Teaching Philosophy
As a community-engaged scholar aimed at improving schools, my teaching is directly connected to my research and scholarly interests associated with teacher leadership, supervision, and school-university partnerships in clinically based teacher education. A majority of my teaching is tightly intertwined with the local community and local partnerships schools, which translates to unique teaching assignments and teaching contexts primarily off campus in schools.
There are five C’s that guide my teaching: (1) Collaboration, (2) Community, (3) Care, (4) Connections, and (5) Customization.
(1) Collaboration. Successful community engaged scholarship to improve schools involves immense collaboration with school partners and community members. This collaboration translates into uniqueness in my instructional duties, course conceptualizations, course assignments, and course syllabi. For example, my syllabi that involve such intense collaboration include evidence of school-based partners, school improvement goals, yearlong conceptualizations, and academic calendars tied to the school and district academic calendar. My community engaged teaching at Mort Elementary and through the creation of the teacher leader academy model has generated over 750 graduate student credit hours since its inception in 2013 for the USF College of Education from students who most likely would not have completed advanced graduate degrees. As one student noted in the course evaluations, “The convenience of having this class at our facility has made the dream of a masters real for so many teachers” (EDE 6931/7931 Instructional Planning for Maximizing Elementary Student Learning).
(2) Community: The heart of all teaching is the learning environment, and I take building and establishing this learning environment very seriously. In all of my courses, I prioritize community building activities so that students learn about each other. I regularly begin all classes with time to share as this dedication of sharing time is imperative for developing interpersonal familiarity and building relationships. As the semester progresses, students generally move beyond the superficial items and share more information about celebrations and challenges in their lives. Movement beyond superficiality is evidence that a learning community has been established. Listening, empathizing, and making connections are important for a successful classroom community and I prioritize that in my teaching.
Discussion is a signature pedagogy in all of my courses, but engaging in fruitful discussions that make connections between course concepts and practice, that challenge one’s beliefs, and that reflect on practice requires that students know one another, feel safe, and feel cared for as members of the learning community. As one student from a doctoral course commented, “Dr. Burns developed a class culture that allowed for open dialogue and supported discussion that challenged ideas and encouraged new ways of thought. I appreciated the social element she built into the facilitation of the courses” (EDH 7325 Supervised Teaching I Course Evaluations).
(3) Care: For students to be successful, they need to believe that professors are on their side. Meaning, they need to feel heard, respected, prioritized, and cared for. I routinely score the highest on my student evaluations on the indicator, “Shows concern and respect for students,” and I believe that is directly connected to my beliefs and practice of developing the learning community. I routinely demonstrate care for students by listening to their concerns, asking clarifying and probing questions to learn more, and making adjustments when possible. Being flexible and understanding is imperative to student success. I routinely demonstrate care for students by listening to their concerns, asking clarifying and probing questions to learn more, and making adjustments when possible. Being flexible and understanding is imperative to student success.
“Professor Burns is the best professor I have had the pleasure to work with. Her care and compassion for her students is evident, as well as her subject knowledge and passion for teaching and learning. She is flexible in response to student needs, and dedicated to her craft. She is an irreplaceable asset at USF,” (Doctoral Student, EDG 7931 Working in Schools, Course Evaluations).
“Dr. Burns is caring and wants the best professional outcome for her students,” (Masters Student, EDE 6076 Teacher Leadership for Student Learning, Course Evaluations).
“The support that Dr. Burns provides residents in this program is unbelievable! She is always there showing respect and concern for every single one of us. If we have an issue, she is the first to provide a leaning shoulder, and brainstorm ideas on how we can overcome any situations. It is incredible how much she believes in us. I believe Rebecca Burns is a tremendous asset to the program, and I am glad that I have gotten the chance to work with her over the past year (almost two years),” (Undergraduate Student Resident, EDE 4944 Level 3 Internship, Course Evaluations).
