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Acting Dean Doris Cintron |
Welcome to CONNECTED, the School of Education's online newsletter. CONNECTED has a diverse audience of educators that includes current undergraduate and graduate students, education alumni, current and retired education faculty, cooperating teachers, and principals of schools with whom we have a collaborative relationship. Our goals are to inform our community about: a) the workshops, conferences and other extracurricular activities that our programs sponsor, b) the professional activities of our faculty, students and alumni and c) education web site resources and links to education articles of general interest and importance. We hope you will stay "connected".
Acting Dean Doris Cintron
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Coming Events and Activities
Workshops & Events for Students, Teachers, Alumni & SOE Faculty
Using SmartBoards in the Classroom
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Doris Grasserbauer |
This hands-on workshop is for School of Education students, faculty, alumni and cooperating teachers. The workshop is structured around the experience level and the specific subject matter taught by the participants. For beginners, we will start with the basics and then dive into the interactive classroom possibilities depending on the needs and interests of the participants. No matter what your level of experience you will get a chance to use the SmartBoard.
All workshops will be presented by Doris Grasserbauer and held in the Multimedia Center room NA 4/221.
Dates:
- October 25, 3 to 4pm
- November 15, 3 to 4pm
- December 6, 3 to 4pm
Click here to register for one of the workshops: |
Ed Theatre Program Celebrates Halloween in Hamilton Heights
Sunday, October 29th, 10 am
The Graduate Program in Educational Theatre will participate in a storytelling performance for the Hamilton Heights Halloween Event the weekend of Halloween. The performance will be held at The Hamilton Heights Parent Association 10-12 in the morning, at St. Luke's Community Garden at 141st Street and Convent Avenue. All are welcome.
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Annual Principal's Panel & Discussion:
Effective Interviewing Skills for a Teaching or Leadership Position
Thursday, November 10th, 4:30 pm
If you are looking to interview for a teaching or leadership position, you do not want to miss this extremely informative event. The event will be held from 4:30 - 7:00 PM in the Faculty Dining Room in the NAC building. All are welcome. Contact Dr. Bruce M. Billig if you have questions (bbillig@ccny.cuny.edu).
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Faculty & Student Activities
Launch of New Book Raises $1000 in Scholarships
for Undocumented Students
On Friday, September 16, more than 80 people came to The College to learn about current immigration issues, especially as they relate to those who are undocumented. To launch her new book, "Immigration: The Ultimate Teen Guide" (Scarecrow Press, 2011) Professor Tatyana Kleyn organized a panel discussion with Arlen Benjamin Gomez, a lawyer and NY Regents Fellow; Jong-Min, an undocumented 31-year-old Korean-American who has lived in the U.S. since the age of one, graduated from college, and continues to have limited opportunities; and Angy Rivera, an active member of the NY State Youth Leadership Council (NYSYLC) who writes "Ask Angy," the first advice column for and by undocumented youth. Following the informative and emotional presentations, the group headed to the NAC ballroom for pizza, music, and dancing. More importantly, the attendees donated a total of a thousand dollars toward scholarships for undocumented youth, who are not eligible for public financial aid in NY. However, with the possibility of the passage of the NY DREAM ACT, the opportunities for unauthorized youth in the state have the potential to improve. To learn more about the NY Dream Act, check out the NYSYLC website at: http://www.nysylc.org/. A special acknowledgement goes out to the CCNY retired faculty, who helped to support this event.
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Professor Hope Hartman |
Professor Hope Hartman made three presentations at the Peer Led Team Learning (PLTL) Summer Institute held at CCNY from July 25-27. Participants were faculty and administrators from around the country who currently have, or are preparing to have, PLTL programs. The presentations were: "Discussion Skills for Peer Leaders", "Cognitive Science and PLTL" and "Learning Styles for PLTL"
In August, Professor Hartman conducted two training sessions for CCNY PLTL Peer Leaders: "Questioning for Learning in PLTL" and "Learning Styles for PLTL Peer Leaders". For those interested, here is a link to the PLTL website http://www.pltl.org/. If you go to this web site and click on the link Center for Peer-led Team Learning Personnel you will see that Professor Hartman is now the Co-Director of the Center for Peer Led Team Learning. Congratulations Hope!
