Friday Memo 6/26/15

Summer Vacation!

I hope this Friday Memo finds you enjoying the lazy days of summer. Our family took a 9-day RV trip to Gettysburg, New York, Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Niagara Falls, and Chicago. The trip was a wonderful time to unplug and enjoy quality time together. I have included some pictures from our trip at the end of this post. I can't wait to hear about your summer adventures!
Many of you are teaching, but hopefully you have enjoyed the slower pace. It has been relatively quiet in the office, but we have certainly been busy working on a variety of important projects.

DESE updates - There have been many important decisions being made by the state board and presented by DESE that will impact all of our students. It is extremely important that you are aware of the issues so that you can assist your students and help them successfully complete their program and certification. The assessments are changing, cut scores are changing, requirements are changing, and our current students will be caught in the middle of the transition. The more information you know, the more help you can provide your students.
Please take some time in the next few days to familiarize yourself with the information found in the four attachments I forwarded on June 24th at 9:12am. Summaries of the DESE attachments are below:

• Bias Review Committee - DESE will reconvene a Bias Review Committee (BRC) for these tests: Building Level Administration and Elementary Multi-Content Assessments – English Language, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. The Bias Review Committee will be asked to review these assessments for items that would disadvantage particular groups of candidates.The Department needs immediate assistance in recruiting 16 people to serve on the BRC. The BRC will meet for two consecutive days during the week of July 6-10. The meeting will be in Jefferson City or Columbia. It is imperative for the BRC members to reflect the ethnic and diversity of Missouri’s public schools. Pearson will cover the expenses for the reconvening of the Bias Review Committee. If you are interested, please let me know right away and I will forward your contact information to the right people at DESE.
• The State Board of Education met on Tuesday, June 16 to discuss recommendations regarding the Missouri Content Assessments. While implementing the changes outlined below, the Missouri Qualifying Scores approved in December 2014 will remain in place. Board members strongly supported setting high expectations for content knowledge before entering the classroom. Based on feedback from members of the Missouri Advisory Board for Educator Preparation (MABEP), the Missouri Advisory Council on the Certification of Educators (MACCE) and the Missouri Technical Advisory Committee (MoTAC), the Department will be implementing the following changes:
• Fifteen minutes will be added to the test time for these assessments: Middle School – Mathematics, Science, Social Science and Secondary – Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics. The Department will work with the test vendor to make these changes and communicate the timeline for implementation.
•  For those same assessments, the number of test items will be reduced from 80 to 64 scorable items. The Department will work with the test vendor to make these changes and communicate the timeline for implementation.
• The Department will reconvene Content Advisory Committees for these assessments: Middle School – Mathematics, Science, and Social Science; Secondary – Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Social Sciences (Political Science, United States History, World History). The process for review will remain the same as summer 2014. The Content Advisory Committees will be asked to reconfirm the alignment of the framework and test items of these assessments to Missouri Learning Standards and national standards.

• DESE has created a FAQ document regarding the MoPTA. If you advise students or teach a class that involves the MoPTA please disseminate the information found in DESE's document to your students.
• CAEP and DESE have come up with a draft agreement. Please read the document for more information regarding the future of accreditation from CAEP and the agreement between CAEP and DESE at this current time.

CEEDAR

Shelton Smith is one of five representing the Missouri CEEDAR partners this week in Washington D.C. He represented DESE to provide perspective on leadership programs regarding preparing teachers and leaders to meet the needs of all students.  I can't wait for him to share with all of us the information he has learned from this visit.

Syllabi Project - The syllabi project is in full swing. Thanks again to those lead instructors who attended our meeting a few weeks ago. Sheri Brandt, David Collum, and Tim Delicath did a great job explaining the alignment project and the credit hour calculator. The office staff have been collecting the completed projects and placing the updates in the new syllabus template. Thanks to Ellen John, Kristie Breeding, Gina Walker, and Tina Ketterer for the work you are completing to help the division get these syllabi updated!
Our goal is to have every master syllabus updated by August 1st so we can share with all instructors.

