Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Session B-4: Foods Of The Future, Carmela Minaya, Aziza Darwish, Heather Richardson

Professional Learning Day

Teachers will learn the simple science behind the most recent culinary rage, Molecular Gastronomy. They will have a cost effective example to bring back into their classroom with students.

Session B-2: The “Roll” Of Statistics In Modeling - It All Adds Up, Richard Stalmack, Janice Krouse

Professional Learning Day

The common core practice standards ask us to teach students to propose mathematical models and test their viability. Participants will do an experiment, collect data and use technological tools to combine modeling, analysis and basic statistics. Participants should bring a laptop, if possible; otherwise, bring a graphing calculator.

Session B-3: Modern Germany: Social Responsibility & Environmental Sustainability, Rachel Sykora

Professional Learning Day

This session will present the political, social, and economic philosophies that have allowed modern Germany to emerge as a global leader in environmental sustainability. This subject raises numerous ethical questions with real-world applications that are of high interest to students in history, global studies, and human geography classrooms. Topics of discussion include the Deutsche Bank model of corporate responsibility, “green growth” economic initiatives, and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). Participants will leave with practical classroom activities utilizing thought-based inquiry, primary source documents, and case study examples that help inspire classroom conversations beyond the traditional context of the Holocaust and World …

Session B-2: Much Ado About Trousers: Exploring Intercultural Contact Through Artifacts, Kitty Lam

Professional Learning Day

Material objects are fascinating sources for investigating intercultural contact in the ancient world. This session demonstrates how to use a pair of ornamental trousers excavated from Xinjiang, China to generate student discussion on the nature of cross-cultural contact in the ancient Silk Road era.

Session B-1: Teaching Russian Political History: From Czars To General Secretaries To Oligarchs, Diane Haleas Hines

Professional Learning Day

Participants in this session will be offered ways to teach Russian history that makes connections between historical experience and political culture (values, attitudes, beliefs, and expectations that citizens hold about their political system). This political culture has directly impacted current politics in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union and helps to explain current developments in Russian politics, both domestic and international. The session will incorporate background information as well as lesson activities for the classroom.

Session A-6: Alternative Energy, Mark Carlson, Peter Clancy

Professional Learning Day

We will describe how our newly-revised, month-long alternative energy unit in Engineering addresses the 4 NGSS standards. We will map the activities in our IMSA schedule to a traditional high school bell schedule. These activities address not only performance goals and the underlying scientific principles of power generation but also process skills relating to surveying technology, prioritizing criteria, and assessing societal impact. We will reflect on our first round of offering this unit and suggest modifications for future implementations.

Session A-4: “Ain’T No Thing, Chicken Wing”, Carmela Minaya, Aziza Darwish, Heather Richardson

Professional Learning Day

Participating teachers will simulate a deep cut on a chicken wing and suture it using similar techniques used in emergency situations. The chicken wing anatomy will be compared to the anatomy of a human arm. The session will provide teachers with the opportunity to introduce a low cost dissection activity into the classroom in a dynamic fashion.

Session A-3: Energy Conservation, Brooke Schmidt, Eric Hawker

Professional Learning Day

This session will focus on the content and different activities that you can do with your students to meet the Next Generation Physical Science Standard 3: Energy. The focus will be on definitions of energy, conservation of energy, and the relationship between energy and forces. The content is appropriate for both middle and high school science students.

Session A-2: From Polynomial To Rational Functions: Flip!, Ruth Dover

Professional Learning Day

Ah HA! Making the connection between polynomial functions, rational functions and using reciprocals! Join us to flip, not flop, with trig for your classroom.

Session C-2: Problem-Based Mathematics: You Reap What You Sow, Nicole Ross, Lindsey Herlehy

Professional Learning Day

Approach problem-based mathematics through a historical perspective! Join us to learn a fun, hands-on approach to examining the science behind crop rotation systems originally implemented during the Medieval Period. This activity requires students to mathematically evaluate the efficiency of a crop rotation system, strategically complete an integers-based crop puzzle, and evaluate crop yield and profit through data analysis. This activity integrates a variety of middle school mathematics concepts.

Session C-3: Epidemiology, Don Dosch, Crystal Randall

Professional Learning Day

Epidemiology, the study of factors influencing the spread of communicable disease, has become a broadly discussed topic given the recent Ebola virus outbreak in western Africa. Participants in this session will work in the lab to model epidemiology and examine the results through a simple ELISA assay. We will discuss how to use data to identify original patients. Further, we will look at some in-class activities that highlight some well-established case studies in epidemiology (NGSS ESS3.A and LS2.C).

