Innovator vol. 38, Fall 2007. Re-Imagining Teacher Education

8/14/2019 Innovator vol. 38, Fall 2007. Re-Imagining Teacher Education

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INNOVATORFALL 2007

RE-IMAGINING

TEACHEREDUCATION


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In the IssueVolume 38:1, fall 2007

Deans note 1

GettinG BeyonD the trouBle

With teacher eDucation 2

nancy BenJamin - alumni profile 14

re-imaGininG

teacher eDucation at u-m 6

Kevin Karr - alumni profile 16

class notes 17

recorDs of practice 10

hyman Bass 13

laB school reBorn 18

snapshots 20

faculty & stuDent neWs 23

Development report 24

On the cover: Ypsilanti middle school students stride enthusiastically through the

hallways of the Undergraduate Science Building during the Nanoscience Institute,

co-sponsored by the University of Michigan School of Education.


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S c h o o l o f e d u c a t i o n : i n n o v at o r - f a l l 2 0 0 7 1

Teacher education has been a serious endeavor at the

University o Michigan or well over a century. Beginning

as early as the 1850s, aculty members rom a variety o

disciplines across campus oered courses or prospective

schoolteachers, and in 1879 the University established the

nations rst permanent chair in the art and science o

pedagogy. By the time the School o Education was ounded

in 1921, the University was already home to thriving courses inteacher education. We have continued to oer well-regarded

teacher education or decades, and we have prepared many

teachers who have gone on to successul proessional careers

as classroom teachers. As dean, I have enjoyed meeting our

graduates who were prepared here as long ago as the 1940s

and learning o their experiences. Still, the time has come to

take advantage o new knowledge and new possibilities to

redesign undamentally how we recruit and prepare teachers

at Michigan.

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

Despite the American rhetoric o equal educational opportunity

and public school excellence, problems o low and inequitable

academic achievement persist stubbornly in this country.

When schools do succeed, it is most oten with white, middle

class students, and even these students rarely produce work

comparable to that o their peers in many other industrialized

countries. Policy-makers and citizens have proposed solutions

to these problems that range rom changes in curriculum and

school organization to new standardized tests and increased

Deans notedeborah loewenberg ball

accountability or both students and teachers. Although these

changes are likely to be important elements o the solution to

the problems we ace, without accompanying changes in the

instruction that teachers provide and in teachers capacity to

connect eectively with their students, these reorms will alter.

The evidence is clear that teachers are key to the quality o

instruction and o students learning.

Whether leading a group o tenth graders in an analysis o a

poem, teaching th graders how plants use light to make their

ood, or helping a rst grader learn a set o useul sight words,

teaching is complex interactional work. What does it take to

explain the long division procedure clearly and show what

is really going on at each step? Watching an accomplished

teacher lead a group discussion or inspire a roomul o

ourteen-year-olds or design just the right assignment or a

group o learners is ascinating. It is important to notice how

much more this takes than simply being smart or liking kids.

Although some teachers acquire this knowledge and skill romexperience, many do not. Yet the practice o teaching can be

taught. How to build the new kinds o proessional training that

can prepare people committed to and capable o ensuring all

students learning is our goal in the Teacher Education Initiative

(TEI), launched two years ago. In this issue o Innovator, we

begin to tell the story o this major whole-school initiative, and

invite you to share in our passion or the challenging, complex

work o re-imagination.


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Among the prime targets or critique are the places that

prepare the teachers who ace these challenges: the nations

1,206 schools, colleges, and departments o education.

Schools and colleges o education are assailed or ailing

to connect with either the institutions in which they are

embedded or the schools their graduates serve, or a lacko coherent and data-based standards or assessing their

graduates perormance, and most damning o all,

or producing practitioners who dont know their

subjects well enough and/or dont know how to

do the work o teaching well enough, and who

tend to desert the proession in droves.

Even as public schools have taken on a host o jobs that once

belonged elsewhere providing meals, caring or students

beore and ater classes, teaching social skills it seems as i

they have been blamed or everything rom the countrys global

disadvantage in mathematics and science to the spread o

colds and runny noses. The only things that have grown asterthan the tidal wave o criticism rom oundations, politicians,

think tanks, and academics are the demand or teachers (in

large part due to the proessions attrition rate) and the height at

which the bar has been set or teaching practice. Teachers are

now challenged to take ull responsibility, to ensure that every

child in their classroom learns, or at least perorms well on

measures o standardized achievement.