(4) Connections: Powerful professional learning involves connecting practice and theory, and I aim to make all of my courses practical where students have the opportunity to both practice course concepts and also connect their experiences to theory. This belief is reflected in my course assignments where I engage students in performance tasks connected to their specific teaching contexts. Students comment about the effectiveness and the impact on their learning in course evaluations:
“I have learned so much from this semester course and felt it was very effective,” (Masters Student, EDE 6076, Teacher Leadership for Student Learning, Course Evaluations).
“Dr. Burns made the course very interesting and meaningful! Overall, this professor is very inspiring,” (Masters Student, EDE 6076 Teacher Leadership for Student Learning, Course Evaluations).
“Dr. Burns provides supportive, detailed feedback and it is evident that she devotes a lot of time and care to developing the abilities, scholarship, and careers of her graduate students. Every aspect of the course was well tied to students’ current practice and individual goals/interest/needs. She took great care to develop a community of learners who deeply trusted one another, a foundation that made our work together richer and deeper.” (Doctoral Student, EDH 7325 Supervised Teaching I, Course Evaluations)
(5) Customization: I place differentiated professional learning at the core of my teaching. I tailor each course to my particular class of students. This means that I frequently make adjustments to course content and assignments based upon the needs of my students, which means that syllabi are regularly revised during the semester and shared with students. Each time I make revisions to a course, I update the syllabus, include the date updated, and share the revised version with students. Adjustments to assignments are negotiated prior to changing the syllabus.
“Dr. Burns taught and treated us the way she would her elementary school students. Our needs as her students were priority. We met all the standards that needed to be met within the course. However, there was no recipe as to how we learned.” (Undergraduate Student/Resident EDE 4940 Final Internship, Course Evaluations)
“Dr. Burns is very flexible and responsive to the needs of the residents. By differentiating the support for starting inquiry, I felt that my process was being respected and that it was given the time and room to develop as opposed to being rushed for the good of the group. Dr. Burns takes interest in what I wrote on my blog and continually provides feedback and encouragement. She seems to care deeply for my professional, academic, and personal well-being.” (Undergraduate Student/Resident EDE 4944 Level 3 Internship, Course Evaluations).
“I appreciated Dr. Burns adjusting/modifying assignments to meet the needs of students in her class as it relates to their specific needs and ability.” (Doctoral Student, EDG 7931 Working in Schools, Course Evaluations)
Student success is one of my priorities, and that is evident in my ability to both articulate and enact my philosophy of teaching. Integrating the five C’s of my philosophy of teaching has translated to positive outcomes for students. In feedback, students often share that although I set high expectations, it is the care, support, and respect that I show them that stimulates their interest, motivates them, and ultimately supports their success:
“This was my first doc course and it was very hard. Not necessarily the content, but the level of performance expected. I really had to push and stretch myself to reach Dr. Burns’ expectations. Throughout the course, I felt supported and challenged. Because of this, I feel as though I really learned more than I would have with another professor.” (Doctoral Student, EDH 7326 Supervised Teaching II, Course Evaluations)
“Dr. Burns is an excellent instructor. She is an expert in her field and very passionate about teaching. Her enthusiasm and zeal is very admirable. She is my secret mentor because I wish I could teach like she does. She is the best instructor I have come across since the beginning of my program,” (Doctoral Student, EDH 7326 Supervised Teaching II, Course Evaluations)
“Dr. Burns was wonderful! I had a really high level of knowledge development this semester and I believe that is mostly due in part to Dr. Burns’ teaching and support. Each week I looked forward to our class and our conversations. We developed a real sense of community and I’ve grown to really trust my peers in this course. Dr. Burns always focused on us personally, and our well-being. She modified assignments based on our feedback and really tried to have them meet our needs. I felt that my investment was really high mostly due to the fact that I wanted to provide quality work for Dr. Burns, as I felt she gave us her respect.” (Doctoral Student, EDH 7325 Supervised Teaching I, Course Evaluations)
“Dr. Burns has been our number one cheerleader and advocate since the second we walked through the door to this program (probably even before). She has a high energy and passion to develop better teachers. It is through her efforts and hard work that we are afforded the experiences that we have come away with in this program. If we want better teachers in this world, she is the one that will lead this revolution. She is not afraid to set the bar high and knows and expects her students to not only meet, but exceed the bar. She is an absolute asset to this university and we are lucky to have her.” (Undergraduate Student/Resident, EDE 4940 Final Internship, Course Evaluations)
Student success is one of my priorities, and that is evident in my ability to both articulate and enact my philosophy of teaching.
