See list below.) For instance, there are four reviews of the literature on professional development schools, beginning in 1990 and continuing through 2005. You can also find two NCATE publications on the standards and assessment of professional development schools, a report by a previous committee on professional development schools (Johnson & Traw, 2002), and several recent books on teacher education.
(Read more) |
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| Initial Meetings - September 4th 2007 |
| Soon after the pilot was approved, a series of
meetings were held between representatives of UNI, Cedar Falls Community
Schools, and Waterloo Community Schools. One of the first tasks of this group was to begin
involving the initial participants in the pilot. These participants
include teachers from two Cedar Falls schools; Cedar Falls High School
(Dr. Rich Powers, Principal) and Hansen Elementary (Dr. Tony Reid,
Principal); and teachers from two Waterloo schools; Central Middle
(Marla Padget, Principal) and Edison (Bruce Potter, Principal). They
also include UNI students from Dr. Radhi Al-Mabuk’s 200:030 class for
the Level I experience and from Dr. John Henning’s 200:148 class for the
Level II experience. These UNI students are currently being placed in
Level I and Level II field experiences in the four schools named above. (Read more) |
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