Oregon State University « OSU College of Education

First Lady Michelle Obama addressed the critical role of school counselors in helping students successfully complete high school and pursue post-secondary options recently when she was made an honorary school counselor at the annual American School Counselor Association conference

“College is for everyone,” according to Mrs. Obama. “Every student in this country needs some higher education, whether that’s a two-year degree, a four-year degree, or professional training of some sort.”

Unfortunately, with one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the nation, Oregon’s students will certainly struggle to achieve this goal, which is part of both the White House’s College Opportunity Agenda and Oregon’s 40-40-20 legislative mandate.

Research continues to show that the leadership and collaboration provided by school counselors not only increases student achievement and post-secondary matriculation through college and career readiness planning, but is instrumental in creating environments that help students overcome obstacles which are affecting their ability to learn.

In a recent letter to chief state school officers, Arne Duncan echoed Mrs. Obama’s call to action when he asked leaders to find “systemic and sustainable” support for school counselors.

School counselors are more important than ever to Oregon students, families, and school staff members with forty percent of our state’s children identified as being exposed “to the social-economic, physical, or relational risk factors that adversely impair their ability to develop the foundations of school success.” (Oregon Learns: Executive Summary-OEIB Report to the Legislature, December 2011.)

Before outlining the newest federal funds available to support, hire, and train school counselors; Mrs. Obama stated that school counseling “is a necessity to ensure that all our young people get the education they need to succeed in today’s economy.”

Only eight states have a worse counselor-to-student ratio than Oregon, and Mrs. Obama called the national average, “outrageous.” Making matters worse, Oregon has never established staffing or funding mandates for school counselors. While the importance of equitable student access to professional school counselors is at the forefront of a national conversation, Oregon’s educational leaders and politicians should take the necessary steps to ensure that its students are better prepared for academic success, social-emotional well-being, and college and career readiness through the resources and support provided by school counselors.

For more on this topic, please see a previous post: Where Are The School Counselors?.

Gene Eakin has a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Oregon and worked in the public school for over 30 years, including 23 years in the Lebanon School District. He is the School Counseling Program Lead in Oregon State University’s College of Education and advocacy chair for the Oregon School Counselor Association (OSCA). Dr. Gene Eakin can be reached at gene.eakin@oregonstate.edu .

STEM Workshops for Educators: Offered by OSU research faculty. Free. Lunch provided. Limited funds available to support lodging costs for participants more than 80 miles away.

Here’s the summer schedule of workshops:

July 31-Aug. 1: Explorations in Nanotechnology for 6-12th Grade Educators.
Aug. 11-12: Climate Change and Ocean Acidification.
Aug. 14-15: Biological Motions through the Lens-An Advanced Light Microscopy Workshop.

To register or for more information, email Kari van Zee, Program Coordinator STEPs, at vanzeek@science.oregonstate.edu; 541-737-1773.

It might be summer but last week Furman Hall was buzzing with teachers and over 30 middle school students from Lane County who participated in the first Quality Teaching and Learning Institute.

The five-day QTL Summer Institute, supported by the OEIB and hosted by OSU, focused on the development of pedagogical skills that will prepare a new generation of teachers to work with students meeting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

The institute engaged teams in rethinking educator preparation pedagogy approaches to better support models of teacher preparation. Participants include arts and science faculty, educator preparation faculty, and K-12 school partners.

Participants built:

a common vision of high quality instruction,
a shared language to describe and analyze teaching, and
a means for articulating core practices that can be examined and improved.

Learn more about the QTL Summer Institute here.

Via Press Release

(Corvallis, OR)- The Chief Education Office will be co-hosting a Quality Teaching and Learning Summer Institute at Oregon State University (OSU) from June 23-27. The inaugural institute will focus on the development of teacher candidate skills that will prepare them to support students on meeting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The five- day institute will engage educator teams in rethinking approaches to most effectively support teacher preparation. Cohosts include the Oregon Department of Education and the Oregon Core to College grant.

Institutional teams representing major Oregon universities offering educator certification programs will be attending including: Eastern Oregon University, George Fox University, Oregon State University, Pacific University, Southern Oregon University, University of Oregon and University of Portland. Together these institutions prepared 44% of new Oregon teachers during the 2012-13 year.

“Charged with improving outcomes for students from birth to college and career, the Oregon Education Investment Board (OEIB) knows that the single-greatest in-school factor for student success is an educator” said Chief Education Officer, Nancy Golden. “The Summer Institute will create a focused and dynamic opportunity for the Network for Quality Teaching and Learning to bring educators together to reflect on, and refine their approach to preparing new teachers to effectively support student success.”

The Network for Quality Teaching and Learning was created by HB 3233 to strengthen recruitment, preparation, induction-year support, and ongoing professional development for Oregon’s educators. The Network empowers educators to help implement curriculum needed to support students‘ success, document the impacts on results and infuse current preparation programs with in-the-field practices that are working for Oregon’s students.

The institute will feature morning sessions in which arts and science faculty, educator preparation faculty, and K-12 school partners will observe and participate in lessons with middle school students.

Attendees will then use reflective discourse to determine core practices identified to successfully engage students and further learning.

The institute is designed around the tenet that teachers improve their instructional skill by engaging in the work of teaching. To facilitate that opportunity, more than 30 youth from the Lane Equity Achievement Project (LEAP) program will actively participate in portions of the institute. LEAP’s mission is to ensure that each child in Lane County has opportunities for intellectual growth and success regardless of their location or need. While on the OSU campus the attending LEAP students have a host of opportunities to explore the college and future careers.