To see course descriptions, syllabi, instructional materials, and other evidence, please click on each course.
Courses Taught at USF Overview
Classroom Management (EDE 4301), Undergraduate
Level 1 Field Experience (EDE 4941), Undergraduate
Level 2 Field Experience (EDE 4942), Undergraduate
Level 3 Field Experience (EDE 4944), Undergraduate
Final Internship (EDE 4940), Undergraduate
Teacher Leadership Certificate
Coaching for Student Learning (EDE 6556), Graduate (Masters)
Teacher Research Methods (RED 6748), Graduate (Masters)
Professional Development for Student Learning (EDE 6366), Graduate (Masters)
Teacher Leadership for Student Learning (EDE 6076), Graduate (Masters)
Supervised Teaching II (EDH 7326), Graduate (Doctoral)
Independent Study (EDG 7931), Graduate (Doctoral)
Contextual Information Specific to Undergraduate Courses
As of midtenure (Spring 2015), out of a possible twelve courses taught on a 2:2 load over a two-and-a-half-year period, I have taught ten different courses. All of my courses, with the exceptions of EDH 7326 Supervised Teaching II and EDG 7931 (only Fall 2014), have been taught in the Urban Teacher Residency Partnership Program (UTRPP).
UTRPP is a two-year (five semester) urban residency program designed to prepare teachers to teach in urban contexts, provide professional development for teachers, foster teacher leadership in urban schools, and foster inquiry as a signature pedagogy for the improvement of practice. What separates these kinds of robust clinically-rich teacher education programs from traditional teacher preparation programs is a closer connection between theory and practice, greater school-university collaboration, an attention to co-teaching and inquiry as signature pedagogies, increased time in classrooms, differentiated and developmentally appropriate field support – known as supervision, and a collective focus on PK-12 student learning. Inquiry is the systematic study of one’s own practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Dana & Yendol-Hoppey, 2014).
UTRPP is considered a space for innovation where ideas can be generated and tested with a small subset of the larger elementary program and then “scaled up” if desired. One example of an innovation that began in UTRPP and is now used across the elementary program is preservice teachers’ use of web sites and blogging (Website Initiative can be found at http://www.coedu.usf.edu/main/departments/ce/elementary_education/TRwebsite.php). Each elementary preservice teacher creates a professional web space with a blogging feature in his/her junior year. As part of the field experiences, our preservice teachers complete a reflective entry on their blogs that help them problematize and make sense of their experiences in the field. Supervisors, methods course instructors, and other preservice teachers are invited to comment on their blogs. Over time, these entries create an electronic portfolio of the preservice teacher’s journey from college student to professional. These entries are used as evidence for the preservice teachers’ evaluation conferences with their supervisors and collaborating teachers. I spearheaded this idea with the UTRPP Class of 2014 (http://lisaadkin6.wix.com/classof2014) when they began with me in Fall of 2012. After a year, three residents presented their web sites to the elementary supervisors under my advisement, and now it is an innovation used across the elementary program. Additional examples can be found for the UTRPP Class of 2015 at http://lisaadkin6.wix.com/classof2015.
