The following Elementary Education and Reading department faculty, staff, students, and community partners were recognized at the 2013–2014 Volunteer and Service-Learning Center’s Celebration of Service on May 6:
Celebration of 10-Year Partnerships
Faculty: Harriet Sacks, Lecturer, Elementary Education and Reading
Community Partners: Buffalo Public School 30: Frank A. Sedita Academy
Outstanding Student Volunteer: Jasmine Davis
Certificate of Recognition for Community Engagement
Community Supporter - 2015 - 120 Hours of Service: Charmaine Amey
Neighborhood Advocate - 2014 – 200 Hours of Service: Rada Sinik
Elizabeth Cappella, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor Emerita, Social and Psychological Foundations of Education; and Geraldine Bard, Professor Emerita, English
Elizabeth Cappella and Geraldine Bard of Project FLIGHT have received two substantial grants from the KeyBank Foundation and the Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies for a program titled "Sustaining the Community through Literacy Activities that Promote Conservation, Service Learning, and Citizenship." The program will be held at two Western New York Schools: one elementary and one high school. Students from each school will develop and carry out literacy projects that are approved by Project Flight and the school. Students whose projects are selected as meritorious will receive an award and a scholarship.
INSIGHT Into Diversity Congratulates the 2013 Higher Education Excellence In Diversity Award Honorees
SUNY Buffalo State is an institution of access. Students from all backgrounds, including many first-generation students, succeed due to faculty and staff commitment. We further demonstrate this commitment by providing civic and service learning engagement, international educational experiences, and mini-grants to faculty for academic programs and community projects that herald diversity. They include Global Book Hour, serving culturally diverse schoolchildren (A PDS program!), and the Anne Frank Project, exploring social justice through storytelling and the arts.
Sherri Weber, Jing Zhang, Jevon Hunter, and Chris Shively, Assistant Professors, Elementary Education and Reading
Sherri Weber, Jing Zhang, Jevon Hunter, and Chris Shively, all assistant professors of elementary education and reading, presented "How Teacher Preparation Is Being Transformed by Digital Technologies at an Urban Comprehensive College" at the American Educational Research Association’s 2014 annual conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 3–7. Their talk focused on four distinct Internet technologies:
Weber investigated how blogs facilitated the reflections of preservice teachers who experienced an international professional development school. She found that blogs enabled preservice teachers to share reflections with one another, with their professor, and most importantly, with future preservice teachers, because the blogging software enables posts to transcend time.
Zhang examined her use of a collaborative writing tool called Storybird with her graduate students. Her research indicated that her students thought Storybird improved their interest and engagement in her course. They felt it was a useful tool for teaching writing and believed that 3- and 4-year-old children could benefit from this web-based application.
Hunter looked at Twitter as an instructional and learning tool with his graduate students. His students believed that this social networking tool could be used by teachers and students to accomplish English language arts learning objectives. Despite Twitter's pedagogical potential, Hunter’s students also became frustrated with their ability to use this online tool. He attributed their frustration to the ongoing debate among American educators regarding the effectiveness of emerging pedagogies, such as Twitter.
Shively demonstrated the pedagogical potential of using a wiki to facilitate the co-construction, by graduate students and their professor, of technological pedagogical content knowledge (known as TPaCK) (Mishra and Koehler, 2006) in an online course. Lesson plans, reflections, and feedback data revealed that graduate students were able to identify many affordances and constraints of the technologies they used, which led to their development of technological pedagogical knowledge but not their technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. This might have been caused by their lack of teaching experience and/or their observations of inadequate teaching with technology. Data suggested that they did not understand what made the concepts they were teaching difficult or easy for the grade level designated for their lesson.
During their presentations, each researcher established the pedagogical potential of using these free online pedagogies as "cognitive partners" (Angeli et al., 2008, p.14) with graduate students. With each of these technologies, the computer facilitated the exchange of ideas between a classroom full of students that transcended traditional school-based time frames. The results of their research are important to education professors because technology has the potential to transform content learning for diverse learners (Rose and Meyer, 2002; Angeli and Valanides, 2008). As the surrounding educational landscape becomes more diverse, teacher educators need to provide their teacher candidates with learning experiences that develop their pedagogical knowledge, a knowledge base that should include online tools.
Dr. Keli Garas-York, Literacy Program Coordinator
Thanks to creative teachers and innovative technology, 80 students improved their reading skills this summer through SUNY Buffalo State’s literacy specialist program. Under the guidance of program coordinator Keli Garas-York, associate professor of elementary education and reading, 26 Buffalo State graduate students taught students at the Charter School for Applied Technologies (CSAT). Read more about this story.