“The Lane middle school students will have opportunities to experience some of the best that OSU campuses have to offer, said Nell O’Malley, Director of Education Licensure at OSU. “In addition to being part of the institute, students will participate in hands-on STEM activities such as robotics, tsunami and wave exploration, and computer animation. They will spend time at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center for remotely operation vehicles development and estuary investigations. Throughout the week students will be chaperoned by STEM students at OSU and campus leaders creating multiple opportunities to explore career pathways. ”

Each afternoon, scheduled sessions will be open to the public. Sessions will address recruitment and retention of culturally and linguistically diverse educators, the new performance assessment (edTPA) adopted by Teacher Standards and Practices Commission, recent results from statewide surveys of educators, and even a demonstration that uses avatars to help future educators practice classroom management skills. Materials will also be available online after the institute has concluded. For a full schedule of events and additional information on the institute, click here.

The Oregon Education Investment Board (OEIB) is chaired by Governor John Kitzhaber, and led by the Chief Education Officer. It was created in 2011 to oversee an effort to build a seamless, unified system for investing in and delivering public education from birth to college & career. OEIB is dedicated to building a student-centric system that links all segments of the educational experience together to ensure each student is poised for a promising future.

The office of Childcare & Family Resources is currently accepting nominations for the 2013-14 Family Friendly Faculty Award. The Family Friendly Faculty Award is awarded to a faculty or staff member who has provided exemplary support to an OSU student with children.

Support may come in the form of mentoring, encouragement, accommodations, or anything parents have found helpful in and out of the classroom to remove barriers to success and/or elevating the campus awareness of students with children.

If you know of someone deserving this award, please take a few moments to write a nomination letter including within: their name and department, your name and department, why you would like to nominate this person, and examples of ways they have helped you (or someone you know) be successful at OSU. Nomination letters are due to amy.luhn@oregonstate.edu or delivered to the Childcare & Family Resources office before July 31, 2014.

This year’s College of Education Commencement Ceremony will take place on Friday, June 13th from 4-6 pm at the Memorial Union Ballroom. Please RSVP to Karla Rockhold by Friday, June 6.

This summer we are offering several courses for ESOL and ESOL/bilingual endorsement candidates. See http://summer.oregonstate.edu or http://catalog.oregonstate.edu for specific course registration information.

TCE 522 Racial and Cultural Harmony in the K-12 Classroom will be taught online June 23-August 15.

TCE 472/572 Foundations of ESOL/Bilingual Education will be taught 3 times: in Corvallis August 25-September 26, online (TCE 572 only) june 23-August 15, and in Bend July 2-25 (TCE 572 only).

TCE 573 Instructional Approaches for ESOL/Bilingual Education will be taught online June 23-August 15.

TCE 576 Partnerships and Ideologies in ESOL/Bilingual Education will be taught twice: online June 23-August 15 and in Bend July 2-18.

We are also offering 2 special topic electives focused on dual language education:

TCE 499/599 Biliteracy in the Schools taught in Corvallis August 4-8 with additional online coursework due by September 5.

TCE 499/599 Spanish in the Community taught in Corvallis August 11-15 with additional online coursework due by September 5.

For additional information about the Biliteracy in the Schools and Spanish in the Community courses, please visit http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/duallanguage.

Volunteer. Be part of Beaver Nation.

Saturday, May 17, OSU alumni, students and friends are working together to improve your neighborhood. Grab your rake and gloves, or just come with your Beaver spirit and help make a difference in your community during OSU Community Day of Service.

Alumni and friends can also log their volunteer service hours on May 17th and credit them towards the event. Last year, there were 500 volunteers and about 1500 hours.

Register today: www.osualum.com/service

ATTENTION STUDENTS AND FACULTY

Opportunity for Student Involvement:

OSU Student Ambassador Nominations

Homecoming 2014

“Come Home to this Amazing Place”

Do you know a student who embodies Oregon State University? Are you that student? The Student Alumni Association is looking for campus leaders who exude Beaver pride and spirit to be recognized as 2014 Homecoming Royalty! Selected students will be formally recognized at our 2014 Homecoming events, serve as representatives for OSU during the 2014-15 school year, and become a part of Beaver history.

APPLY TODAY!

The application (download) must be submitted electronically by Monday, May 23rd at 5:00pm to the OSU Alumni Association office either filled out online at www.osualum.com/court or emailed to Suzanne.Flores@oregonstate.edu. Candidates who pass the initial round of selection must be available for a short interview on May 28th and 29th. Questions can be directed to Suzanne Flores at (541) 737-3003.

The College of Education hosted a storytime and STEM activities for this year’s Bring Your Kids to Campus Day.

For the storytime in the morning, we read Salina Yoon’s children’s book “Penguin and Pinecone.” The College of Forestry sent over an ambassador with a pile of pinecones (some giant-sized!) and talked about pine cones. Afterwards, each child got to create their very own pine cone friend to take home with them.

For the afternoon, we had some fun STEM activities demonstrating the science of flight. Kids had the opportunity to create paper helicopters and plastic parachutes they could drop off the 4th Floor of Furman Hall’s atrium.

If you can’t tell from the photos, we had a lot of fun!