UTRPP is partnered with Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) and has residents located in six urban schools near USF. The schools range in size from approximately 250 students to 1200 students. There are two cohorts of 25-35 residents per cohort operating at any one time, totaling between 50-60 residents in the program. All residents are contracted 7:30 – 3:30, just like HCPS teachers. In their first year as juniors, residents are in schools five days per week about half a day each day equating to 20-25 hours per week. The other half of their time, they are in university coursework. In their final year as seniors, they spend four to five full days per week in the classroom with a half-day of coursework equating to 30+ hours of clinical experience. Upon graduation, residents have almost 2000 hours of clinical preparation.
This extensive amount of time in classrooms coupled with the urban context and budding relationships with the schools in UTRPP required an immense amount of attention and support from the Partnership Resource Teachers (PRTs) and myself. PRTs are a unique and critical boundary-spanning role where HCPS teachers are temporarily reassigned to the position of university supervisor for a temporary period of 1-3 years. HCPS and USF share the fiscal responsibility for this role, which is another indicator of the partnership with HCPS. These kinds of boundary-spanning roles are true job-embedded professional development designed to build leadership capacity for HCPS and to provide critical contextual and practitioner knowledge to USF students. My research has shown that the reassigned teacher role, such as the PRT role, is highly transformative in nature but wrought with emotional challenges (Burns, 2010; 2011). Thus, these kinds of novice teacher educator supervisors need support in order to support preservice teachers in clinical contexts. For those reasons, my role in UTRPP was conceptualized not only to support the growth and development of the preservice teachers, but also to support the professional learning of the PRTs and the growth and development of the urban partnership in collaboration with Dr. Danielle Dennis, UTRPP Director. The PRTs are integral in supporting the residents in the field and scaffolding their learning from college student to professional.
Residents begin well before their undergraduate peers at USF by participating in a collaborative professional development day for residents and collaborating teachers, known as the summer workshop, the first week of August. Collaborating teachers (CTs) are HCPS teachers who agree to mentor a resident in the program. CTs must meet HCPS standards of highly qualified teaching and must take clinical education training. Because residents are treated like first year teachers, if the school in which they are assigned provides professional development the remainder of that first week in August, residents attend their school’s professional development. They also attend all preplanning activities, which means that they come back to campus three weeks prior to their peers at USF. The welcoming of the residents as members of the school staff is a true testament to the commitment that HCPS and USF have to the partnership. This also means that all of the UTRPP faculty are also needed to support the residents during this time. Throughout the spring and summer, UTRPP faculty work in collaboration with UTRPP principals and other school administrators to collaboratively plan this professional development.
All of this contextual information is important because it paints the landscape of my research, teaching, and service here at USF. When I came to USF in the Fall of 2012, UTRPP was expanding from three schools to six schools. Because of my background, experience, and scholarship in school-university partnerships, my teaching was assigned to support this transition of building relationships with the new schools. My work has primarily been with three of the four largest elementary schools, but I also work with UTRPP’s PRTs, who are typically assigned to two schools each. Being a scholar of supervision, teacher education, and school-university partnerships, UTRPP is an ideal context not only to enact my pedagogy of teacher education but also to pursue my research interests. It affords me the opportunity to truly integrate my teaching, research, and service.
Undergraduate Courses Taught: In total, I have taught eight undergraduate courses. Of those courses, I taught three of them more than once.
Contextual Information Specific to Graduate Courses
Like many teacher educators, I began my pathway to academia as an elementary educator, teaching sixth grade in a rural/suburban school district in Pennsylvania. While I thoroughly enjoyed teaching during those five years of teaching, the constraints placed on my colleagues and myself became increasingly frustrating. I saw academia as an opportunity to work with schools to evoke change by empowering teachers. As a teacher educator, I hope to advocate for practices that showcased and developed teachers’ talents and capabilities rather than oppress them. Differentiated, meaningful, and job-embedded professional development is a mechanism for empowerment.