Getting Beyondthe trouble With teacher eDucation

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Problems APPArent;

solutions less evident

The problems are pretty clear, says Donald Freeman,

the University o Michigan School o Educations new director

o teacher education. People have been naming them or

quite a while.

The solutions are less clear. While the diagnosis that schooling

could be signicantly improved is pretty unanimous, there are

almost as many remedies proered as there are critics. Fiercedebates rage over what teachers need to know, how best they can

come to know it and, in some quarters, whether what they need to

know can be taught at all.

Perhaps no other branch o the academy has had to justiy its

existence as long and as chronically as education. The nations rst

permanent chair in education was established in 1873. By 1915,

a majority o colleges provided at least some coursework in the

eld. Somewhere in between, questions about the elds value

began to be raised. And as recently as 2002, U.S. Secretary

o Education Rod Paige, a ormer school superintendent

and education school dean, wrote in his annual reportthat there was little evidence that education school

coursework leads to improved student achievement.

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I wanted to reinvent teacher education at a very good research

university, says Deborah Loewenberg Ball, and Michigan was

the place to do it.

O course, the Dean o the University o Michigan School o

Education is well aware that the enterprise requires ar more

than her own eorts, or the Schools, or the Universitys, but

i that reinvention could pick a place or itsel to be born,

Michigans credentials are in order.

Among them: a commitment to teacher preparation among theU-M aculty that stretches beyond the School o Education, an

abundance o instructors with recent and extensive classroom

experience, a commitment to top quality research, a tradition

o interdisciplinarity that acilitates cross-ertilization with other

proessional schools, and solid support or the enterprise rom

the central administration.

scAlAble innovAtion thAt cAn trAvel

Launched two years ago, the Teacher Education Initiative (TEI)

is, as its web site puts it, a comprehensive project to redesign

how teachers are prepared or practice at the University o

Michigan, and to build knowledge and tools that will inorm

teacher education more broadly. That means not only guring

out how to prepare new proessionals or the complex, dicult

work o teaching in the real world, but also conducting research

on teacher education much o it rooted in the activities o the

TEI itsel that will, so to speak, travel well.

The history o teacher education reorm is that very smart and

clever people get together and develop innovations that are not

scalable, Ball says. We dont want to do things that only work

at Michigan. We want to develop practices and approaches that

can be transplanted. Teacher education mostly happens in big

places whose mission is to prepare large numbers o teachers.

The reason or doing it at a place like U-M is that we should not

only do it very well but also study it, so what we learn and what

we produce are available to other institutions that dont have an

inrastructure like ours.

re-imagining teachereDucation at u-

Those products include a rationally sequenced curriculum

organized around skills like designing instruction, interacting

with students parents and care-givers, managing classroom

discussions, and documenting and interpreting P-16 students

progress in ways that inorm better instructional decisions; a

reliable and relevant system o perormance assessment o

teaching practice; and eective tools or creating records o

practice that uel the continuous improvement o both students

o teaching and its practitioners.

There are education schools where almost no one studiesteaching or how minority kids achieve, says Ball, and

theres no course in many teacher education programs called

assessment. People think the way to improve poor schools

is to allocate more unds or create charter schools, but theres

decent evidence that teachers who know what theyre doing

can make a big impact on kids learning. One o the best things

we can do is educate teachers who are prepared to work in

those situations.

I wanted to reinvent teacher

education at a very good research

university, and Michigan was the

place to do it.

Donald Freeman, a key player as the School o Educations

new director o teacher education, sees reasons or optimism.

I really get a sense o casting the net wide and thinking deeply

and asking questions that people might have wanted to avoid

in the past because they were somewhat uncomortable, he

says. There are so many smart people involved and looking atdierent dimensions o what we may have been doing wrong

over time that it stands at least a ghting chance, i not better,

o making an impact.


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Heres a quick look at three TEI works-in-progress, each

o which exemplies a core strand o the initiative:

revising ed 392:

educAtion in A multiculturAl society

This required course is almost a microcosm o the sea changes

the TEI envisions. Heres how Francesca Forzani, the TEI

project manager and doctoral candidate who has taught

sections o the course both beore and ater revisions began,

puts it: There were two problems in the past. One o them

was that ve people would teach it and they would teach itve dierent ways. The other was it would consist largely o

academic discussions o the history and sociology o schooling,

or race and culture as concepts, and it would never get into

any detail about how those things actually show up in the

work o teaching.

