Coming Events and Activities
Workshops & Events for Students, Teachers, Alumni & SOE Faculty
The Doyle and Alba Bortner Distinguished Speaker Series
in Urban Education Presents
Professor Diane Ravitch
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
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Professor Diane Ravitch |
Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education at New York University will be the Distinguished Guest Speaker at the Doyle and Alba Bortner Speaker Series in Urban Education. One of the most important historians of education over the past thirty years and a former U.S. Assistant Commissioner of Education, Professor Ravitch's most recent book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education" (2010) provides a thoughtful critique of recent educational "reforms" both nationally and locally. She will speak about "How Testing And Choice Are Undermining Education" and signed copies of her book will be available to purchase. Wednesday, April 6th at 5 PM in the NAC Faculty Dining Room. Free admission. Refreshments will be served.
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The Rise of Transnational Higher Education in Asia:
Challenges for University Governance and Implications
for Social Development
Thursday, April 7th, 5:00 pm
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Professor Ka Ho Mok |
On Thursday, April 7th Professor Ka Ho Mok, Associate Vice President and Dean of the Faculty Arts and Sciences, the Hong Kong Institute of Education, will speak on "The Rise of Transnational Higher Education in Asia". His presentation critically examines the policy origins of the quest for global schoolhouse projects taking place in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. More specifically, this paper compares and contrasts the policies, strategies and practices adopted by these Asian societies, and critically evaluates the recent developments of the regional education hub projects, with particular reference to changing university governance and regulatory regimes monitoring transnational education in these selected Asian economies. The presentation will be from 5:00pm-7:00pm in NAC 4/220.
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Webinar: How to Take Your Class on a WebQuest
Tuesday, April 12th, 4:00-5:00 pm
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Dr. Sheila Gersh |
Dr. Sheila Gersh will do a 1-hour live webinar on "How to Take Your Class on a WebQuest". A WebQuest is a lesson in an inquiry-oriented format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. The model was developed by at San Diego State University in 1995. Since then tens of thousands of teachers have embraced WebQuests as a way to make good use of the Internet while engaging their students in the kinds of thinking that the 21st century requires. The model has spread around the world, with special enthusiasm in Brazil, Spain, China, Australia and Holland (from www.webquest.org). To sign up and get information about how to connect your computer to the webinar from your school, home,or wherever you may be, contact Dr. Gersh at sgersh@ccny.cuny.edu.
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Educational Theatre Program Events in April
 April 9th - The Program in Educational Theatre will host Family Arts Day on April 9th from 10-2pm on the North Quad, weather permitting. The event will be full of theatre activities including, storytelling, mask making, physical theatre and sing a-longs and is open to everyone! Please come and join us! For more detailed information you can check out our website.
April 11th - Faculty member Jennifer Katona will host Scott Noppe-Brandon, Executive Director of Lincoln Center Institute in her class, Current Trends in Educational Theatre, for a talk about his book, Imagination First on April 11 at 4:50. All faculty are welcome! If you are interested in attending please contact jkatona@ccny.cuny.edu.
On April 30th - The Program in Educational Theatre will host the Second Annual Mini - Conference. This conference will have exciting breakout sessions exploring theatre education. For more information please check out our website.
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CCNY Education Alumni's Annual Awards Dinner
Wednesday, May 4th at the National Arts Club at 6:00 pm
Tickets are available for the Education Alumni's Annual Awards Dinner that will be held on May 4th at the National Arts Club, Gramercy Park in Manhattan. All alumni are invited. Tickets to the dinner are $85 each (includes cocktails, hors d'oeuvres and dinner). The National Arts Club is located at 15 Gramercy Park South (20th Street) between Park and Irving Place, on the southwest corner of Gramercy Park. Contact Olga Mikhlina (omikhlina@ccnyalumni.org; 212-650-5343) for tickets and/or Journal Ads ($25 and up) or Dr. Bruce M. Billig (bbillig@ccny.cuny.edu). Click each of the following to see Ed. Alumni Group President Dr. John Lee's letter, a copy of the dinner reservation form as well as the Journal ad form.