My first year at USF was spent just building relationships with the principals of the three new schools, who had varying experiences and understandings of school-universities partnerships. By the second year, our relationships started blossoming. The principal at Mort Elementary School was frustrated by the lack of differentiation of professional development for his teachers. My knowledge of supervision and successful experiences of differentiated professional development with a school in Pennsylvania connected well with his vision of differentiated professional development. Together, he and I formed the Mort Teacher Leader Academy. He has entrusted twenty-seven of his teachers (many of whom are UTRPP’s collaborating teachers), instructional coaches, and resource teachers into my care. For their professional development, they enroll in a two-year, four course sequence, of teacher leadership courses that are aligned to the National Teacher Leadership Standards (www.teacherleaderstandards.org). At the end of the second year, the teachers receive USF College of Education’s Teacher Leadership Certificate. Spring 2015 will mark the graduation of this first class of Mort’s teacher leaders.
The four courses include: (1) Teacher Leadership for Student Learning (6076), (2) Teacher Research for Student Learning (EDE 6486)/Teacher Research Methods (RED 6748), (3) Coaching for Student Learning (EDE 6556), and (4) Professional Development for Student Learning (6366). All courses are taught onsite at Mort Elementary School and are tailored to meet aspects of Mort Elementary School’s School Improvement Plan. In Fall 2014, the Florida Department of Education labeled Mort Elementary as an “F” school, which brings with it many challenges. This means that the courses cannot be taught as they traditionally would be taught on campus. The syllabi are constantly negotiated among the principal, the teachers, and myself in order to ensure that the teachers are not only learning the knowledge they need but also the skills to enact their aspirations of teacher leadership. In many ways, the Mort Teacher Leader Academy could be considered a clinically-centered model of teacher leader preparation. Clinically-centered models of teacher education place the school community, including the pK-12 students and their classrooms as the center for teacher learning. In this model, the PreK-12 classroom actually becomes the university classroom (Dennis, et al, in press), which is exactly what is occurring with the Mort Teacher Leader Academy. The issues and tensions of teaching and leading in a failing urban school become the fodder for understanding conceptual underpinnings of teacher leadership.
The “course” begins with three full day professional development days the first week in August. The teachers are paid to attend through grant funding. In addition, the school also purchases their books, so there is no additional expense to the teachers. Throughout the school year, the course is taught on either Monday or Tuesday afternoons for an hour and a half each time. The date and time are dependent upon the school’s academic calendar, thus the principal and I negotiate the calendar in the summer and revise, if needed, throughout the year. This also means that the course extends beyond the end of the fall semester through December and beyond the end of the spring semester through May to be more appropriately aligned with Mort’s academic year and the issues and challenges facing the teachers.
These kinds of negotiation require an immense amount of communication and collaboration. Initially, each class was collaboratively planned with the principal. Once trust was established, Mort’s Teacher Leader assumed planning responsibilities with me and we share the plans with the principal. He joins us as often as his schedule permits. Working collaboratively to co-plan and now co-teach with Mort’s Teacher Leader Academy is imperative for the sustainability and the renewal of this program. I do not want this initiative to be a “one shot wonder,” so that means that I have intentionally involved Mort’s Teacher Leader in the processes and I have worked hard to build a community of practice so that structures and rituals are in place for teacher leadership to blossom at Mort Elementary.
Co-planning and co-teaching, although extremely beneficial, does add an additional layer of complexity. It requires me to meet on site at Mort at a time convenient for Mort’s principal and teacher leader, and it also requires me to negotiate the weekly class plans. However, these elements provide a rich and robust learning experience for me to mentor the teacher leader regarding teacher leadership while simultaneously having her mentor me regarding the contextual intricacies that exist when teaching in a clinically-centered program at an urban school in a school-university partnership.
The Mort Teacher Leader Academy has benefits for both HCPS and USF. First, HCPS receives the benefit of a professor-in-residence who works closely with the principal to create meaningful, job-embedded professional development for their employees. USF benefits in that the program has generated 324 graduate student credit hours for USF over the two-year period and over $50,000 in tuition in addition to tuition reimbursement credits. The program has been so successful that teacher leadership has become a tenet of UTRPP’s goals and missions, and it appears that HCPS is interested in not only continuing this partnership but perhaps considering mechanisms to “scale up” this innovation.
