e-Exchange August 2009
In this issue
- Methods for Achieving Success in Science (MASS) Project
- Dr. Benjamin Dotger awarded grant to develop School Leader Communication Model
- Welcome New and Returning Students!
- Annual Summer Leadership Institute: Equity, Inclusion & Excellence
- Alumni Spotlight - Dr. Cerri Banks
- Alumni Spotlight - Dr. Michael Steer
- The rich tradition of Homecoming+Reunion continues!
Methods for Achieving Success in Science (MASS) Project
It's the end of June, school is out for the summer, and 30 teachers from the Syracuse City School District are huddled around laboratory tables in the Heroy building, working together on a series of science experiments. One group is building a string bass instrument out of a length of 2x4, string and the classroom door, while another group tests the effectiveness of different SPF sunscreens on UV sensitive beads. Occasionally one of the teachers, students in this setting, will raise their hand and ask for assistance or explanation from Dr. Sharon Dotger, assistant professor of science teaching in the School of Education and the College of Arts & Sciences. The SCSD teachers are participating in Dr. Dotger's MASS project (Methods for Achieving Success in Science). A partnership between the Syracuse University department of Science Teaching and the SCSD and supported by a grant from the NYS Education Department, MASS is in its third year. A handful of the participants, which include paraprofessionals, ESL, math and special education teachers, ranging from pre-k to 11th grade, have been attending workshops since the project began during the 2007-08 academic year.
"I was introduced to this program in a Schools of Promise training course," says Laurie Carr, an occupational therapist at Salem Hyde School. "I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to become more engaged in the curriculum of the students that I serve, and it has proven to be very successful. It's not about learning to teach exact scientific concepts, but teaching through inquiry to keep students interested and focused."
Like Carr, the teachers in the MASS project find the curriculum beneficial because of, not in spite of, the fact that program is science based. That is what MASS is all about - using science as a vehicle to teach collaborative learning. Often, science is thought of as something learned after literacy and mathematics concepts are mastered. The MASS project explores the possibility of science being used to facilitate learning in these other areas, and to excite learning through hands-on experimentation and inquiry.
Seventh and eighth grade science teacher Kelly Colone has found her two years of MASS workshops helpful in sharpening her skills as an educator. "Through this program I am fine-tuning the concepts I thought I had a handle on, and are not exclusive to science. For example, just because students are touching the materials, doesn't mean their work is hands-on, and just because they are thinking to complete a worksheet, that is not necessarily learning through inquiry." Colone is also the science coordinator at Levy school and disseminates the lessons learned in MASS to the other teachers in her building.
The four day summer workshop fulfills only half of the 60 hour science teaching and learning professional development required to participate in the project. The remaining time is accounted for through workshops throughout the academic year, reading and writing assignments, and the option to complete online workshops. The flexibility in the modules has made it possible for so many teachers to participate for the duration. Also, the workshops themselves are designed to allow for a lot of independence in order to accommodate the range of skill in the science-based topics.
"We have some teachers here who are skilled scientists, some who are familiar with the lab material, and others who quite frankly, are not familiar with the material at all," says Dr. Sharon Dotger, MASS project coordinator. "What we're teaching is to encourage manipulation and experimentation, seeing how things change when they're manipulated, measuring those changes and making comparisons. The meaning of the phrase 'hands-on' will evolve for these teachers as they continue in the workshop."
Another theme of the workshop is inquiry. Dr. Dotger argues that true inquiry allows a shift in control of the teaching and learning to the students. "Teachers may have a hard time relaxing control over the content in this high-stakes testing world," she says, "but through highly engaging activities such as those presented here, wonderful questions emerge from investigations and experimentation." She offers the example of how the MASS workshops are led through inquiry; "Some of the best questions in these sessions have been from the individuals without science background, because they are unencumbered by any perceived expectations;" Dotger says. "It has made it a richer experience."
Dr. Benjamin Dotger awarded grant to develop School Leader Communication Model
Anyone who has ever conducted a conversation and later wished for a chance to rephrase something can understand the need to practice conferencing skills. Some Syracuse area teachers have been doing just that for several years, and their principals and other administrators will soon have the same opportunity through the School Leader Communication Model (SLCM), a project developed by Dr. Benjamin Dotger.
