Words of  Inspiration  Announcements Planning Opportunities Research and Creativity Activities

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT NEWS Volume XI, Spring 2002 Welcome State Visiting Team 2002 Edition -  May 3, 2002 best viewed at http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/news/020503.html on the WWW; for past issues - Education Department News Index  http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/news/newsindex.html

Education Dept. Homepage Alumni News Departmental Documents Department Media Departmental Searches

A team composed of superintendents, teachers, faculty from other teacher education programs, and representatives from the Connecticut State Department of Education and the Connecticut State Department of Higher Education will be review our teacher education programs.  Their visit starts on Sunday, May 5 and will continue through Wednesday, May 8.  Please extend hospitality to our visiting colleagues.

The members of the visiting team are

Anne Marie Mistretta, Chair of the "Dream Team", and Assistant Superintendent, Manchester Public Schools

Certification Consultants - Paul Briganti and Diane Gray, Bureau of Certification and Professional Development, State Department of Education (SDE)

CT Department of Higher Education representative - John Walters, Senior Associate

Out-of-state Higher Education representative - Clifton Boyle, Academic Vice President, Johnson and Wales University

Public School representative - James Graffam, Principal, Wapping School, South Windsor

In-state Higher Education representative - Elizabeth Foye, Associate Professor of Education, Southern CT State University

SDE Represenative - Jack Hasegawa, Coordinator, Eduation Preparation Program Approval

"The mission of the Teacher Preparation Programs of Eastern Connecticut State University is to recruit and prepare, in accordance with state and national standards, undergraduate and graduate students of diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds to be reflective teachers and leaders in our nation's schools.   Teacher Education faculty initiate basic, applied, and collaborative research which relate to problems and issues in education and provide professional services and consultation to public school centers, community and state agencies, and professional organizations."

posted on May 3, 2002

"The New England Philosophy of Education Society (NEPES) will hold its annual meeting at Eastern this Saturday, 4th. May in the Faculty Lounge (Webb, 358) at 10.00 am.

 On this occasion I will be the speaker and the topic will be Australian Aboriginal Education and the lessons for understanding aspects of American Schooling.

 After the talk, we will repair to the Main Street Cafe for Lunch."

Also during Alumni Weekend -

Kappa Delta Pi will be initiating its 2002 class at 10 am in the Sophia Jenkins Room in Burr Hall.  Please contact Dan Rothermel for information.

On Saturday evening, May 4, there will be an alumni reception, dinner, and dancing in Hurley Hall starting at 5 pm and ending with the last notes of David Foster and the Mohegan Sun All-Stars band.

Welcome to the 27 entering students and their families who met Drs. Ricklin, Bland, and Stoloff during the Education Department orientation at Eastern Connecticut State University on Sunday, April 21.  If you shared your email addresses, you have been added to the Education Department e-mailing list for these newsletters.  Please encourage your teachers to participate in the Experiences for Future Teachers Using Technology project described below.

Of the 27 new students, 6 expressed interest in Early Childhood Education certification, 14 in Elementary Education, and 7 in Secondary Education.  These entering first year students were from
 

Amherst, MA Bristol Chaplin Clinton Farmington Griswold Madison Manchester Milford Monroe

Montville (2) North Haven Oyster Bay, NY Seymour (2) Terryville Trumbull West Hartford Westbrook Winchester, NH Windham Woodstock

Welcome to the Education Department and to ECSU.  Please keep touch by sending any questions to David Stoloff - email:  stoloffd@easternct.edu.

Thursday, May 9 - CARE Meeting

Please contact Dr. Sakofs with agenda items.

1) Please contribute to the annual report.  It may be found be going to the Education Department folder on the Z: drive (the Z: drive may be the G: drive on your newly configured network).  Please open the

Common folder
annual report folder

and then open the document labelled - annualreport2002eddept .

Your contributions are due by May 31.  Thanks.

2) Please evaluate the service of David Stoloff as department chair.  The evaluation form will be sent you as a WORD attachment.  Please return your evaluations to Paulette Mares for compilation by June 10.  Thanks.

A request from Institutional Research -

Please share news about the plans of graduating seniors.

If they are going on to graduate school, please provide the graduate's name, undergraduate major, graduate university, location (city, state), field of study and degree program sought, and any information on scholarships and/or fellowships.

If they have been accepted for employment positions, please provide the graduate's name, undergraduate major, company, location (city, state), position, salary.

Please email the information to David, who will compile it for the department.  Thanks.

reported by Mitch Sakofs -

The following 7 individuals are to receive an outstanding student teaching award for their student teaching during the fall of 2001:

Dana Ballou
Cindy Govoni
Sarah Jensen
Kristen Manware
Brian Martel
Julie Namnoum
Susan Rioux
Jessica Schneider
Andrea Sinsigalli

On Thursday, May 16, Dr. Kathy Lake from Alverno College will return to meet with the Elementary Education faculty and the HPE faculty on preparing their documents.