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Professor Denise L. McLurkin |
Professor Denise L. McLurkin was named Volunteer of the Year by Project Literacy of Greater Bergen County, Bergen County, New Jersey. She also received certificates of commendation from the Office of the Bergen County Sheriff and the Bergen County Board of Chosen Freeholders for her work with Project Literacy. Project Literacy is a tutoring program for adult literacy learners who want to improve their literacy skills and/or earn their GED. The tutoring services are free and are provided by trained community members who agree to volunteer their time for at least one academic year. Dr. McLurkin has been volunteering as an assessment specialist, volunteer tutor and member of the Education Oversight committee. In May of this year, she presented a paper related to her experiences tutoring an adult literacy learner at the Narrative Research in Progress Conference in Anchorage, Alaska.
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Professor Beverly Falk |
Professor Beverly Falk was a featured speaker during the summer 2011 at the following:
July, 2011 Developing Futures in Education Conference, Orlando, FL: "Performance-based Assessment in Literacy"
June, 2011 Press Conference, Children's Defense Fund, New York, New York: "Early Childhood Education is Critical for Our Democracy"
Professors Beverly Falk and Megan Blumenreich were featured speakers at:
June, 2011 Documentation Institute, Wheelock College, Brookline, Massachusetts: Invited presenters for "Inside Urban Teaching".
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Tatyana Kleyn (right and front), with co-facilitator Jean Aupont (center), and the class of secondary teachers. |
Professor Tatyana Kleyn of the Bilingual Education & TESOL program returned to Haiti during the summer of 2011 to work with the organization Pwof Ansanm, which translates as "Teachers Together" from Haitian Creole. The organization collaborates with local communities to provide educational resources and support to teachers. Tatyana worked with secondary teachers in the various content areas in the border town of Ouanaminthe, which is walking distance of the Dominican town of Dajabon. The cohort of 26 teachers in the general pedagogy seminar explored the concepts of student-centered learning, Bloom's Taxonomy, and children's rights.
Photo Caption: Tatyana Kleyn (right and front), with co-facilitator Jean Aupont (center), and the class of secondary teachers.
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Mathematics in the City (MitC) Conference Held in June
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Professor Cathy Fosnot |
Last June some 250 people from around the country participated in a two-day conference held at The College to celebrate the work of Mathematics in the City (MitC) and to honor the retirement of the Founding Director Professor Cathy Fosnot. Keynote speakers included Professor Fosnot, Hank Kepner, past president of NCTM, Bill Jacob, Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Martin Simon, Professor, New York University. Thirty workshop sessions were held over the two days. Speakers included local teachers and administrators, national and international scholars of mathematics education and MitC faculty discussing current issues in the field. This was a very successful event that highlighted Mathematics in the City's role and status as a leading center for professional development and research in the field of mathematics education. |
Mathematics in the City's Annual Summer Institute
 One hundred and ten teachers participated in Mathematics in the City's annual, week-long Summer Institute at City College. The goal of the Summer Institute was to advance elementary and middle school teachers' mathematical and pedagogical knowledge. To deepen teachers' understanding of mathematics, teachers were asked 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. Participants worked with our NSF-funded interactive multimedia materials, including videos of exemplary MitC classrooms, and they began to learn how to turn their classrooms into mathematics workshops. To learn more about Mathematics in the City visit their website at www.mitcccny.org.
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Curriculum Development Workshop for Civic Deliberation
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Professor Shira Eve Epstein |
This July, Professor Shira Eve Epstein held a workshop for secondary pre-service and in-service teachers on fostering civic deliberation in middle and high school classrooms. When students deliberate on civic issues, they engage in thoughtful discussion on issues that are actively debated in the public sphere. The deliberation ideally allows them to acknowledge and voice their opinions on the many competing approaches to any one issue. Students deliberate on such topics as immigration policy, government spending, and affirmative action - just to name a few. Professor Epstein worked in partnership with the Kettering Foundation to design and offer this two-day workshop - which was quite a success! Teachers envisioned and planned for units that would include opportunities for deliberation and crafted specific tools (e.g., a unit timeline, a rubric, guided reading worksheets) that would help them successfully scaffold student learning during the unit. She expects to continue this work with new groups of teachers in the future.
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Master's Project Students in Science Hold Mini-Conference
Professor Richard Steinberg reports that every term, science education program students who are completing their graduate program, prepare and present an educational research project on student learning of science. At the end of the term, they participate in a mini-conference. As is the case for other professional conferences, they present their work and learn about the work of others. They also attend a workshop of an experienced science educator and listen to a plenary speaker. In past years, there have been anywhere between 10 and 100 participants along with various pre-college students, faculty, family members, and other guests attending the four to eight hour event. This year's mini-conference is scheduled for Dec. 19 from 4:30-9:30 and is open to all.