Leslie Day, PDS Co-Director, Nominated for Supervisor of the Year at Buffalo State
Leslie Day, PDS Co-Director, was nominated by Kaitlyn Gardner for the Supervisor of the Year award at Buffalo State; Kaitlyn felt that Leslie is among the best and deserved to be recognized. Leslie has received congratulations from the 2013-2014 Student Employment Awards Committee for her outstanding contribution to the college and WNY Community! All nominees for the Supervisor of the Year Award, as well as all student nominators will be recognized at the Student Employment Awards Reception on Wednesday April 23, 2014 at 3:00 p.m. in Butler Library, Room 210.
EER Majors Hurd and Jacobs
Two Buffalo State students made a difference to kids at Neighborhood House in Auburn, New York, according to the Auburn Citizen. Adam Hurd and David Jacobs are both Bengal football players who are majoring in elementary education. Read more about this story.
EER Students and Faculty Mentors Receive 2014 Undergraduate Summer Research Program Awards
EER major Crystal Holmes, mentored by Dr. Kim Truesdell, and MAT 7-12 major Melissa Heidenreich, mentored by Dr. Jevon Hunter, have been selected to receive 2014 Undergraduate Summer Research Program awards. The students and their mentors will be celebrated at the17th Annual Research Recognition Reception on Monday, April 28, 2014.
EER Students Support Chilean Visitors
On behalf of the Department of Elementary Education and Reading as well as the SUNY Buffalo State Professional Development Schools Consortium, we would like to thank the following teacher candidates for their time and support of the student teacher, Danella Hernández, and professor, Andrea Barnier, who visited this February 2014 from Universidad Mayor in Santiago, Chile. Teacher candidate input strengthened their understanding of teacher education in Western New York and the impact our PDS makes on the program and our school partners.
Wafa Ahmed, Zelaina Rodriguez, Haley Palmateer, Stacy Erokwu, Tyler Lago, Joannelly Fermin, Shannan Lafferty, Morgan Brown, Mary Lelonek, Greg McClure, Daniel Klein, Amy Marciniak, Maddie Otero, Danielle Jaroscz, Rich Hoey, Kaitlyn Gardner, Jonathan Coder, Jasmine Davis, Crystal Holmes-Smith, Anna Morton.
Congratulations, Spring 2014 Robert L. Elmes Jr. Memorial Scholarship Winner, EER Student Carolyne Szpaicher
We congratulate Carolyne Szpaicher, a repeat dependent Elmes Scholarship recipient majoring in Childhood Education 1-6, 7-9 Mathematics extension.
EER Students Recognized at Student Services Support Recognition Ceremony
On February 7, 2014, the following students were recognized f by the Student Support Services Office or their academic excellence:
Karen Le – 3.46 GPA – Childhood Education
Charise Hunter Bell – 3.2 GPA – Early Childhood Education
Jessica Noble – 3.12 GPA – Early Childhood Education
The Student Services Support office provide services (academic advisement, tutoring, personal/professional counseling, skills training, and more) to all program student participants (first-generation, economically disadvantaged, and disabled college-bound students).
Buffalo State Graduate News
Margaret Henry, recent Buffalo State graduate, is working as a teacher in Rochester. Her students recently published a book!
EER Major Samantha Parente
Buffalo State’s Samantha Parente was named the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) Women’s Volleyball Player of the Week after helping the Bengals extend their winning streak to 10 matches, one shy of a school record.
Nicole Warren - Rosemary Arioli, Update on PDS Partner, School 28 in Rochester
Nicole Warren (Fall Student Teaching at School 28 and December 2012 graduate) was hired in April to finish the school year as a long term substitute in grade 6 at school 28; she took on a very challenging group with success. I was at school 28 and a teacher stopped to talk and she commented on how impressed she was at the commitment of our student teachers after they student taught at school 28. Our student teachers continue to volunteer at the school (helping with fieldtrips). The teachers have been busy packing up boxes for a temporary move for the 2013-2014 school year. The school building on Humboldt street is going to have extensive renovations. Currently they are a K-6 school and will be adding on grades 7-8. Their temporary location will be: 595 Upper Falls Blvd, Rochester. We will have a cohort in Rochester this Fall. The mentor teachers will also be working on their grant proposal for the new school year.
Professional Development Schools
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