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EDUCATION DEPARTMENT NEWS Volume XI, Spring 2002 Special Edition - State Visiting Team Report -  May 8, 2002 best viewed at http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/news/020508.html on the WWW; for past issues - Education Department News Index  http://www.easternct.edu/depts/edu/news/newsindex.html

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The state visiting team* presented their findings in a breakfast meeting in the Johnson Community Room in the Smith University Library this morning.

State visiting team report – May 8, 2002

Jack Hasegawa thanked the faculty, staff, and administration at ECSU for the hospitality.  The team was impressed at the level of preparation for the visit.  He reviewed the state accreditation process.  The first step was self-study and documentation preparation.  The team - composed of representatives from a peer CT institution, peer out of state institution, local school districts, representatives from the Connecticut Department of Higher Education and the Connecticut State Department of Education - have completed the onsite visit.

Within two weeks, Dean Kleine will receive the visiting team's report for review.  The report will remain unchanged except for clear discrepancies in factual information.

The Connecticut State Department of Education Program Review Committee - composed of representatives from 5 local schools, 5 higher education institutions, Connecticut State Department of Education and Connecticut Department of Higher Education - will meet on June 7 to receive the visiting team's report and to make recommended to the Commissioner of Education.   The Commissioner will make a recommendation to the State Board of Education, which will meet to formulate a final decision on the first Wednesday in September.

Anne Marie Mistretta presented a summary of the state visiting team's findings.

The team were thankful for a pleasant experience that resulted in positive findings.  Visiting team members volunteer their time, so it is gratifying when they have a pleasant experience.  The advanced delivery of self-study was very helpful and was a harbinger of what team found here.  The organization of the documents room was well done.  With this preparation, the team was able to spend more time in meeting with students, faculty, and administrators and to more classrooms.  The team complimented all on their quick responses to request for information.  They particularly thanked Kim and Pat for hospitality – snacks and flowers and smiles on everyone’s faces.

Of the seven standards and statutory requirements – all indicators were fully met.

Eight indicators were met with distinction (a state record according to Jack Hasegawa).  The statutory requirement in technology was also met with with distinction.

The team cited these strengths –

The programs live the Connecticut Common Core of Teaching (CCTC), which is reflected in the syllabi and teaching of both oncampus and online courses.  Assessment practices are impressive.  The teachers in training praised the faculty for their formative assessment processes and advice.  Student products also reflected this true embeddedness of CCTC in the curriculum.  The CCTC is modelled by the faculty;  student appreciate this commitment and were heard to say that "they practice what they preach."  The CCTC is also reflected in BEST-like portfolios that teacher candidates develop in the student teaching seminars.

The student teaching experience - the placement process, frequency of visits, the communication among all involved - was impressive.

The University's affirmative action plan - its forumlation and its implementation - was also exemplary.

The University Library is very comfortable and well showcased university resources.  The library's hours and services, the available technology, the student, staff, and faculty use of computer applications, and the university's vision of the process of facilities upgrading were also impressive.

The extensive early field experience

The early childhood education program

The new directions of the Health and Physical Education program

The assessment strategies used throughout the programs

The level of collegiality – reflected by the students as "the faculty love what they are doing" - is modeled right from the top, among top administrators who set the tone

Elementary education program needs fuller articulation

Strengthening of clarity of secondary program

Anne Marie closed by thanking the visiting team members individually and by saying that the Education Unit is a deservedly proud faculty.

Dean Kleine thanked the team for asking deep and probing questions as we move to NCATE.  They arrived on Sunday on campus as colleagues and now they leave as friends.  She also thanked Virginia Hale for the typing and retyping support, Hazel Gage for maintaining the office, Jeanelle Bland and Diane Cerreto for the document room, all the writers of the program reports, especially Jeff and Hari, and Associate Dean Kim.  The team members were presented with golf-shirts labelled

*The members of the visiting team were

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

Dean Kleine and Dr. Ernst, chair of the search committee, have announced that Ms. Ingrid Enniss has been hired as full-time, tenure-track faculty member starting in August 2002.  Ms. Enniss is a doctoral candidate at Wayne State University and anticipates a completion date of December 2002.  Her dissertation is in the area of reading comprehension, as is her MA, which is also from Wayne State University.  She is currently a lecturer at Wayne State, teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses, and has assisted in running the counseling and testing center.  She has taught in Guyana (Linden and Georgetown).  Ms. Enniss’ teaching experience at the university level at an institution, which has the same philosophical view of literacy as we hold at Eastern, is a real strength.

                      "To laugh often and much;
                        To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
                        To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
                        To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
                        To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a
                        redeemed social condition;
                        To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
                        This is to have succeeded."
                           -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

posted on May 8, 2002

Please remember to come to the University meeting at 10 am in BTR.

Here's the tentative agenda for our meeting -

end of the semester tasks - annual report, chair's evaluation

reactions to the state visit

outstanding student awards at graduation

approval of faculty meeting minutes - April 2, 2002

curriculum process - EDU 102,
MS in ECE - reduction from 36 to 30 credits

"Our Graduates Speak" - Mitch
Educational Experiences and Assessment Committee meetings

Summer and Fall 2002 schedules
preparing for Alverno Dean Kathy Lake on Thursday, May 16

Please let me know if you have other items for the agenda.

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.

This is a reminder to those needing to take a graduate children’s literature course within the next year.  Shirley Ernst will be on sabbatic leave during the spring 2003 semester, so there will be no children’s literature courses offered during that semester.  To accommodate the students who might need to take a children’s literature course before the Fall of 2003, the following two courses will be offered during the Fall 2002 semester:

1. RLA 524 (Children’s literature:  an issues approach) will be offered on Mondays from 4:00 to 6:45.  This course is acceptable for both RLA masters students and Masters certification students.

2. RLA 527 (Multicultural literature for children and young adults) will be offered on Tuesdays from 4:00 to 6:45.)  This course is acceptable for RLA masters students.

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.