We accomplish several ends in this second semester of Ed. 10.  We will continue to work with you to build your relationship with the elementary education faculty and program.  Instructionally, the program theme Teaching All Children Strategically in Diverse Communities of Learners leads us to explore more intensely the meaning of "diversity" in your education to become a professional educator.  We as the question "What is good teaching in a multicultural society?" .  We will seek enlightenment as to what that means to each of us professionally and personally through readings, dialogue, and actual public school classroom experience.

 I always look forward to working with all of you as members of this class, and each of my advisees even more so as we begin a four year relationship.  You have selected a program that will expect much from you.  We will support  you in your quest and will be proud of your accomplishments.  Work with us and we will go far together.  Our goal is to make elementary classrooms warm, meaningful, passionate, and effective places to learn by building your capacity to make reflective, equitable, just, principled, and strategic instructional decisions for each and every child who has the privilege of calling you "teacher."

Overall Objectives For You and Our Cohort

1.  Continue to  take charge of your program.  Be a proactive planner.  As part of this process, my advisees will meet with me at least once before the pre-registration period.  Continue to investigate the web site of the CESS Office of Student Services so you know what's available for you on line in terms of information for your program planning pleasure.  Use the site.  You never should have to say, "I didn't know."  It's all there.  http://www.uvm.edu/~cess/stservices

2.  Use the content of our cohort readings and discussions to educate yourself about anti-racist teaching.  Be prepared to take a stand regarding your responses to these tough questions:  What does it really mean to teach "all children"?   What is a "diverse community of learners"?  How do I teach children whose cultural background is different from mine?  How am I culturally diverse?  Must I think of teaching in a different way because I live in a culture where there are socially dominant and oppressed groups? How does oppression happen and how does it affect schooling?

3. Be a contributing, reflective member of our Ed 10 cohort.  Participate in discussions, do the assignments, support your peers, and push yourself to grow as a student of and participant in an absolutely fascinating endeavor - the teaching / learning process.
 

Assignments and Expectations

1. Attendance.  You gotta be here to be part of the process.  Contact me via email before class if you are you are not going to be able to attend a class session.  Attendance will be taken.  Your grade is in jeopardy if you have more than one uncontacted absence.

2. Advising.  Continue to use a tabbed advising binder.  Take responsibility for your part of the advising process.
 

a.  Bring your binder to your advising meetings.  Include relevant materials : checklists, academic concentration outlines, your four year plan.  We will use it whenever we talk through your academic life at UVM.

b. Schedule at least one advising meeting with Charlie (or Maureen, Marge) before WG #3 - March 21st.  Be prepared to talk about:

*  Howzit going? (UVM -dorms, friendships, noise, downtown, alcohol and drugs, life...) 
*  Academic concentration concerns
*  What you want/need to take next semester?
*  General program questions.
c. Hand in a revised four year plan on April 30th - WG#4.  Make sure  you  note on the plan your possible AC and what you plan to register for Fall 03.
3. Professional Portfolio, continued.  Emphasis on the question about good teaching in a multicultural society.  Due April 30, WG#4.  As a precondition for licensure, the State of Vermont requires that you assemble a professional portfolio, much like an artist, that shows what you know (knowledge and dispositions)  and are able to do (skills) as a young, new, professional teacher.  The portfolio must contain captioned evidence  (photographs, lesson plans, video clips, children's work, sections of your assignments, etc.) that you have met the demands of various professional groups  and are safe to teach.  Among the groups who demand to see  your "stuff"  are the National Council for the Accrediation of Teacher Education - NCATE,  the State of Vermont Department of Education, the Association of Childhood Education International - ACEI, and your own faculty.  You show your "stuff" in your professional portfolio, hard copy or electronic.  We begin the assembly of your professional portfolio this semester.  Here's what we want you to do.
 
a. Think about the diversity work that you will do this semester and what it might illuinate about yourself as a teacher and as a learner.  Think about all your courses, your co-curricular life, what you brought with you to UVM as a teacher-to-be.

b. You will select four pieces from this collection of work.  These pieces should show a variety of multiple abilities you possess as a learner and should document some portion of your learning with respect to you becoming a teacher of children of varying ethncities, income levels, genders, family backgrounds, and skills and abilities.

c. Caption your pieces.  We'll do this in class on April 23rd, Cohort Mtg. #7.  You'll bring these pieces to WG#4 and share them with at least one other person.
 

4. Boardgame
Your work with children in a school will be around a mathematics based board game you will design with one other student in our class.  The game should be simple in nature, flexible in level of difficulty.  Think of the old standby Chutes and Ladders.  It should be fun, motivating, and allow you to (1) converse with children in ways that will reveal to you their multiple abilities regarding what they can do and can't do,  and (2) revise the game based on what you learn each time about what they can do and can't do .  The game can use dice for moves, cards like Monopoly to effect the moves, and so on.  It should be ready by the time of the first visit (February 12).  I'll bring materials to class on February 5 to get us started.
5. Documentation of School Visits
Take a camera.  Take pictures.  Include them as part of one portfolio entry.
6. Record Keeping
Develop at least four goals for what you want to learn from the school visits.  Develop a rubric to help you keep track of your growth and learning relative to these goals.  This assignment is not to create a grade for yourself.  It is to get you into a "teacher frame of mind" by giving you some ways to assess the experience for yourself.  Have your goals and rubric done before you step off the bus for the first school visit (February 12th).  Use the rubric to assess your school experience after each visit.  Complete a 250 word commentary on the back of the rubric that gives a qualitative assessment of each visit with respect to issues of diversity.  In brief:
• your statement of goals and your assessment rubric
• due 2/12: hand me a copy of each
• your completed rubrics and 250 word commentaries 
• for 2/12, 2/19: handed to CR on 2/26
• for 3/5, 3/12: handed to CR on 4/2


7. Reading and Presentation

We will read and process The Dreamkeepers as one way of helping us reflect on our school experience.  As we get towards the end of the semester, we will put together a ten minute presentation for the final whole group meeting.  We'll leave it loose for a while.  Trust me.  It will come together.  We will conjur up a way to process Dreamkeepers during class.
8. Gloria Ladson-Billings Lecture
Gloria may be joining the UVM community Presidential Lecturer.  If she is able to come, you must be there.

Grading

Points will be assigned to the various assignments according to the values represented in the chart below.  Points will be summed and converted to a letter grade using the UVM 4.0 grading scale and this point/letter grade conversion scale:  A=93-95, A-=89-92, B+=86-88, B=83-85, B-=79-82, C+=76=78, C=73-75, C-=69-72, D+=66-68, D-63-65, D-=60-62, F=any grade less than 60 points.

 

Attendance and Participation	40 POINTS
Advising       binder      appointment      prep. for appointment	10 POINTS
Portfolio - 4 captioned pieces	10 POINTS
School Work      game   5 pts.      goals   5 pts.      rubric  10 pts.      commentaries  20 pts.	40  POINTS
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