Canvas Training -

Many of you have inquired about learning more about Canvas. PLEASE complete the initial training modules found in your Blackboard. These modules will help you know how to clean up and transfer your shells to Canvas. We will not have access to Blackboard after July 31st so please complete those modules in the next few weeks. Your next step will be to clean up your Blackboard shells prior to transferring them over to Canvas. It is easier to clean them up in Blackboard prior to the transfer. Once your shells are clean, then transfer them to Canvas. There are more training modules in Canvas for you to learn more about Canvas. There will be pd opportunities in August during the inservice meetings. If you have any questions, please contact Karana Phillips first. Alicia Noddings is also available if you need assistance, but please participate in the modules because many of your questions will be addressed in the modules. Another reason I want all of you to complete the modules is because our participation is being tracked and the Education Division is not doing well. We are in third to last place with less than 20% faculty participation in the online modules. My competitive nature cringes when I see that we are not in first. I am begging you - please complete the modules.

Supervising Student Teachers, Counseling Internships, or Administration Internships

After much consideration, I have decided to require full-time faculty members to supervise at least one student teacher, counseling intern, or administration intern in the fall and spring. It is critical that we be in the field so we can stay up-to-date with the best practices, assessments, vocabulary, etc. being used in local PK-12 schools. I am excited to be supervising my first student teacher this fall. I can't wait to get into a local middle school, help a student teacher, learn about a new district, and take that opportunity to recruit for our graduate education programs.

Full-time faculty members who have already met their load will receive an overload contract for the supervision.

Conference Proposal Opportunities

Association for Education of Young Children – Missouri (AEYC-MO) is accepting proposals for its annual fall conference now through July 15th. The conference is on Saturday, October 3rd, 2015 in Jefferson City; for those of you involved in special education, the state DEC conference is the day before in the same location, so it’s a great opportunity to make two presentations to diverse early childhood options or to attend two conferences with one short trip. Sessions can be 1 or 1.5 hours in length and can cover a broad range of topics related to early childhood education, whether for teachers or administrators. Interested in presenting or know someone who is? Visit http://www.aeyc-mo.org/ for more information.

Student Evaluations
I have read all of the Spring 2015 student evaluations. I emailed faculty members that had evaluations that I felt needed to be addressed. If you have not heard from me regarding the spring evaluations, you can assume that all is well.

I want to take a minute to highlight some of the MANY positive student evaluations.

Tammy Cox

I really like the lecturers and how the professor tied it in to real life and application.

The teacher's viewpoint, honesty, and how she helped us learn about ourselves. The six words for the week were very helpful!

Hands on approach. This class was taught to multiple intelligences. The instructor knew he w get every student engaged without making people feel embarrassed. Awesome teacher.

None I just wish she was my teacher a long time ago. I've learned more in this class than a lot of the classes I had at Ucla. God blessed me to be in this class even though I was nervous the first day.

Diane Denney 

• It did, this was the first class that showed how to implement vocabulary and literacy instruction into every lesson.
• Yes it was. It made assessment fun and seemed to put it in a different perspective than I would have imagined. It made me think about the capacity at which assessment took place.
• Yes, I did not have a strong background with the information presented in this class and I learned a lot.
• The teacher was amazing. The class size was perfect. All of the assignments really helped with my understanding of the class.
• The instructor cared about the learning of her students!

Barb Hantsbarger

• Absolutely. I was most impressed with the text books and articles we need to use. This was the first class that I actually found the books and other information useful. You can tell this professor has spent time finding the best information for us to use.
• The effort the professor put into her feedback and helping with the discussion post. It was almost like having a face to face class because we had such great discussions.
• As stated above, you can tell the professor is extremely knowledgeable and puts a lot of effort into her responses. It really makes you want to work even harder for her.
• Having the ability to email the professor and receive quick feedback on papers, and topics

Transition Document
I want to publicly thank Angela McGowan, Kathleen Wendt, and Kristie Breeding for all of the work they have done to get our transition documents completed and submitted to DESE. Most of you are unaware of this monumental task that we have to submit by June 30th. All teacher preparation programs must submit a cover sheet, program matrix, and program planning sheet for EVERY certification program offered showing the program changes based on the new certification rules. I am proud to announce that we are one of the few institutions who are submitting our documents this summer. This labor intensive project has been very important and will guide our work moving forward making sure that our programs are in compliance with the new certification rules.

Campus Labs: Strategic Planning

Alicia Noddings and I met with others to learn more about how we will use Campus Labs for Strategic Planning purposes in the future. It was determined that we will continue creating our strategic plans like we have done in the past, but we will move in the direction of submitting all documents through campus labs.

Regional Learning Center Meeting
Amber Henry did a great job organizing and leading a meeting for the Regional Learning Center staff to update them on a variety of topics.

There are no upcoming meetings other than the Monday faculty meetings that are communicated through the provost's office.

Have a wonderful 4th of July holiday!