Dotger, assistant professor of teaching and leadership in the School of Education, received a three-year grant totaling $498,849 from the United States Department of Education's Institute for Education Sciences to support development of the SLCM. The SLCM grew out of a similar program, the Standardized Parent Conferencing Model (SPCM), that Dotger created in 2007 to help pre-service teachers in Syracuse University's School of Education practice parent-teacher conversations. That project later expanded into an in-service training program for Central New York school districts.
"We reached out to neighboring school districts, such as Jordan-Elbridge, West Genesee and Solvay, all located on the western edge of Syracuse. The superintendents there told us that their school leaders could use this training too," Dotger says, "so the model is expanding to include them."
He designed the professional development opportunity to prepare school principals, counselors, and other leaders to communicate effectively with parents, teachers, and students. He proposes that improving their communication skills through this extended professional development should improve school climate and student achievement.
"Few schools of education across the United States train school professionals in how to best communicate with parents," Dotger says. "In general, teachers and school leaders don't receive much preparation - if any - on how to communicate with their student's parents and caregivers. The goal of the SPCM and the SLCM is to give future teachers and future school leaders multiple chances to practice what they say and how they say it."
Both projects use the same instructional method of a medical 'standardized patient' that is, individuals trained to portray patients with particular health concerns. Medical schools hire local actors and carefully train them to portray a patient with certain medical problems and symptoms, as well as unique personality traits and a specific social and cultural background. The actor must present to every medical student the same verbal and nonverbal information that gives the medical student a chance to diagnose and communicate.
"Medical education has designed and employed complex medical situations to help future doctors and nurses practice interacting with standardized patients before they engage with real patients," Dotger says. "They do that right across the street from here at SUNY Upstate Medical University," The medical school's Clinical Skills Center is just two years old and has 22 rooms, each one equipped with two video cameras and microphones.
Dotger's models use the same pedagogy to help future school leaders practice and evaluate their communications with standardized parents, or teachers or students, in an environment that is forgiving and fosters growth, Dotger says. "It's a chance to practice without facing any major consequences."
As with the SPCM, which was funded by the Spencer Foundation and the Ewing Marian Kauffman Foundation's E-nitiative fund, Dotger will train actors hired by the medical university to serve as standardized parents in meetings with school leaders. The meetings will be videotaped in the Clinical Skills Center so that the school leaders will be able to discuss the conversations with their peers that also undergo the training.
Dotger is careful to clarify that the use of the term "standardized" does not suggest that all parents are the same. It is to emphasize that all teachers or school leaders participating in the training receive a consistent portrayal of the parent modeled in a given conference situation.
Over the course of the SPCM training program, which includes anywhere from one to four different sessions for in-service programs or as many as six simulation sequences for pre-service training of School of Education students, Dotger's team of standardized parents present the teachers with 14 different cases. They bring to the teachers a variety of issues to discuss, as well as unique religions, ethnicity, gender and other personal traits, but each individual portrayed is presented to each teacher in a consistent manner.
"This gives teachers a chance to develop their interpersonal skills and address the tough questions that come up in parent-teacher conferences," Dotger says. "We give our teachers some background information about the parents they meet with and the issue to be discussed, but we don't tell them what to say. They go into the conversation to discuss the issue using their best professional judgment. But," he says "we are very carefully training the standardized parents on exactly what and how to say things."
The varied issues addressed in the parent-teacher conversations- abuse, bullying, censorship, inclusion of students with disabilities in regular classrooms- represent some of the delicate situations that educators may be faced with during their careers. One situation involves two parents, each wanting something different for their child. They are disagreeing with each other during the parent-teacher conference.
"This training helps teachers learn how to approach those difficult conversations," Dotger says. Following each interaction, the teachers watch the videos and discuss with fellow program participants how they can improve their communication skills. Teachers told Dotger that while watching themselves on videos they noticed many things they were not originally aware of - how their appearance, facial expressions, and the sound of their voice conveyed their thoughts and emotions beyond what they said in words. They could see when they were showing too much frustration, or not enough empathy with a concerned parent, for example. Others noticed that while they needed to show support, they should not give inappropriate advice - such as telling parents how they should be parenting/caring for their children at home.
"It helps them be more aware of themselves," Dotger says. "Teachers need to show the appropriate amount of empathy and warmth to show that they care about the child and the family involved, but they should still keep the discussion professional. Many of our education students notice these concerns as soon as they've viewed the video."
