Technology Integration Series

The Center for School Development will be offering a series of free technology integration sessions during this academic year. Dr Sheila Gersh, who has successfully taught more than 1,000 New York City teachers to use technology in their classrooms, will offer the series. The sessions will primarily be in presentation format, with occasional hands-on components where appropriate. A website full of resources discussed will be available for participants to access in their classrooms or at home or to share with others. Sessions are open to students, faculty, alumni and teachers in collaborating schools. The first two sessions in the series to be offered in October are below. Contact Dr. Gersh at sgersh@ccny.cuny.edu to reserve a space.

Tuesday, October 12th 2:00-4:00 pm "Preparing Instruction and Teaching with the SmartBoard"

Tuesday, October 26th 2:00-4:00 pm "Making the Most of the Internet to Enrich your Teaching"

Warming the Emotional Climate of the Classroom , October 27, 4:00-5:00, NAC 4/220B

Professor Ian Evans discusses a model that he found can describe the emotional climate of elementary school classrooms. He will briefly present the model and the classroom observations and interviews with teachers and students that support it. These narratives reveal the complexity of emotional interchanges that take place in typical classrooms on an everyday basis. The implications for teaching and professional development will also be explored. The work is based on three years of research in typical, ethnically diverse classrooms in New Zealand. The goal of our work has been to examine the impact of the natural emotional relationships in the classroom on the social, emotional, and behavioral development of children. All are welcome to this presentation.

Ian Evans is a professor of psychology at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand and a former Director of Clinical Psychology training at Binghamton University (SUNY). Much of his work has been in education. Please contact normanccny@aol.com to reserve a place.

Three Educational Theatre Program Events Coming in November

Friday, November 5th, 4:30-6:30pm a New York City Cultural Arts Expo at City College "Bring the arts to your classroom and the classroom to the arts! A Cultural Arts Partner Fair" featuring representatives from Cultural Arts Organizations across New York City will be held at City College's North Academic Center's (NAC)Ballroom on the first floor. For pre-service and inservice teachers to find out how your classrooms can become involved with theatre and the arts.

Friday, November 12th, from 5-7pm an Educational Theatre Program Open House and Information Session in NAC 4/220B. For those interested in a career in Theatre Education or for those interested in taking some classes to enhance your teaching, come and find out about the Educational Theatre program.

Saturday, November 13th at 8:00 pm The Educational Theatre Club will be hosting a Fundraising Cabaret in Compton Goethals Hall Room 318. There will be a variety of acts- singing, acting, and dancing around the theme of Education and Theatre! $10.00 suggested donation with the proceeds used for a scholarship for a New York City senior pursuing theatre in college! Please come and show your support!

For Other Events At CCNY See: http://www1.ccny.cuny.edu/current/events/index.cfm

For Directions to the Campus See: http://www1.ccny.cuny.edu/prospective/about/directions.cfm

Publications, Presentations and Faculty Awards

Professor Susan F. Semel Has Three Publications this Year

Semel, S.F.(Ed.) (2010). Foundations of Education: The Essential Texts. New York: Routledge. From the Amazon summary: "Foundations of Education helps aspiring teachers interpret the craft of teaching within the historical, philosophical, cultural, and social contexts of education inside and outside of schools. Singh, P., Sadovnik, A.R. & Semel, S.F. (Eds.) (2010). Toolkits, Translation Devices and Conceptual Accounts- Essays on Basil Bernstein's Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Peter Lang. About the Essays on Basil Bernstein's Sociology of Knowledge, Professor Semel comments that "For over four decades, Basil Bernstein researched 'the internal organization and educational context of the school specifically, and educational systems generally. Sadovnik, A.R., Semel, S.F., Simon, F. & Grosvenor, I. (Eds.) (2010). Special Issue; Education and Inequality: Historical Approaches to Schooling and Social Stratification. Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education. Volume XLVI, Numbers I and II, February-April. This special issue includes 14 articles from the 30th Annual Meeting of the International Standing Conference of the History of Education in 2006 at Rutgers University-Newark. (Read More)

Professor Jan Valle of the Department of Childhood Education was selected as the 2010 winner of the Weiss Award for Excellence in Teaching. She will receive a certificate and a $500 prize on November 11th . The Weiss Award was established two years ago by former School of Education Professor and alumnus Alfred Weiss and his wife Miriam, also an alumna. Its central purpose is to recognize the special importance of excellent teaching by School of Education faculty members who serve as models for future teachers. It also seeks to engage the faculty in ongoing conversations about those qualities that best characterize excellence in teaching. The award winner is selected by a committee consisting of the Dean of the School of Education, the Department Chairs, and four retired faculty members, using student ratings as one key criterion for the award. The previous year's winner was Professor Catherine Franklin also of the Department of Childhood Education. Each year's Selection Committee will include the previous winners of the award.

Performance-Based Assessment Initiatives

Professor Beverly Falk led the inaugural event entitled "Looking, Listening, Doing and Documenting: Performance Assessments' Opportunities for Learning", for the New York City Department of Education's Performance-Based Assessment Project, in September, 2010. As part of national efforts to improve our educational system, the NYC Department of Education (DOE) is embarking on a multi-year project to transform the student assessment system from the current high stakes tests that rely predominantly on multiple choice and short answer formats to a system of assessments that include performance-based, curriculum-embedded tasks designed to call on students to use critical thinking skills and apply their knowledge to solve real-world problems. The plan is to use the information from these assessments to inform instruction and better support student learning.