Having spent our years teaching high school English in rural

Mississippi, Forzani knows whereo she speaks. I was a white

teacher rom an upper-middle-class background going into an

all-black school in a very poor community, she says. I had

to learn about the kind o instruction that made sense or my

students, which was dierent rom the kind o instruction thatmade sense or me when I was in high school.

When she taught the course most recently, We did a lot more

o bringing in class records o teachers work and videotape

o teachers teaching. We looked at actual lessons teachers

taught, including assignments theyve given and assessments

theyve used. I wouldnt say we have a new way yet, but

were working on it.

Assessment methods in

teAcher educAtion

The aha moment or Elizabeth Moje came when she was

working on a teacher preparation research project that

preceded the TEI but has since become integrated with it. We

had to have a way to assess whether what we were trying had

any impact in our secondary teacher education program, she

says. And, notes Tim Boerst, lead instructor in the elementary

Math Methods course, the complexity o teaching practice

requires assessments that let us scaold student teachers

learning as they move toward assuming responsibility or theirown classrooms.

What we need, says Pamela Moss, director o the

assessment component or TEI, is an assessment system that

can serve multiple purposes: to provide clinical eedback to

student teachers, to help teacher educators decide what to do

next in planning instruction, to track student teachers progress

as they engage in increasingly complex aspects o teaching,

to support consequential decisions about student teachers

readiness to teach, and to evaluate the quality and impact o

the teacher education program itsel. And we need to do this in

ways that those outside our teacher education program willnd credible.

Moje adds, We decided that the Secondary Teacher Education

assessment would be the perect opportunity to analyze who

our teacher candidates are when they come to the School o

Education, and who they are as teachers when they leave.


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Apply that brush to a larger canvas, and the central role o

the assessment strand o the TEI becomes clear. How will

anyone know i the initiative is making a dierence without an

integrated system or tracking the achievement o pre-service

teachers? This entire perspective has been curiously absent

rom both teacher preparation programs and the proession

in general. This is the sort o systemic assessment work that

people are not typically doing, and that should be routine in

Teacher Education, says Freeman.

I am genuinely excited to be working in the TeacherEducation Initiative, says Moss. Its work provides a uniquely

rich grounding or the development o assessments that can

support the teaching and learning o teachers and provide

compelling evidence about student teachers readiness to

assume responsibility or their own classrooms. I think we

have the opportunity to make a distinctive contribution to

the assessment o teaching practice.

secondAry mAc technology Pilot

Using videos in the Secondary Master o Arts with Certication

program is nothing new, but the breadth and depth o their

deployment in the programs current pilot project bespeaksa signicant dierence o kind rather than degree. Instead o

recording their activities once or twice, pre-service teachers will

be equipped with cameras throughout the school year, taping

their interactions with both mentors and students to create, in

eect, an individualized text that can be ully integrated into

their classroom work.

This allows technology to be a real tool to help them more

closely examine and refect on their own practice, says Charles

Peters, director o the Secondary MAC program, and it allows

us to begin to rene some o our curriculum and how we think

about what eective teaching should look like.

We really think this will bring the eld experience into the

coursework, says Deanna Birdyshaw, an instructor in the

program. With the digital reproduction o whats actually

happening, we can have a much more powerul conversation

about acts in teaching.

I think we have the opportunity

to make a distinctive contribution

to the assessment o teaching

practice.

At the end o the day, the key question speaks to the core o

what the TEI is all about. As Peters puts it, Does this really

help us better prepare them or their rst year in school? Themore we close that gap between what happens in classrooms

and what are good techniques o practice, the better these

teachers will be or the students they teach in that rst year, and

or the years that ollow.

Story by Jeff Mortimer

Photos by Mike Gould


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S c h o o l o f e d u c a t i o n : i n n o v at o r - f a l l 2 0 0 7 1 1

recorDs ofpractice

Almost everyone understands what the records o a doctors

practice are, and almost no one would suggest that a physician

r surgeon could unction properly without them.

But what comprises a teachers records o practice? And why,

nd to whom, do they matter?

ome records o teaching practice are completely amiliar, like

lesson plans and student assessments. But recent advances in

igital technology make it possible to create a greater variety

useul records o teaching and learning. The study o suchrecords makes it possible to use the process o teaching itsel

to the service o its improvement.

