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Student teachers win state awards
June 14, 2004 | |||||
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KOKOMO, Ind.—Three students involved in the Effective Learning Seminar received Outstanding Future Educators Awards from the Indiana Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (IACTE) on April 16. Selected by the Division of Education faculty, the recipients were: Candy Mooney of Wabash, who taught seventh grade science at Peru Junior High School with Valerie Doud and fifth grade courses at Blair Pointe School with Vickie Ash Amanda Exmeyer of Peru, who taught social studies at Kokomo High School with Thomas Byrnes and Lisa Ellison and social studies with an emphasis in economics at Central Middle School with Patricia O’Brien Lindsay Brown of Kokomo, who taught eight grade science at Taylor Middle School and fourth grade courses at Taylor Intermediate with Cindy Nehl To be eligible for the IACTE award, students submitted mini-portfolio documenting and evaluating their student teaching activities. Mooney, Exmeyer and Brown participated in the 2004 Effective Teaching Project (ETP) seminar, taught by Professor of Education Shirley Aamidor, Ph.D., and Lecturer in Education Amber Reed in spring 2004. The seminar introduced 28 student teachers to the concept of Action Research, a systematic approach to effecting classroom changes and assessing the results. Seminar participants had to identify teaching problems and implement plans for correcting them within the classrooms where they were student teachers. They looked at such issues as getting their students to turn in homework assignments, or maximizing the time their students spent on particular learning tasks. Several seminar participants reported that their cooperating teacher planned to continue using a particular system that the student teachers had initiated. “Even if research didn’t get the expected results, at least it tells a teacher ‘Don’t use that strategy’,” Reed said. “The research helps you know if what you’re doing [as a teacher] is what you should be doing. It changes your mindset, which changes your practices. You get a thoughtful teacher who won’t fall into a rut.” Action Research grows out of the assumptions that teachers not only want to improve professionally but also “have the authority to make decisions that influence students,” Reed said. “To decide not to decide is a decision,” Aamidor added. “Teachers abdicate their responsibilities when they don’t decide.” IU Kokomo’s Effective Teaching Project seminar is “rather novel at the undergraduate level,” Aamidor said. “Most teacher education programs require their candidates to develop and teach a unit on a specific topic or write a reflective journal of their experience. At IU Kokomo, we already do these assignments before student teaching and rather than ask students to do more of the same, we developed the ETP process which, we believe, will serve them well in the long run.” Reed and Aamidor presented their ideas on ETPs at the 2003 national convention of the American Association of College Teachers of Education and the Morris Symposium in Indianapolis.
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