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Coming Events and Activities
Workshops & Events for Students, Teachers, Alumni & SOE Faculty
Educational Theatre Program Goes to PS 180 on May 10th
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Sobha K. Paredes |
On May 10th, Sobha K. Paredes and Graduate Candidates from the Program in Educational Theatre will visit PS 180 and conduct pre – show lessons and perform The Princess Who Could Not Cry for third graders, as part of the Readings on the Road staged reading series.
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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. Event is free.
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Graduate Students in Secondary English and Spanish Education to Present Their Research Projects
May 12th 5:00-8:00 pm
Each year, MA candidates in English Education and Spanish Education, in the Department of Secondary Education, present their research projects at a mini-conference open to current graduate and undergraduate candidates in all content areas, as well as to adjunct and full-time faculty, and any one else interested in attending. This year's conference is scheduled for Thursday, May 12th, from 5-8 pm, in NAC 4/220B. Come and celebrate our candidates' work.
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Master's Thesis Symposium in Secondary Science
May 23rd from 4:30-9:30 pm
Join Master's students as they discuss their research projects at their Symposium in Secondary Science on May 23rd from 4:30-9:30 pm. For the room and any additional information contact Professor Richard Steinberg at steinberg@ccny.cuny.edu.
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June Conference
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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Mathematics in the City: SUMMER INSTITUTE
August 15th-19th
The goal of the MitC's one-week Summer Institute is to advance elementary and middle school teachers' mathematical and pedagogical knowledge. During this Summer Institute, teachers will work to deepen their understanding of mathematics. Teachers will be invited to be learners in a mathematics environment where math is seen as the posing and solving of problems, the searching of patterns and the construction of formulae, models and strategies. Further, participants will work with our interactive multimedia materials showing videos of exemplary MitC classrooms and will begin to learn how to turn their classrooms into mathematics workshops and transform their students into young mathematicians.
This year MitC will be offering four sessions, each focusing on a mathematical content area. Session will deepen teachers' understanding of the mathematics within this area as well as understanding their students' thinking. We will trace the development of these mathematical ideas across grades helping teachers develop "landscapes of learning". Further, we aim to help teachers develop instructional strategies to support students' understanding of mathematics with the use of appropriate models and strategies. Teachers will explore the use of inquiry, the development of "workshops" as well as "mini-lessons" as instructional techniques in their own classroom. All sessions will be aligned with the Common Core.
For more information and for registration please visit our website at www.mitcccny.org.
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News and Notes
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Professor Tatyana Kleyn |
Professor Tatyana Kleyn of our Bilingual Education and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program has a new book out entitled Immigration: The Ultimate Teen Guide. Series:#29 It happened to me. In the book Professor Kleyn (an immigrant herself) "examines the myths and realities of immigration, as well as the laws and policies that regulate it. She explores a number of issues associated with immigration, including cultural clashes and discrimination, the debate on language, undocumented immigrants, and what it means to be an American. The book includes an overview of the nation's history with immigration, definitions of relevant terms, and recent statistical and demographic information. It also discusses why and how many immigrants make the journey to the United States. Other aspects the book addresses include undocumented immigrants and refugees/asylees, laws and policies that either support or hinder immigration, and how young immigrants can reconcile their competing identities". Click here to see more.
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Professor Nancy Stern |
Professor Nancy Stern and Professor Ricardo Otheguy have co-authored a paper entitled 'On So-Called Spanglish', which deals with an important issue touching on the language and lives of many in the CCNY community. The paper appears in the March 2011 issue of the International Journal of Bilingualism.
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Professor Emeritus Sigmund Tobias |
Information Age Publishing Inc., Charleston NC has published Computer Games and Instruction edited by Sigmund Tobias and J. D. Fletcher. The book is intended for educators and trainers interested in using games for instruction by providing a detailed review of the research evidence supporting such use. Jim Gee, Chris Dede, and Marc Prensky comment on the review. The book also reviews the history of games, use of games in allied health, the military, and for enhancing cognitive and perceptual processes, as well as for improving vocabulary. In addition, chapters describe multimedia research pertinent to games, cost benefit analyses, unobtrusive evaluation, multi-user games, gender and socioeconomic factors and contemporary learning theories and a problem solving study related to games. For further information click here.
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School of Education Journal Affiliates with a National
Teacher Education Association
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Professor Beverly Falk |
Professor Beverly Falk, The Editor of The New Educator journal, recently announced that as of 2011, the journal is affiliated with The Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) and will once again be published both in paper and online by Taylor and Francis/Routledge.
