MINUTES - School of Education, Curriculum Committee

MINUTES - School of Education, Curriculum Committee

9:30 am to 10:30am, April 27, 2011

Education Building,Dean’s Conference Room

Present: SOE Curriculum Committee Members: Drs. Nancy Aumann, William Buxton, Janet Duncan, Lin Lin (Chair)

Absent: Dr. Kevin Mack

Agenda: To continue reviewing proposals for changing the MST program in CECE, submitted by Dr. Beth Klein, CECE Graduate Curriculum Committee Chair, and Dr. Andrea Lachance, CECE Department Chair

Meeting called to order by Lin Lin

The committee began with a review of issues shared at the meeting of 4/13.2011. After the committee extensively discussed our issues, Dr. Lin suggestedthat the committee vote on the proposed MST program. Dr. Janet Duncan made a motion to return the MST proposals to the department in order to address the issues identified and to strengthen the future MST. Dr. Lin seconded it. Dr. Lin Lin called for a vote. Two members voted in favor of the motion. One member voted against it. The committee made the following comments about the MST proposed program:

Dept. / Prefix# / Course Title / Requested Action / Discussion/Remarks/Recommendations / Action / Date / Follow-up
C/EC / EDU510 / Inquiry into Teaching, and School Change / Alt / Course title and course description have significant changes. Replace Form 2 with a Form 1 as a new course proposal.
Course description states that the course requires students to use elementary students’ assessment data to create a small-scale teacher work sample. Not appropriate as a first course for students in MST seeking initial certification before they take any assessment or method courses to learn about assessment.
Course description indicates a significant amount of content in foundations of education. Course textbook looks like any textbook used in foundations of education courses. There could be an overlap of course content within the School of Education, potentially contravening the offering of another department;
Workload required of students seems unreasonable for students taking 7 credits during the first summer session. They have to complete one team-teaching lesson on foundational disciplines of education; two lesson plans written and taught as part of the small scale TWS, with an enormous amount of reading of textbook chapters in five weeks. We understand that this is going to be a graduate program for full-time students. However, the workload of taking 7 credits significantly increases the number of hours students need to process their learning after classes and practicum hours.
25 hours of field placement take place during the time when public school is winding down for the summer. Candidates might not get quality experiences during that period of time. / Return to department with concerns and suggestions for improvement / 4/27/2011
EDU656 / Classroom Applications of Child Development, Classroom Behavior and Management / Alt / Page 1 of the attached syllabus: should change to “taken concurrently with EDU510 and EDU507” in this proposed MST program.
Page 3 of the attached syllabus: Course objective 1, could add “Developmentally Appropriate Practice” when DAP curriculum shows up in the syllabus for the first time.
Page 5 of the attached syllabus: Course assignment CHILD STUDY requires students to volunteer at an organization that supports children for a total of 10 hours. This seems to be beyond the 25 hours of field placement. Could specify more clearly. If it is beyond the 25 hours, our concern is whether this set of extra 10 hours is possible in the first summer session with 7 course credits and 25 hours of field placement.
Page 7 of the syllabus indicates that students will read 5 chapters in week I of this course. The reading load for EDU656 is heavy as students take EDU510 and EDU507 concurrently.
EDU657 / Elementary School Practicum and Culminating Project Seminar I / Alt / New course description could specify more clearly who will supervise the students during the 150-hour field placement to guarantee this is a clinically rich program.
A typo on page 5 of the syllabus, in section 4: Teaching Assignment, line 2, “…share that will the class”, should be “…shall that with the class”.
Page 6 of the syllabus shows a different sequencing of the seven components in a Teacher Work Sample.
The Teacher Work Sample information sheet provided in this package shows a different list of six components in a TWS.
EDU698 / Student Teaching Seminar and Culminating Project Seminar III / Alt / Page 5 of the syllabus: Does the section number refer to the section number in TSA (Teacher Work Sample)?
According to the TWA information sheet provided in the package, the Teacher Work Sample’s section 5 is Planning for Learning and section 6 is Analysis of Student Learning. Descriptions of TWA throughout the whole package could be consistent.
Should TWA have 7 components or 6 as indicated in the TWA information sheet provided in this package?
EDU507 / Educational Technology I: Curricular Integration of Classroom Technology / New / Course title does not match course description, which states that the course will address issues and ideas related to technology integration. A critical review of these technology-integration-related issues as well as issues explored in EDU510 requires more than a one-credit skills-based technology course. The course content does not seem to be focused on curricular integration of classroom technology.
Course should be more focused either on skills in technology or on the critical review of tech-related issues for a one-credit course.
EDU617 / General Educators in Inclusive Classroom / New / Could overlap course content within the school. FSA and C/EC departments have exchanged responses and memos to cross-list the course as FSA/EDU617.
EDU508 / Educational Technology II: Technology and Differentiated Learning / New / Could overlap course content within the school. FSA and C/EC departments have exchanged responses and might continue to work for possible collaborations between departments.
EDU677 / Culminating Project Seminar II / New
MST program proposed changes / Alteration of an Existing Program / The proposed program changes lack academic rigor.
The sequence of the courses could be changed after collaborating with colleagues in other departments, whose courses might be affected by these changes.
Define “clinically-rich” in the proposal package.
If the ultimate goal for the School of Education is to design a dual-certification program for both SPE and Childhood Ed, this MST program should be changed.
Proposing new courses taught by C/EC faculty members for the MST program seems to be in conflict with the dwindling resources in C/EC department, which has been suffering from the lack of resources over the years. ****

Respectfully submitted by Lin Lin

**** Please note that we did not have time to go through each proposed syllabus as detailed as we would like to.