This background information is included because it is integral in understanding the successes and challenges associated with teaching in a clinically-centered model of teacher education. For instance, you will note that my course evaluations, if included, were done by hand. The Mort Teachers were selected for this program, which brings with it additional challenges when leading professional development. Many of them were unfamiliar with USF’s systems including enrolling for coursework, enrolling in the certificate, navigating Canvas, and completing course evaluations, so all of these processes required additional support. In fact, teaching onsite at Mort also inhibited Internet access for the teachers at times and for me quite frequently. The high rate of theft at Mort means that technology, including laptop computers, is completely secured, so teaching with technology was and continues to be, nearly impossible. This means that everything is done by hand – grading, assignment submissions, feedback on tasks and assignments, attendance, and course evaluations.
Further compounding this issue was the transition from paper and pencil evaluations to technology evaluations in the Fall of 2013 at USF. The Mort teachers either did not receive the email from USF or they deleted it not realizing what it was or the importance of it. Unfortunately, I did not realize the issue either until it was too late to have the course evaluations completed by hand. That semester, I did ask for qualitative feedback, which was then given anonymously to a staff assistant in the former Department of Childhood Education and Literacy Studies to type up for me, but I do not have quantifiable data from that semester. Despite these complications, I feel that my teaching at Mort Elementary School has great meaning. I am able to see and truly live the issues and tensions facing teachers in our local school district, and although complicated and sometimes emotionally exhausting, I strive to make the coursework relevant, practical, and integrated. Mort has welcomed me as one of their staff members, and I am truly appreciative of and humbled by the principal’s actions in entrusting the professional learning of a third of his teaching staff. Through the Mort Teacher Leader Academy I am truly able to enact my agenda of empowering teachers.
Graduate Courses Taught: I have taught a total of eight graduate level courses. Five of the eight were Masters level courses and the other three were doctoral level courses. One of the Masters courses, RED 6748, I taught twice but in two different contexts – one time face-to-face and highly contextual at Mort Elementary and the other time online to a variety of Masters students.
In February 2015, I submitted my materials for mid-tenure. You can see the entire application (if you have access) or parts of the application, like my teaching overview, teaching goals, and teaching accomplishments.
Previous Teaching Experience at Penn State University
C I 498A: Classroom-based Instruction That Works, Summer 2010, Penn State University, State College, PA
Co-Instructor and Co-designer with Dr. Kris Dewitt
Course Overview
This 3-credit course is designed for K-12 educators interested in learning more about which teaching strategies have positive effects on student learning.These strategies are not new, but when teachers use these strategies effectively with their students, the outcome is a measurable difference in student achievement. The following strategies can be used by any teacher at any time, using either traditional teaching tools or using technology.
Referenced Literature
Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement.
C I 498C: Video Analysis of Teaching, Summer 2009, Penn State University, State College, PA
Primary Instructor; Syllabus Co-designer under Dr. Carla Zembal-Saul
Course Overview:
This course is designed for K-8 teachers and administrators as well as faculty supervisors interested in using video analysis as a tool for investigating various problems of the practice. Participants will look at a variety of approaches for understanding how video can be used as a performance artifact. Participants will examine various technologies, such as Studiocode software, to deepen reflective practices and examine the intricacies of teaching. Potential uses include but are not limited to mentoring practices, teacher decision-making, peer coaching, and supervision. Participants will develop an action plan to be implemented during the 2009-2010 academicyear.
Referenced Literature:
Bransford, J., Derry, S., Berliner, D., & Hammerness, K. (2005). Theories of learning and their roles in teaching. In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford, (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do, pp. 40 - 87. San Francisco, CA: Wiley & Sons.
Brophy, J. (2004). Introduction. In J. Brophy (Ed.), Using video in teacher education (pp. ix - xxiv). New York: Elsevier.