While Dotger designed the project to improve parent-teacher communication, he says it has also addressed teacher identity development. After new teachers review their videotaped conversations on the video, they raise a number of professional questions. For example, education students have asked Dotger how they go about reporting their suspicion if they believe a student is being abused at home, or whether they have the authority to remove a book from the classroom if a parent makes that request. Dotger is encouraged by this work on teacher identity development, as it helps shed light on how to better prepare future teachers and school leaders.
Although the School of Education enjoys the collaboration with SUNY Upstate Medical University's Clinical Skills Center, Dotger says that their sophisticated setting is not crucial to the success of the training. "SUNY Upstate has been most generous with the facility, but I want to emphasize that this can be done anywhere. No special equipment is necessary. The key is setting up the situations, carefully training the standardized parents, and recording the interaction with teachers, or school leaders," he says. "This can be done very simply with any video camera that captures the conversation between two people."
In the future Dotger says he may explore other avenues, such as setting up models for follow-up meetings, or including others in a conversation, such as school guidance counselors. For now though, the emphasis will be on school leader-parent conversations. He and his team of graduate assistants are developing and testing the possible cases. "We're anticipating a trial run of the SLCM is spring 2010. We are gathering information from veteran school teachers so that we can write cases, or sample situations to discuss, to make the models authentic."
Welcome New and Returning Students!
The staff in the Office of Academic and Student Services is eagerly awaiting the arrival of our incoming first year freshmen and transfer students, as well as the return of our current students. The School of Education will welcome 180 freshmen and 24 transfer students. All first year students at Syracuse University will be involved in an exciting Shared First Year Experience Program. The Shared First-Year Experience at SU will center on a performance by Shen Wei Dance Arts, one of the world's most acclaimed dance companies, led by Shen Wei. The Washington Post has praised Shen Wei as "one of the great artists of our time." The New York Times has noted that "his movements combine Eastern and Western ideas, drawing from Chinese opera, martial arts, Abstract Expressionism and Western Modernism." All first year students will attend the Shen Wei Dance Arts performance at the Landmark Theater in downtown Syracuse in September. First year students in the School of Education will attend the performance together in cohorts with their EDU 100, First Year Forum classmates, instructor, and peer teaching assistant. The First Year Forum class will provide a place for engaging in a dialogue about the performance.
We look forward to seeing our returning students, in addition to our new students at the School of Education Welcome Back Picnic on Friday, September 11 from 4:00 - 6:30 in the Waverly Parking lot (next to the back entrance of Huntington Hall). We will enjoy hearing about the exciting summer opportunities our students participated in, good food, entertainment, and fun prizes.
In addition we are beginning to make plans for our School of Education Parents Weekend Breakfast and look forward to seeing the family members of our current students on Saturday, October 24th from 9:00 - 10:30 in the Comstock Room of the Syracuse Sheraton Hotel.
The staff in the Office of Academic and Student Services is a great resource to students and parents/guardians regarding all aspects of student academic, social, and personal life such as academic engagement and navigation, academic difficulty, personal transition issues, peer relationships, to name a few. The Assistant Dean for Academic and Student Services is available to students and parents/guardians and can be contacted at (315) 443-2506 or amredmon@syr.edu.
Annual Summer Leadership Institute: Equity, Inclusion & Excellence
Modeled after the theory and practice of the Schools of Promise inclusive schools initiative and the mission of the School of Education, the Annual Summer Leadership Institute was held on the Syracuse University campus from August 10-12, 2009. This year's institute, titled Equity, Inclusion, & Excellence: How Leadership Can Transform Schools for All Learners was developed by School of Education assistant professors and Schools of Promise co-directors Julie Causton-Theoharis and George Theoharis. The conference had over 165 registered professionals from across the country; the participants include principals, superintendents, curriculum directors, special education directors, and graduate students.
"There is a real need for our K-12 schools to be models of both equity and excellence for each and every child," says Theoharis. "We know that school leaders are essential to make that a reality and this requires focused professional learning for administrators."
