Welcome to the fourth installment of the TERI Update. We hope to use this regular email communication as a way to keep all of us informed about works in progress, deliberations, decisions, and events related to the Teacher Education Redesign Initiative.
Spring / Summer working dates set for University faculty and staff
If you have participated in the TERI retreats, if you have served on a TERI task group, if you are interested in participating in the next steps and developments of teacher education redesign, please mark your calendars and plan to attend the following sessions. Each licensure program area and foundations course area should make sure that at least one representative from your program or course attends as a way to ensure that everyone has access to the information and a voice in the discussions.
May 17, 9:00 – 12:00
Task group reports/recommendations and discussion (Recruitment & Admissions; Curriculum & Assessment; Partnership Development; Research)
May 18, 1:00 – 4:00
Interaction and feedback on task group recommendations and school partnerships from the university perspective.
June 10 and 11
These two days will focus on professional development for all teacher education faculty, staff, and past, current, and future student teaching supervisors around the performance assessments that will be embedded in the candidates’ program experience. A key part of the two days will center on the new teacher Performance Assessment that will be piloted state-wide next year. We will provide professional development funding for those 9 month employees for whom these days are not contracted.
Opportunities to engage in conversations about equity and diversity
Developing Culturally Responsive Teachers: A Discussion with Geneva Gay
The Preparation to Practice Group in the College of Education and Human Development in partnership with TERI is hosting Geneva Gay for a two-part discussion. Geneva Gay is Professor of Education at the University of Washington-Seattle where she teaches multicultural education and general curriculum theory. She is nationally and internationally known for her scholarship in multicultural education, particularly as it relates to curriculum design, staff development, classroom instruction, and intersections of culture, race, ethnicity, teaching, and learning.
Thursday April 15, 2010
University Research and Outreach/Engagement Center (UROC)
2001 Plymouth Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55411
Morning Session: Culturally Responsive Teaching in Practice
9:00 AM-12:00 PM, – light breakfast snack at 8:30 AM
Dr. Gay will address pedagogy and how teachers develop culturally responsiveness in classrooms and school settings and address ways to support the continued development of responsive teaching.
Afternoon Session: The Preparation of Culturally Responsive Teachers
1:00 PM-4:00 PM – lunch from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
In this session Dr. Gay will address her work in pre-service teacher education at University of Washington and how it relates to ways we can improve teacher education pre-licensure to support culturally responsiveness.
Details: http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ppg/Partnerships/CCAB.html
Registration: http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ppg/Partnerships/CCABreg/ccab0415.html
Diversity as Everybody’s Everyday Work Summit
The Institute for Diversity Equity and Advocacy (IDEA) and the System-wide Equity and Diversity Action Network (SEDAN), organizations both sponsored by the Office of the Vice President and Vice Provost for Equity and Diversity, are hosting the first semi-annual daylong equity and diversity symposium for faculty, students, staff, and community focused on working both as individuals and as “Partners in Change” toward institutional transformation. The symposium is limited to 80 participants. [Note that Tim Lensmire from Curriculum & Instruction will be one of the session leaders]
Thursday, April 29
Minnesota Continuing Education and Conference Center on the St. Paul Campus.
Details: http://www.academic.umn.edu/equity/summit.html
RSVP: http://www.cehd.umn.edu/Events/Summit/
“What Does it Really Take to Educate All of Our Children?”
Saint Paul Public Schools is hosting a breakfast presentation event for community leaders with speaker Dr. Thomas Payzant, professor of practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Superintendent in Residence for the Broad Foundation funded Superintendent Academy and is recognized nationally for his work in Boston Public Schools.
Friday, April 9, 2010
7:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
Paul & Sheila Wellstone Center, 179 E Robie, St. Paul, 55107
RSVP: Kris Emerson, 651-767-8234, kris.emerson@spps.org by Thursday, April 8
TERI discussions at LSP meetings
At the March 1 Licensed School Professional meeting Kathy Byrn led the group in discussions about partnership development. Kathy reported on the recent discussions with 5 school districts (Minneapolis, Forest Lake, White Bear Lake, East Metro Integration District, and Brooklyn Center) about defining the expectations and responsibilities of both the University and the school districts for professional development school partnerships. Kathy also asked for input from the program representatives at the meeting about which districts we should be seeking out in the long term for partnership development. A summary of existing school partnerships has been compiled based on information submitted by program areas that will also help us identify potential professional development school partners in the coming year. If you are interested in this discussion, please see the LSP meeting notes at http://intranet.cehd.umn.edu/lsp/calendar.html.
At the April 5 LSP meeting, we will discuss the progress of the Curriculum & Assessment task group. Please ask your program area representative for an update if you cannot attend this meeting.
Research Task Group update
TERI will have a poster at the CEHD research Day on April 9 from 11:00 – 1:00. The intent of the poster is to provide a big picture look at the various parts of TERI and the Bush Foundation Partnership and to solicit input about the research and evaluation agenda that we will begin to enact in the coming year. Please stop by to talk with Misty Sato, Lori Helman, and Kathy Byrn about your questions and your ideas for research related to teacher education and our redesign.
The American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) is accepting proposals for its national conference from Feb 24-27, 2011 will be held in San Diego, CA. Proposals are due May 17, 2010. Please contact Misty Sato (msato@umn.edu) if you would like to participate in a discussion about submitting a symposium proposal related to TERI for this conference. This is also a great opportunity to reinvest some of the professional development money earned through TERI participation back into our teacher education programs.
Details: http://aacte.org/index.php?/Press-Center/Feature-Articles/2011-call-for-proposals.html
Program area support for TERI curriculum development
The Curriculum and Assessment Task Group has been working hard on developing an overarching teacher licensure structure with some new configurations for common content knowledge, core performance assessments, and flexibility for program areas to determine their own content specific requirements. We should have the overall structural elements designed by the end of spring semester and opportunity for broader review and input at the May working session. We would like to give program areas opportunities to spend time during the summer 2010 to take up program-specific curriculum planning with support from the TERI grant. Each program area will have access to up to $5,000 of support for curriculum development activities (e.g., individual’s time, new resources, group meetings, cross-program collaborations) contingent on work plan proposals that will be specific to the program area needs. Program areas can start to plan ahead now for time in the summer. Details about the work plan proposals to receive the funding will follow soon.
TERI Timeline
Design
Jan–May 2010: Task Groups and LSP developing recommendations for recruitment & admission, curriculum & assessment, partnership development, and research processes and structures.
May 17,18: TERI work days for reviewing task group recommendations and refining plans brought forward by Task Groups
June 10, 11: Performance assessment of candidates professional development for all teacher education faculty, staff, and supervisors.
May–August 2010: Program areas have access to support for program specific curriculum and assessment development; common assessment development.
Pilot, Test, and Build
2010–2011 Academic year: Professional Development Schools begin some placements of candidates; piloting common assessments; test out and refine new curricular structures/ content; course approval processes.
Launch
May 2011: Launch new teacher education design with partnership districts and schools
Unresolved Identities: Discourse, Ambivalence, and Urban Immigrant Students, by Bic Ngo, assistant professor of culture and teaching in curriculum and instruction, was recently published by SUNY Press. In her ethnographic study of Lao American students at an urban, public high school, Ngo shows how simplistic accounts of these students smooth over unfinished, precarious identities and contested social relations. Exploring the ways that immigrant youth identities are shaped by dominant discourses that simplify and confine their experiences within binary categories of good/bad, traditional/modern, and success/failure, she unmasks and examines the stories we tell about them, and unsettles the hegemony of discourses that frame identities within discrete dualisms.