Founded in 1920, ATE is the only national, individual membership organization devoted solely to the improvement of teacher education for both school and campus-based teacher educators. ATE members represent over 650 colleges and universities, 500 major school systems, and the majority of the state departments of education. As a result of The New Educator's affiliation with ATE, our journal will have a subscribership of over 1200 individuals as well as over 400 institutional subscriptions. Beginning with Volume 8, in 2012, The New Educator will become a part of Taylor and Francis/Routledge's library subscriptions, which reach to 1483 libraries around the world. The journal will also become available in 2012 through EBSCO host, which reaches another 2700 libraries around the world. Read more about ATE here.
This affiliation was possible only because the Association of Teacher Educators recognized the exceptional quality of the journal, which is a testimonial to its editor, Professor Beverly Falk, and the faculty who worked with Professor Falk. It also brings considerable recognition and prestige to the City College School of Education. Congratulations Professor Falk! |
Teacher Academy Senior Jian Liu Receives $100,000 Math Fellowship
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Jian Liu |
One of our graduating Teacher Academy students, Jian Liu, has won a Math for America Fellowship that will provide him with a $100,000 stipend. Mr. Liu has earned many accolades while at CCNY. His work in schools through the Teacher Academy has helped prepare him to teach. Math for America is a nonprofit organization that aims to improve mathematics education in U.S. public secondary schools by recruiting, training and retaining outstanding mathematics teachers. "This is an incredible honor," said Mr. Liu, who will receive a BA in pure mathematics from CCNY on June 3, with minors in secondary math education and physics. "It's an extremely competitive program and a major boost to my plans to become a math teacher." Mr. Liu is a Chinese immigrant who arrived in New York six years ago with only basic knowledge of English. While at CCNY, Mr. Liu had fulfilled his Teacher Academy field work requirements at: Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change; City College Academy of the Arts; The Mott Hall School, and A. Philip Randolph Campus High School. He will attend either Bard College or New York University this summer. MfA will pay his master's degree tuition in full.
Click here to read more. |
400 Attend The CCNY Immigration and Education Conference:
A Day of Sharing and Reflection with a Call for Action
The CCNY Immigration and Education Conference in April brought more than 400 people together to envision schools, communities and policies of acceptance. The event began in the historic Great Hall, where conference co-chairs Jesus Fraga and Tatyana Kleyn welcomed the attendees and set the tone for the conference as a day of thinking about diversity, education and human rights. Next, CCNY President Lisa Staiano-Coico reinforced the College's commitment to the education of all immigrants, regardless of status. Angelica Infante, the director of the NYC Department of Education's Office of English Language Learners, spoke about the importance of equitably educating the growing number of immigrant students in NYC public schools. Fatima Shama, the Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs from the Mayor's Office, then spoke about the rich history of immigration to the city and the many efforts underway to support immigrants via the city's government. Finally, the keynote speaker, John Quinones of ABC News, shared his myriad experiences reporting on immigration issues over the past two decades. From his time going undercover crossing the Rio Grande to his recent report posing as an undocumented immigrant in Arizona where Senate Bill 1070 threatens to change the freedoms of immigrants and U.S.-born individuals, Mr. Quinones painted a picture of the how larger policies and ideologies impact people at the personal and daily level. The morning session left the audience with a sense of the realities and challenges that immigrants in NYC and across the U.S. are faced with in a mixed-climate that ranges from acceptance to discrimination.
Conference-goers were then able to select from 15 breakout sessions in the morning and another 15 sessions following lunch. The sessions included: panels with immigrant youth from NYC and suburban areas who shared their experiences in schools, lawyers who outlined current and pending policies at the state and federal levels, research on programs for immigrants in NYC public schools, and experiences of refugees who span the trajectory of African nations in conflict to their migration to the U.S, among many others.
The conference culminated in the Great Hall with a poetry slam titled, Voices of the Journey: A Spoken Word Celebration of Immigrant Experiences. Heather Homonoff Woodley, co-organizer of the poetry slam, introduced the event where immigrants and their descendents, of different ages, ethnicities, and languages shared authentic poems that depicted their successes, struggles and hopes. Channon Hodge from the CUNY School of Journalism and CUNY TV recorded the event and created a compilation of the slam that can be accessed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0POBqt-dS4
School of Education Dean Doris Cintron closed the conference after a day full of stories, information, research, emotion and community building. The event was a success due to the efforts and support of many individuals and organizations including the Colin Powell Center, New York City Department of Education's Office of English Language Learners, The Carnegie Corporation of New York, The CCNY Office of the Provost and the CCNY Office of Student Affairs. Furthermore, the work of the faculty and student planning committees, as well as the many CCNY student and faculty volunteers, helped the conference run smoothly so that the stories and struggles that frame the immigration debate in the U.S. could be told.

Congratulations Professors Jesus Fraga and Tatyana Kleyn, Conference Co-Directors, on a wonderful event! Thanks too to the many faculty, staff and students who assisted in making the day so special.