The three-day institute featured presentations by internationally recognized leaders in school reform, as well as disabilities advocates who shared personal stories from their educational experiences. The institute presenters, including Dr. Rich Villa, Dr. William Henderson, and self-advocates Keith Jones and Stephen Hinkle, discussed strategies that lead to successful inclusive learning environments. Associate professor and chair of reading and language arts Kelly Chandler-Olcott presented, "Literacy for All: The Power and Promise of Inclusive Literacy Instruction," and professors Theoharis and Causton-Theoharis gave the title presentation "Include. Belong. Learn: How Leaders Can Transform Schools for All Learners." Afternoon concurrent sessions included panel discussions titled "Lessons from the Trenches," featuring administrators from the Syracuse City School District and other school administrators from around the nation.
"We have selected some of the most notable presenters in the country," says Causton-Theoharis. "This conference line-up is intended to inspire school administrators to re-imagine schools that are truly inclusive for ALL our students."
- For a complete conference agenda and speaker profiles, visit http://soe.syr.edu/summerinstitute09
- For Schools of Promise, visit http://inclusioninstitutes.org
Alumni Spotlight - Dr. Cerri Banks
Dr. Cerri Banks, assistant professor of education at William Smith College since 2005, was recently named dean of the college. The appointment came after the college conducted a national search during the 2008-2009 academic year while Banks served as interim dean. The position includes extensive work with students, including serving as the primary adviser to the senior class and assisting with the transition from college to graduate school or the workplace.
Banks completed all of her college work at Syracuse University. She earned a bachelor's degree in 2000 in inclusive elementary and special education; a master's degree in 2004 in cultural foundations of education; a certificate of advanced studies in 2005 in women's studies; and a doctoral degree in 2006 in cultural foundations of education. Her doctoral dissertation - which focused on black female undergraduates and the cultural capital they use to succeed in academia - received the SU School of Education's doctoral prize in 2006. She is now working on a book following up on doctoral research entitled "Black Women Undergraduates, Cultural Capital and College Success" with Peter Lang Publishers.
An education reformer, Banks' research interests equity and culture in education, race, class, and gender analysis, popular culture and social justice in schooling. Her research draws on educational theory, feminist theory and critical race theory. Her teaching focuses on sociology of education, cultural studies, multicultural education and qualitative research.
As dean, Banks is responsible for ensuring students academic, personal and health needs are met as well as overseeing the student activities budget. In addition to advising the senior class, she advises the William Smith Congress, the student government, and Hai Timai, the college's senior honor society.
Alumni Spotlight - Dr. Michael Steer
Dr. Michael Steer, senior lecturer in vision impairment at Australia's Renwick Centre, a research and professional development facility administered by the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children and the University of Newcastle, was recently appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2009 Queen's Birthday Honours. A scholar in the field of disability studies and policy, Steer served as director of the New South Wales Office on Disability until 1996. Prior to that, he was the Principal Adviser on Disability Policy for Community Services Victoria and Director of the Integration Unit for the Victorian Ministry of Education.
Steer completed his doctoral degree in special education administration from Syracuse University's School of Education in 1977. He also holds three master's degrees: in public policy from Melbourne University in Australia; in vision impairment from Boston College; and in education from Southern Illinois University. Steer is also currently an adjunct professor at Australia's Deakin University.
Steer's research interests include: disability, advocacy and human service policy reform; inclusion of students with sensory disabilities in general education system; educational issues in deaf-blindness; and public attitudes toward people with sensory disabilities. He is the editor of several scholarly publications, including the Australian Deaf Blind Council Bulletin; the Journal of the South Pacific Educators in Vision Impairment; and the International Journal of Orientation and Mobility; and a consulting editor to the Australian Journal of Special Education.
The rich tradition of Homecoming+Reunion continues!
Orange Central is an exciting four-day weekend that combines the rich tradition of Homecoming+Reunion with new events. You will enjoy educational, cultural, and athletic events—with plenty of time to socialize and experience campus alive with today’s students.
Open to all alumni, there is much to look forward to—opportunities to meet and greet classmates, attend classes, mingle with students, and enjoy a wide variety of athletic events, including the football game.
Come back to campus and experience Orange Central. Register now for weekend events under Orange Central 2009 registration. To purchase football tickets, please visit Ticketmaster. Remember to use your ALUMNI09 special offer code to receive your discount and to reserve seating in the alumni section at the Dome. Enter the number of tickets you need to order under Alumni Offer and then enter the special offer code in the following box. To order tickets over the phone, call 888-366-3849 and press one. The event name is Syracuse University Football and the venue is the Carrier Dome. Make sure to reference the special offer code above.