Professor Norman Shapiro and Dr. Sheila Gersh of the Center for School Development have been working with the Mott Hall School for a number of years helping teachers enhance their curriculum with the use of interactive technology. Last year the Center worked with teachers and students on a year-long ecology project thanks to a GE grant received by the school. This year GE changed the focus of the grant to assessment. The Center will work with Mott Hall English and Social Studies teachers grades sixth through eight on developing performance-based measures based on student work. In addition, we will be working with the school to determine how best to maintain student work in electronic portfolios in order that both students and teachers can see student progress and growth. Key to the success of the work has been the school's commitment to innovation and the help and support of the Principal Cynthia Arndt and the Assistant Principal Melanie Thai.

Meet Sobha Kavanakudiyil Paredes, New Faculty Member in Educational Theatre Program

Sobha Kavanakudiyil Paredes is a new faculty member in the Educational Theatre Program, in the Childhood Education Department. She earned her B.A. in Communications from Fordham University and her M.A. in Educational Theatre from NYU. Much of her experience in arts education includes integrating drama into the core curriculum and bringing theatre into the lives of students from pre-k through graduate school. Sobha has been an Adjunct Instructor Hudson County Community College where she taught Acting and Speech, at New York University's Educational Theatre Program where she taught Integrating the Arts and Dramatic Activities for K-6 Classroom, both at the undergraduate and graduate level. She is also proud to have been an Adjunct Instructor for the Educational Theatre Program at CCNY where she has been teaching Drama in Education and Conflict Resolution through Theatre. Sobha has also been a presenter at conferences including: NJEA Convention, AATE, Face to Face, NYU Applied Theatre and Pedagogy Conference. "I feel very privileged to be part of the faculty at City College and to work with the diverse group of graduate candidates in our program and am committed to giving our students what they need to grow as artists and educators!" (Read More)

Education Alumni Awards Luncheon An Outstanding Success

The Education Alumni Group's Annual Awards Luncheon that was held on May 1, 2010 at the National Arts Club in New York City was an outstanding success. In addition to the presentation of Awards, the Keynote Speaker (Santiago Taveras), New York City's Deputy Chancellor of the Division of Community engagement, gave everyone an update regarding his Division's outreach efforts that will lead to enhanced parent involvement in New York City's public schools. Each of the award winners also had an opportunity to share experiences and perspectives that led them to receive their prestigious awards from the Education Alumni Group of the Alumni Association of the City College of New York. Read more about the Awards Luncheon, including the biographies of the award winners as well as a list of our Education Partners who also supported this event. If you would like to nominate someone for one of the Education Alumni Group's awards for 2011 please contact Dr. Bruce M. Billig (bbillig@ccny.cuny.edu), Director of the School of Education's Office of Field Experiences and First Vice President of the Education Alumni Group.

Meet the 12th President of The City College of New York

Dr. Lisa Staiano-Coico, a nationally prominent educator and researcher in microbiology and immunology and former Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs and Professor of Surgery at Temple University, is the 12th President of The City College of New York. A native of Brooklyn, President Staiano-Coico earned a B.S. with honors in biology from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 1976, and is the first CUNY alumna to serve as president of City College, founded in 1847 as New York City's first public institution of higher education, The Free Academy. (Read More)

Website & Book Recommendations

We ask our readers to contribute recommended websites or books in Education. Please send to normanccny@aol.com

Call For Presenters at the "Immigration and Education Conference"- March 19, 2011

The School of Education is pleased to host an Immigration and Education Conference on Saturday, March 19, 2011. There is no better place to look carefully at immigration, in its broadest sense, than here in the city referred to as "The Crossroads of the World", and especially at City College, an institution that has been educating immigrant students for over 100 years. The conference will bring together students, faculty, educators, community members and politicians from NYC and beyond to address this timely and important topic. Please consider being a part of this event! Teachers, youth workers community organizers, university faculty, students, school administrators, policy-makers, community members, and immigrants are invited to share their expertise. Conference organizers are seeking proposals for workshops and presentations that fit within the conference theme: Envisioning Schools, Communities and Policies of Acceptance. Click here for proposal form. The deadline for proposal submissions is November 1, 2010. Any questions about the conference can be addressed to ImmigrationConf@ccny.cuny.edu.

ATTENTION School of Education Students in Dire Financial Difficulty

The College has established a partnership with Dream Keepers of Scholarship America to award our students emergency grants in times of dire financial difficulty. Students who have been assisted were students who were at high risk of dropping out, and struggling financially and emotionally; many were homeless, hungry, and/or victims of domestic violence. Student Affairs is in the process of setting up an online application for these funds, and we will be announcing this to our students. In the meantime, students who might be in need of emergency financial assistance should see or call either Wendy Thornton, 212-650-5904 or Robert Rodriguez, 212-650-5426, Administration Building 204.