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Diane Ravitch Presentation Draws 300 Educators
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Professor Diane Ravitch |
On Wednesday, April 6th, historian Diane Ravitch delivered the second annual Doyle and Alba Bortner Lecture in Urban Education. Open to the public, there were over 300 people in attendance, among them, students, teachers, faculty, administrators, alumni and retired faculty. Acting Dean Doris Cintron introduced President Lisa Staiano-Coico, who welcomed everyone and stressed the importance of teachers and the School of Education at CCNY. Professor Susan Semel introduced Professor Ravitch, who proceeded to give a passionate critique of the current educational reforms, including testing, charter schools, and value added models for evaluating teachers. She argued that these reforms threaten public education and recommended instead, strengthening public schools and supporting teachers as they do in the highest achieving nations, such as Finland. Despite her dismal portrait of current reforms, her message validated the work teachers do in schools and was enthusiastically received by the audience. Many students and faculty lined up to purchase Professor Ravitch's latest book The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education which she graciously autographed after her presentation. The presentation was videotaped and may be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTRnPa7bvzI.
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Professor Susan Semel |
Congratulations to Professor Susan Semel and the faculty committee who worked with her, Professors Chris Yawn, Yael Wyner, Megan Blumenreich, and Edwin Lamboy for organizing and planning this most stimulating and important event.
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Educational Theatre Program Activities in April
 On April 9th from 10-2 on the North Quad, The Program in Educational Theatre hosted Family Arts Day. Graduate candidates facilitated activities that included sing-a-longs, mask making, face painting, story telling, physical theatre, clowning and a performance of The Princess Who Could Not Cry. The event was open to the community and between 150-200 people attended and had a wonderful time.
On April 30th from 10-6pm, The Graduate Program in Educational theatre hosted the Ed Theatre Mini-Conference. The conference included a panel discussion on resources for the classroom and tips on grant writing, a game share. Sessions were also held on Teaching Shakespeare, Teaching Improvisation, Arts Integration, and Teaching Theatre to Pre K- 1st graders.
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Teacher Academy Explores New Standards for Mathematical Practice
On April 8th The Teacher Academy had Lehman College Professor Ronald Schwarz speak to students on "The Importance of the New Standards for Mathematical Practice". Professor Beverly Smith and several collaborating teachers from The City College Academy of the Arts and the Thurgood Marshall Academy also attended. During the course of the semester, host school teachers and administrators have attended and participated in weekly seminars.
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The Weekly School of Education Library Hour
The weekly SOE Library hour for faculty, staff and students is on Thursdays from 3:45 to 4:45 PM in the Multimedia Center NA 4/216. Professor Gill is also available for faculty, staff and students via the following blog http://soelibraryhour.wordpress.com/ to answer research related questions.
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Websites of Interest
 
Because this is the last issue of CONNECTED for this academic year and because there is so much going on in education today, an especially long list of resource websites and articles is being included in this section. Print this page and investigate some of these sites at your leisure this summer. (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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Skype in the Classroom http://education.skype.com/ 'Meet new people, discover new cultures and connect with classes from around the world without leaving the classroom". A world of project-based activities is available to you and your students with Skype. Bring experts to your classes, link your class with others around the world and now with Skype in the Classroom you can also find teachers with whom to do projects'.
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Online Dictionary and More. http://memidex.com Not only does this free tool provide you with definitions from a variety of dictionaries, it also provides a Thesaurus and it gives you the pronunciations of each word and often multiple pronunciations.
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Meet the Nation's "Top Teacher" Sarah Brown Wessling, a high school English teacher from Iowa "who incorporates everything from singing to Facebook in her lessons and has been recognized by President Barack Obama as the nation's top teacher". (e-School News) www.eschoolnews.com/video/?q=3SfVi13wT7SfxybP5gnTAg%253d%253d
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Two Free Math Resources. eSchool News reports on www.geogebra.org/cms/en 'a free and multi-platform mathematics software for all levels of education that joins geometry, algebra, tables, graphing, statistics, and calculus in one easy-to-use package'.
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Should Florida Teachers Continue get Advanced Degrees? Read one Florida teacher's opinion by clicking here.
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Ed Week's Special Report on Informal Science Education Click here
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Program Characteristics that Prepare Pre-Service Teachers for Diversity? Read Motoko Akiba's study in the Teacher's College Record. Click here
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Interesting and Controversial Article in New York Times Magazine Section in March about Doug Lemov (Click here) who now has a book out entitled "Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques That Put Students on the Path to College" (With DVD)
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Summer Reading
Courtesy, School of Education Faculty & Retired Faculty
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Hope Hartman |
Tatyana Kleyn |
Sigmund Tobias |
Susan Semel |
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Send your comments on CONNECTED to connected@ccny.cuny.edu
Calendar of Events at City College
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