Faculty members and students from Eastern Connecticut State University are participating in a US Department of Education grant to Prepare Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology with ThinkQuest [ http://www.thinkquest.org] and 13 other universities throughout the US.  This project's homepage may be at http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/dept/pt3.html .

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Alumni news may be found at http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/news/alumninews.html.

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Past surveys of our graduates are available on the WWW  –

an analysis of the survey of teacher education program graduates 1996-98 http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/assessment/survey9698.htm

results of the survey of teacher education program graduates – 1996-1998 -
http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/assessment/surveyresults9698.htm,  and

results of the survey of teacher education program graduates – 1998-2000 -
http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/assessment/gradsurvey2001.htm

survey of interests in graduate programs –1999, http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/assessment/gradinterestsurvey1999.htm

survey of interests in graduate programs – 2001
http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/assessment/gradinterestsurvey2001.htm

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As part of our participation with the ThinkQuest for Tomorrow's Teachers project, we have administered a survey to our student teacher candidates on their self-evaluation of their preparedness to use educational technology in their classrooms.  In the past 10 months, 104 certification candidates have assessed their preparedness based on the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards.

Based on this scale, KEY: Not prepared = 1, Somewhat prepared = 2, Prepared = 3, Well prepared = 4, the average ratings were all in the "somewhat prepared" range for all of these items, except an average rating lower than to 2 (1.8) for "Model and teach legal and ethical principles related to technology use" for the Fall 2001 student teachers.

A future edition's research report will feature whether any of these self-assessments on the ISTE standards were statistically different.  The table for this report may be found at http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/news/rca020301.html .

Educational Department Searches for Tenure Track Faculty to Start in August 2002

The searches notices are also posted at http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/search02.html, and available from The Chronicle for these positions in Educational Technology and Reading/Literacy.

Join us for Online Games, Activities, and Discussion Forums in Science, Math, and Language Arts!

Explore http://www.elasticmind.com/ where you can
· play pinball to learn geography,
· apply language arts with online word magnets, word searches, and animated text
· develop computer graphics and animated pictures.
Activities in the first column create animated text messages, activities in the second column create animated pictures.  The third column contains creativity games like  pinball, word magnets, seek-a-word, and refrigerator magnets, which allows an endless chain of magnet poems to be created and viewed. All the activities on this web site are the “create your own” type and can be emailed.  Try them out!  These are Java applets and may run better on a PC than a MAC.

Earn Olympic gold and learn science at the Bobsled Run http://www.wsnsports.com/game/game.htm .

Challenge your students with international mathematics and science quizzes at
http://getsmarter.org/index.cfm .

Visit the "web’s finest mathematics and science activities" at http://www.exploremath.com/ and http://www.explorescience.com/ .

Join a discussion forum of students and teachers collaborating in leading edge software to enhance education in Connecticut - http://www.elasticmind.com/wforum/intro.htm .

EFTUT is building a website featuring learning activities which are creative, customizable, entertaining, and sharable by email.  The website is open to the public.  We are seeking teachers who want to work with our developers and in-class consultants to evaluate these activities as teaching and learning tools.

Each school, a lead teacher and 5-10 students, will be eligible to receive a grant of $500 to support their school's educational technology activities.  Participants will also be invited to participate in a statewide workshop on the future of learning and teaching on June 1.  Selected high school students will be invited to an Educational Technology Camp at Eastern Connecticut State University, June 23 - 28, 2002, where they will earn college credit and skills in leading edge technologies for education.

For more information about this program, please visit our homepage at http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/yes/ or contact David Stoloff at stoloffd@easternct.edu .

Precondition Report for the Education Unit - April 2002, NCATE document

Handbooks for the Development of Teaching Portfolios 2001-2002 - Connecticut State Department of Education - most subjects

General Education Committee's General Education Program Proposal

Wednesdays - A Compilation of Short Stories written by Eastern Connecticut State University Graduate Students

Educational Technology Resource Documents from the Connecticut State Department of Education.

American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) Public Policy Agenda - 2002.

The BEST Program Portfolio Resources 2001-2002: School Year

BEST 2001-2002 Rubrics.

NCATE State training information from January 29-30, 2002 meeting.

Faculty Handbook.

Our Reading/Language Arts, Webb Hall 113, has been enriched with past issues of Phi Delta Kappan, Academe, Syllabus, Converge, Journal of Teacher Education, and other resources.  Please feel free to use and encourage your students to use these materials.

The Condition of Education 2001 in Brief.  National Center for Education Statistics, US Department of Education.

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Please contact David Stoloff at (860) 465-5501, email: stoloffd@easternct.edu if you have any questions or comments on this newsletter.   Please invite others to receive this newsletter and be added to the Education Department e-mailing list by contacting David Stoloff.