Session C-1: Equilibrium, Deb Scarano, Anita White

Professional Learning Day

Find your balance in this hands-on lab session which will allow teachers to try out several simple lab activities that will enable students to better understand equilibrium.

Session A-1: Implementing Common Core In Middle School Math, Karen Togliatti

Professional Learning Day

This session will focus on implementing Common Core Middle-School Mathematics Standards using student-centered activities. Participants will receive three hands-on activities (one each at grades six, seven, and eight) to take back to their classrooms.

Session A-3: Indian Ocean Trade Basin: Global Trading And The Consequences Of Those Encounters, George Haldaman

Professional Learning Day

Using an interactive website at indianoceanhistory.org, we will examine how history can be more hands on for a time period and region students know very little about. This lesson can be used to explore and compare different time periods in history and are great for comparison and contrast as well as the continuity and change over time essays. The workshop will explore how global economies were developed and the consequences of those encounters.

Session A-1: Interpreting Cold War Origins: Past, Present, Future, Lee Eysturlid

Professional Learning Day

This session will enable attendees to teach the origins of the Cold War for the United States (and world) along with the evolution of American opinion on the topic. This fragmentation of historical opinion (left, right, center) will help attendees see the many possibilities of the topic. Teachers will leave ready to teach the topic.

#Handsonlearning: Lessons From Student "Takeover" Of Csb/Sju Social Media, Tiffany Clements, Kelly Berg

Forum Lectures

In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, CSB and SJU communication students "took over" CSB/SJU institutional profiles on Instagram and Vine for six weeks in the spring of 2014. Students in the Communication Department's New Media Applications and Analysis course planned, prepared and shared photos and video for their assigned profile. Groups were responsible for setting goals for their takeover, creating a profile of a target audience and applying lessons learned about effective branding through visual communication.

In this presentation, Associate Professor Kelly Berg and CSB/SJU Social Media Specialist Tiffany Clements discuss learning outcomes from the collaboration and takeaways for future Communications and …

Accountability And Transformative Literacy, Kristin Williams

Theses and Dissertations

In a conceptual study of accountability measures and transformative teaching practices, this extensive literature review investigates the accountability measures in schools such as high-stakes tests and teacher evaluation methods. The study also examines how teachers and schools can meet obligations by federal mandates while still incorporating effective and critical literacy practices using democratic literacy frameworks and approaches toward democratic whole school reform.

Active Learning: Strategies That Help First Graders Transition And Build Literacy Skills, Kacey Weber

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research inquiry was to investigate what happens when first grade students that have not had the benefits of Preschool or Kindergarten education engage in active learning activities. The study was aimed at looking into how such activities can help with the transition into formal education, as well as with building the grounding literacy skills necessary for success in elementary education. The study was conducted in a first grade classroom with 31 students. The qualitative research paradigm was followed and data collected included student surveys, a Sociogram, student work, teacher observations, student interviews, and observational field notes. …

Four Reasons Why Pre-Service And Practicing Teachers Should Present At Professional Conferences, Jana Hunzicker, Teresa Biddison, Megan Hickey, Alyssa Mcclethen

MLET: The Journal of Middle Level Education in Texas

During the Fall 2013 semester, two pre-service teachers, one practicing teacher, and a university professor from Peoria, Illinois presented a speed learning session at the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE) Annual Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After disseminating information about an innovative classroom partnership, attending and presenting at the conference provided an authentic professional experience for the teacher-presenters. In addition to describing the background, travel planning process, and conference experience itself, this article offers four reasons why pre-service and practicing teachers should present at professional conferences: increased confidence and motivation, classroom applications, connections with fellow professionals, and reciprocal support.

Effects Of Culturally Relevant Teaching On Seventh Grade African American Students, Shawanna M. Paulk, James Martinez, Dawn T. Lambeth

MLET: The Journal of Middle Level Education in Texas

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between culturally relevant teaching and science achievement in seventh grade African American students when compared to standards-based instruction. The study also examined whether the use of culturally relevant teaching improved students’ attitudes toward science, as well as their participation within the science classroom. The intervention was implemented over the course of eight weeks by using a unit test as a pretest and posttest, formative quizzes, a Science Attitude Survey, and field notes to analyze student performance. Although all participants made academic gains when comparing pretest and posttest results, the culturally …