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Educational Theatre Program Went to PS 180 in May
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Sobha K. Paredes |
The Princess Who Could Not Cry was performed at PS 180 last May by Educational Theatre Graduate Candidates: Mollie Lief, Jodie Pfau, Eric Hoffman, Maria Taylor, Katherine Robbins, Victoria Alexis, Abby Shuppy and Directed by candidate Jason Dula. Lead by Sobha K. Paredes, a member of the Educational Theatre faculty, students worked to develop pre-show lesson plans that were facilitated in each third grade class that attended the performance prior to seeing the show.
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Jodi Pfau Rehearsing the Play |
Students at PS 180 were taken through a process using dramatic activities to help them understand the beginning, middle and end of the story. In addition, after the performance the audience participated in a post show discussion with the performers.
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Faculty and Students in Ed Theatre Program
Present at Summer Conference in Chicago

School of Education faculty and recent graduates from the Educational Theatre Program presented this summer at the American Alliance for Theatre Educators (AATE) Conference in Chicago. Presentations included: Marielle Duke presenting In the Classroom and In the Audience: Adapting Drama for Individuals on the Autism Spectrum; Lisa Mitchell presenting Self Efficacy and Theatre Production in Urban Elementary Schools, and Steven Beckingham, Jess DiCarlo, Hollie Rosenberg along with Faculty Jennifer Katona presenting Know Thyself: Adolescent Social Identity Personality and Perspective Through Encountering Performance and Playbuilding The work presented was based on the research gathered through their Master's Theses.
Sobha K. Paredes presented Process and Performance: Devising Theatre with Teens at the conference in July, as well as conducting a week long P-credit course through The New Victory Theater.
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Communicating with Children Through Drama:
Making a Difference in Communities in India
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Dr. Asha Singh |
On May 12, 2011 guest speaker Dr. Asha Singh, Associate Professor of Lady Irwin College (Delhi University, New Delhi, India) gave a talk at the School of Education which was attended by faculty and students. She spoke about the Theater in Education Approach as it has been used by her for the last fifteen years with children in classrooms all over India. She introduced the talk by emphasizing the importance of using theater in education because it allowed children to become agents of action, allowed teachers to teach textual materials in drama form, allowed the participants to understand social issues, and also allowed teachers to better understand the nature of the childhoods of children they taught. Read Professor Gupta's summary of the session here.
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Ed Alumni Group Dinner in May an Outstanding Success
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Honorees: Standing left to right: Edward Meade '06MSE, Ysidro Abreu '96MA, '97 Cert. in Admin., Larry Gralla '51, Eric Nadelstern '72, Dr. John W. Lee '71, '74MSE. Sitting left to right: Jacquelin Colon '96BS, '00MS, Nohemy Lucero '91MA, Zuleika D. Martinez '09MSE, Comfort Quarshie '98. |
The May 4, 2011 CCNY Education Alumni Group's Annual Awards Dinner for Outstanding Teachers and Administrators was held at the fabulous National Arts Club in New York City. Congratulations to the following Award Winners for 2011:
OUTSTANDING ADMINISTRATORS
Jacquelin Colon - AP, Alain L. Locke Elementary School - PS 208 M, CCNY Degree(s): BS-'96; MS-'00, Nominated by: Principal Susan M. Green
Ysidro Abreu - Principal, Maria Teresas Mirabel Middle School - MS 319; CCNY Degree(s): MA '96; Cert. in Admin. '97; Nominated by: Elsa Nunez Principal Colleague.
Mr. Edward G. Meade - AP, Alfred E. Smith CTE High School; CCNY
Degree: MS '06; Nominated by: Stella Caragiorgis - Teacher
OUTSTANDING TEACHERS
Comfort Quarshie-PS 55 X, Elementary School, CCNY Degree: BS '98, Nominated by: Luis Torres - Principal
Nohemy Lucero- IS 52 Middle School, CCNY Degree: MA '91: Nominated by Donna McGuire - AP
Zuleika D. Martinez-Satellite Academy-Jamaica Campus High School; CCNY Degree: MS '09; Nominated by: Donna McGuire
If you know a highly effective teacher or administrator who is a CCNY Alum, consider nominating him/her for our 2012 CCNY EDUCATION ALUMNI GROUP'S OUTSTANDING TEACHER AND ADMINISTRATOR AWARDS. Contact Dr. Bruce M. Billig (bbillig@ccny.cuny.edu) and he will send you an application as soon as it becomes available.