This year's Award Winners are:
Distinguished Educator- Eric Nadelstern
Outstanding Teachers - Comfort Quarshie - PS 55 X; Nohemy Lucero - IS 55M; and Zuleika Martinez - Satellite Academy - Jamaica Campus High School.
Outstanding Administrators - Assistant Principal Jacquelin Colon - PS 208 M; Principal Ysidro Abreu - MS 319 M; and Assistant Principal Edward G. Meade - Alfred E. Smith CTE High School.
Distinguished Partner in Education - Larry Gralla.
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Communicating with Children Through Drama:
The Story of Making a Difference in Communities in India
Save the Date: Thursday, May 12, 2011.
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Dr. Asha Singh |
Dr. Asha Singh, Associate Professor of Media and Childhood Studies at Lady Irwin College, Delhi University in New Delhi, will present a talk on ways that theater and drama have been used as a research tool for exploring experiences of children, their views on education as well as progress and change among children from marginalized communities in several Indian settings.
In India, childcare professionals and teachers of young children are mostly women. Drama has been a means for exploring feminist orientations among community child care workers, and to see and understand children's perceptions and experiences of schools and schooling. Theater is also useful for looking at specific programs and institutional routines, as well as the processes, rhythms and interpersonal interactions reflected in those programs and routines. In education and pedagogy, qualitative methods of research are gaining momentum through a growing understanding that the "rigor of uniformity" often fails to notice the depth of information derived from such study.
"In my own work, application of drama and theatrical techniques helped to open 'interaction spaces' with children living under difficult circumstances, such as those living and coping with terrorism and other forms of violence. Theater facilitated and initiated communication, enabling children to discover and recognize shared emotions and fears".
Thursday, May 12 from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm in NAC 4/220
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Mathematics in the City: Past Present and Future
Save the Dates: June 13-14, 2011
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Professor Cathy Fosnot |
Join us for a two-day conference honoring the work of Mathematics in the City and Professor Cathy Fosnot. The Conference is sponsored by Mathrack.com, Heinemann Press and The City College of New York and will be held at The College. Keynote speakers will include Professor Fosnot, Professor Emeritus, City College, Hank Kepner, NCTM President, Bill Jacob, Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara and Martin Simon, Professor New York University. Registration fee is $100 and includes breakfast and lunch for the two days. Visit the conference website: www.mitccny.org.
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News and Notes
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Professor Amita Gupta |
Professor Amita Gupta was an invited Keynote Speaker at the annual conference of the European Early Childhood Education Research Association held in Birmingham, UK. The title of her talk was The power of knowledge and voice: Contextualizing research to reflect early childhood realities more accurately and more inclusively. While there she was interviewed for the British national network called Teachers TV. Here is a link to that television interview: http://www.teachers.tv/videos/cultural-perspectives-amita-gupta
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Professor Hope Hartman |
Professor Hope Hartman has co-authored a chapter entitled "Social Annotation to Enhance Learning and Assessment in Higher Education" that appears in Educating Educators with Social Media: Cutting-Edge Technologies in Higher Education, Volume 1 edited by Charles Wankel, Emerald Publishing Group: United Kingdom. (2011).
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New York University Professor Diane Ravitch, this month's distinguished guest speaker (April 6th), will be discussing her book "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education". The review of this book by Sherman Dorn, published in Education Review (an open-access journal of book reviews), is among the top 5 downloaded reviews in 2010. To read the review go to http://www.edrev.info/essays/v13n6.pdf.
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Professor Emeritus Sigmund Tobias of our School of Education who co-edited "Constructivist Instruction: Success or Failure" also made the top five downloads. For those interested in constructivist teaching and learning read the both the book and a detailed review in Education Review by Keith Taber at http://www.edrev.info/essays/v13n8.pdf .
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Ed Alumni & SOE Sponsor Principal's Panel on Teacher Selection
On March 15th, The CCNY Education Alumni Group and the School of Education co-sponsored a Principals' Panel. Over one hundred School of Education students, alumni, faculty and staff listened to the distinguished panel of active principals as they responded to questions, such as: Describe the process used in your school to recruit and select teachers; What questions would you ask in interviewing a teacher candidate and why?; When reviewing resumes, what are the three most important things you look for in deciding who should be given further consideration for an interview? The audience members submitted over twenty questions for the panel during the Q&A session. This was followed by small group interviews with audience participation.