Conderman, G., & Morin, J. (2004). Reflect upon your practice. Intervention in School & Clinic, 40(2), pp. 111-115.
Eilam, B., & Poyas, Y. (2009). Learning to teach: Enhancing pre-service teachers' awareness of the complexity of teaching-learning processes. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 15(1), pp. 87-107.
Hammerness, K., Darling-Hammond, L., & Bransford, J. (2005). How teachers learn and develop. In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford, (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do. San Francisco, CA: Wiley & Sons.
Hatch, T., & Grossman, P. (2009). Learning to look beyond the boundaries of representation: Using technology to examine teaching (Overview for a digital exhibition: Learning from the practice of teaching). Journal of Teacher Education, 60(1), pp. 70-85.
Nolan, J., & Hoover, L. (2005). Teacher supervision and evaluation: Theory into practice. New Jersey: Wiley & Sons.
Rich, P.J., & Hannafin, M. (2009). Video annotation tools: Technologies to scaffold, structure, and transform teacher reflection. Journal of Teacher Education, 60 (1), pp. 52-67.Sherin, M. G. (2004). New perspectives on the role of video in teacher education. In J. Brophy (Ed.), Using video in teacher education (pp. 1 - 28). New York: Elsevier.
Sherin, M.G., & van Es, E.A. (2009). Effects of video club participation on teachers' professional vision. Journal of Teacher Education, 60(1), pp. 20-37.
Tomlinson, P. (1999). Conscious reflection and implicit learning in teacher preparation. Part II: implications for a balanced approach. Oxford Review of Education, 25(4), pp. 532-544.
van Es, E.A. (2009). Participants' roles in the context of a video club. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 18(1), pp. 100-137.
SCIED 458: Teaching Elementary School Science, Fall 2009, Penn State University, State College, PA
Primary Instructor; Syllabus Contributor
Course Overview
The goal of SCIED 458 is to assist undergraduate teacher candidates in developing teaching approaches to supporting children's meaningful science learning and scientific inquiry that are consistent with reform- oriented science teaching. The following learning outcomes have framed our selection of class activities and assignments.
Referenced Literature and Professional Organizations
National Research Council (2008). Ready, Set, Science. National Academy Press.
Norton-Meier, L., Hand, B., Hockenberry, L. & Wise, K. (2008). Questions, claims and evidence: The important place of argument in children's science writing.
Heinemann.National Research Council (2000). Inquiry and the national science education standards. National Academy Press.
Course Syllabus
458pds08syllabus.vf.pdf
EDLDR 405: Strategies for Classroom Management (also called Classroom Learning Environments), Fall 2009/Fall 2007, Penn State University, State College, PA
Co-Instructor; Syllabus Contributor
Course Overview
This course has been designed for interns in the Professional Development Schools Program, an initiative between Penn State University and the State College Area School District. Interns will examine in-depth the processes of creating and sustaining a classroom learning community that fosters and enables success for all children.
Referenced Literature
Course Syllabus
CI 495B: Clinical Application of Instruction in Elementary Education
Co-Instructor; Syllabus Contributor
Course Overview
This course is the pre-student teaching field experience for all elementary education majors. However, this course has been tailored to meet the needs of the interns in the Professional Development Schools Program, a collaborative partnership between the Pennsylvania State University and the State College Area School District.
Referenced Literature
Culmination
Each fall semester, we gather all ~60 interns together for a final class to provide closure. We ask each intern to bring a journal that responds to the following five questions:
What are some of the most important things you have learned this semester about yourself as a teacher?
What are some of the most important things you have learned this semester about technology as a tool to enhance learning?
What are some of the most important things you have learned this semester about teaching?
What are some of the most important things you have learned this semester about schools?
What are some of the most important things you have learned this semester about children?
We then have the interns use an adapted text_rendering.pdf from the National School Reform Faculty. The interns then share their group's product. Below are videos of each group's performance.
Fall 2009
Contact Me
For further discussion about my research and scholarship, feel free to contact me.