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Websites of Interest
 
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Become a user of Vital, an online library of more than 5,000 K-12 media resources inspired by the best in public television. Resources are aligned to the New York State core curriculum and Common Core standards for grades K-12. VITAL resources are available to educators FREE with registration. http://vital.thirteen.org/vital2td.html
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T wo brief articles of interest from Converge. First, the new technologies that will be emerging in K-12 education in the next several years are discussed and examples provided. Click here to view. In the second article, Converge talks about how to teach with technology. Click here to view
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Present to Possibility: Spiritual Awareness and Deep Teaching by Lisa Miller was published in Teachers College Record in 2009 and is a short introduction to the Teachers College Record special section, "Present to Possibility: The Classroom as a Spiritual Space.
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=15781 This article offers an introduction to these ideas and to other similar work. Most content in TC Record is free and available online. You can receive all articles all year for only $15 a year.
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Professor Beverly Falk, in a talk to the SOE faculty, discussed the coming changes in New York City schools with the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, the increasing use of performance-based approaches to assessment, and the use of the Danielson Framework for Teaching as well as the Universal Design for Learning. Students, SOE faculty and teachers need to be know these concepts. Her carefully prepared PowerPoint gives educators important links to each of these concepts and takes the reader through the changes that will be coming not only in New York City but in much of the nation as well. Click here to download and view the PowerPoint.
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Articles/Videos of Interest
As educators, we need to keep informed about some of the critical issues in education today. This section provides links to some of those issues in current educational publications. Keeping in mind how busy teachers and students are, nearly all of the articles are no more than one to three pages long. (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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Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions (Harvard Education Review, http://www.hepg.org/hel/article/507 ). This article suggests that students who know how to ask their own questions "take greater ownership of their learning, deepen comprehension, and make new connections and discoveries on their own". They also point out that the skill is rarely taught. See their' Question Formulation Technique' they use with sixth graders.
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From the September 2nd issue of Public Education Network Weekly Newsblast, two interesting little items
"Can't wait for the tabloid headlines
A Manhattan appeals court has ruled unanimously that New York City should release performance rankings of thousands of public school teachers to the public, denying a second attempt by the teachers' union to keep the names confidential. Click Here.
So much for IDEA
School districts that want to reduce special education spending from one year to the next without restoring what was cut now have the blessing of the U.S. Department of Education. http://tinyurl.com/3sz9v8z
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Some Newsletters from The US Department of Education at www.ed.gov
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EDInfo - new teaching resources and ED grant opportunities.
- ED Review - bi-weekly update on ED activities.
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Education Innovator - promising innovations in education.
- ED RSS - daily feed of ED news, funding, and teaching resources.
- OVAE Connection - research, evaluation, and technical assistance on career and technical education, adult education, and community colleges.
- PreventionED - updates on substance abuse and violence prevention education issues, legislation, and funding opportunities.
- Education Research News - education research, evaluation, and statistics.
- Research e-News - resources for turning around low-performing schools.
- School Turnaround Newsletter - newsletter of the Institute of Education Sciences.
- Superintendent Monthly - updates on policy, research, grants, and more.
- Thursday Notes - technical assistance information, and adult education and literacy news.
- Touching Base - newsletter for the military community.
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Progressive educator Alfie Kohn's short essay for Education Week this past April entitled "How Educational Reform Traps Poor Kids" is well worth reading. Click here
To learn more about Kohn see http://www.alfiekohn.org/index.php
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Eric Mazur, a distinguished physicist at Harvard came to the realization, after many years of teaching, that there are important alternatives to lecturing. Follow his transformation on this video (more than 1 hour- but well worth understanding what he has to say in some depth). Never mind the physics, focus on the pedagogy! How could Mazur's approach be applied in SOE classes? In k-12 classes? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwslBPj8GgI
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Issue 3 of Volume 7 of The New Educator journal has been released: Reflective Processes of Descriptive Inquiry. Individual subscriptions to the journal are available through membership in the Association of Teacher Educators - www.ate1.org
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Send your comments on CONNECTED to connected@ccny.cuny.edu
Calendar of Events at City College
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