Many thanks to the panelists: Dr Ellen Parris, Principal of the Choir Academy of Harlem; Elsa Nunez, Principal of PS 28M; Ysidro Abreu, Principal of PS 319M and Luis Torres, Principal of PS 55X. Thanks also to the moderator, Dr. Joyce Coppin, former District Superintendant and currently CCNY School of Education's Distinguished Lecturer in the Department of Leadership and Special Education.
Dr. John Lee, President of the CCNY Education Alumni group gave the opening remarks and the School of Education's Acting Dean, Doris Cintron, also spoke. |
The Link Between Shimoda, Townsend Harris, &
The City College of New York

The photograph above is of the beautiful seaside town of Shimoda on the Izu peninsula. Shimoda is two hours south of Tokyo and, perhaps because of this, there have been be no reports that Shimoda sustained earthquake or tsunami damage. Shimoda has a special relationship with City College. Every summer their mayor leads a delegation to visit City College as well as the gravesite of Townsend Harris in Queens.
Townsend Harris is of particular importance to the people of Shimoda. He was appointed the first US General Consul to Japan in 1856 by President Franklin Pierce, two years after Commodore Perry's visit. He negotiated the "Harris Treaty" between the US and Japan and is credited as the diplomat who first opened the Empire of Japan to foreign trade and culture in the Edo period. " Harris demanded the courtesies due to an accredited envoy, and refused to deliver his president's letter to anyone but the Shogun in Yedo, and to him personally. After prolonged negotiations lasting 18 months, Harris finally received a personal audience with the Shogun in the palace in 1858. After another four months, he successfully negotiated the "Treaty of Peace and Commerce", securing trade between the US and Japan and paving the way for greater Western influence in Japan's economy and politics". (Wikipedia)
Townsend Harris was important to City College because earlier in his career, as President of the New York City Board of Education, he was credited with founding the Free Academy of the City of New York in 1848, which, of course, later became The City College of New York. Our College library has a collection of Harris artifacts and the cherry trees in front of the Architecture building were donated by the people of Shimoda.
The hearts of students and faculty of the City College of New York and its School of Education go out to the family and friends of the victims of last month's terrible tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers for a full recovery are with you.
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Townsend Harris |
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Townsend Harris Hall, CCNY |
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Websites of Interest
 
(Hint: Using your mouse, put the cursor on any letter of the web address while holding down the Control key. Then left click your mouse to go directly to the site. This saves the steps involved in copying and pasting to your browser).
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http://blogs.scholastic.com/top_teaching/2011/03/ready-set-revolution-.html#more This web posting comes to us from Cristy Crawford, a technology teacher advisor at The Bronx New School, who says her goal is to help familiarize teachers with the digital tools available today in order to empower them in their role as our children's technology tour guides. See how she involves fifth grade students in reporting revolutions, involving them in debates and empowering them with technology. Thanks to Professor Beverly Falk for forwarding this posting.
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http://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/learning-matters/index.html This worthwhile video is about the transformation of large, overcrowded New York City high schools into smaller schools. It was made by Learning Matters and appeared in Education Week. It presents some of the problems and prospects for small high schools.
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http://www.ted.com/speakers/salman_kahn.html Here is another interesting TED video that is worth watching. Salman Khan, a young, former senior analyst at a hedge-fund has developed video lectures (that he teaches) in mathematics, science and other subjects. His goal is to provide a "free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere". To that end he created the Khan Academy, "with more than a million students monthly it is now the most-used educational video repository on the Internet (over 30 million lessons delivered to-date). All 2000+ video tutorials cover everything from basic addition to advanced calculus, physics, chemistry and biology". Go to www.khanacademy.org and watch a video module of your choice. Test some of his video modules in math in your classes or with your own children or grandchildren. Then decide whether this represents a truly world-class education
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http://tinyurl.com/4bejz5d From the New York Times Opinion Pages comes a debate on the issue "Why Blame the Teachers?". Start off by reading Professor Diane Ravitch's argument, follow the other arguments and then come and hear Professor Ravitch on April 6th at 5:00 pm in the NAC faculty dining room.
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Calendar of Events at City College
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