At least thats the idea, one o the big ones o the School o

Educations Teacher Education Initiative.

new uses for technologies

We can capture in high delity an entire years worth o

lassroom lessons on a portable computers hard drive,

ays Magdalene Lampert, who directs the TEIs activities and

ettings component. But also available or capture are student

teachers interactions with colleagues, mentors and parents, or

master teachers perormances in settings designed to ocus on

particular aspects o teaching.

Technology, in turn, renders such settings vastly more useul

or proessional training, in ways similar to operating surgical

theaters in medical schools or mock trials in law school. As

Lampert puts it, Much o our interest in virtual settings is

ueled by the possibility o capturing, storing and accessing

rtiacts that have been digitized in some ashion.

But who will use this material, and or what? There are potential

benets rom this rich resource or every participant in the

ducational enterprise rom pre-service teachers to their

instructors to veteran practitioners to researchers to teachers at

ll levels o all disciplines to parents and the public at large.


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how to do this so as they go into their career, they will continue

to examine their practice and improve their eectiveness as

proessionals.

We can capture in high fdelity an

entire years worth o classroom

lessons on a portable computershard drive.

The more systematically these techniques are used, the

more likely they are to yield improvements, so its especially

important that such records be kept regularly rather than

occasionally. Records o practice need to be studied over time,

says Elizabeth Moje, an Arthur F. Thurnau Proessor o Literacy,

Language and Culture in Educational Studies. A teacher cant

just look at hersel every now and then and evaluate whether

she is growing as a teacher. We need to establish routines and

systems o analysis or using such records. That kind o sel-monitoring has been routine in the sports world or decades.

Coaches review tapes o their teams. Athletes study tapes o

themselves. Having a clear idea o what success looks like,

they can identiy the areas where improvement is needed. Its

the dierence between a batter in a slump saying, Im just not

hitting well, and determining rom his records o practice that

he has a hitch in his swing or has unwittingly altered his stance.

systemAtic record-KeePing

Its eects are already being elt in a pilot program run by the

Secondary Master o Arts with Certication program, in which

pre-service teachers are equipped with cameras and taught

how to analyze recordings o their own perormance with as

much diligence and precision as they would any other text.

Novice teachers in their classrooms are thinking about

so many dierent things that when they try to analyze a

situation, they miss so much o whats going on, saysDeanna Birdyshaw, coordinator o secondary education. Her

involvement in the technology pilot has already shown her its

value or pre-service teachers.

This record lets them watch what theyve done several times

and take moments and refect on them rom more than one

perspective and over time, she says. I cant emphasize

enough the importance o taking a second look at something

that happened in a classroom, and maybe even taking a look

ater youve had the benet o learning a little bit more about

particular things. Birdyshaw makes clear how additional

learning can expand what beginning teachers can see and learnrom their own practice.

That applies to practicing teachers, too. Many o the people

involved in the TEI see using records o practice, using videos

to study their own eectiveness, as something that should be

an ongoing part o a teachers proessional behavior, says

Birdyshaw. Were hoping to prepare students to understand


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On Friday, July 27, Proessor Hyman Bass was awarded the

National Medal o Science at a White House ceremony.

Hyman Bass is a Proessor o Mathematics Education at the

School o Education and Roger Lyndon Collegiate Proessor o

Mathematics at the U-M College o Literature, Science and the

Arts. His mathematical research publications cover broad areas

o algebra, with connections to geometry, topology and number

theory. He has held visiting research and aculty positions at

mathematical centers around the world, including Berkeley,

Paris, Bombay, Rio de Janeiro, Cambridge, Stockholm, Mexico,

Rome, Trieste, Hong Kong, and Jerusalem. He has lectured

widely, in particular as a Phi Beta Kappa National Visiting

Scholar. He is a member o the National Academy o Sciences

and the American Academy o Arts and Sciences. Bass was

president o the American Mathematical Society, and chair o

the Mathematical Sciences Education Board at the NRC, and

o the Committee on Education o the American Mathematical

Society. He is President o the International Commission on

Mathematics Instruction.

Proessor Bass is the rst U-M researcher to win the honor

in 21 years. The National Medal o Science, established

in 1959, honors individuals or pioneering scientic

research in a range o elds that enhance understanding

o the world and lead to innovations and technologies

that give the United States its global economic edge. An

article about the award can be ound on the U-M website:

http://www.umich.edu/news/Releases/2007/Jul07/bass.html

hyman basstrAnsforming teAching over time

Its not just the star o the movie who benets rom assiduous

record-keeping. Online archives o instructional practices

would be equally available to educational researchers seeking

data against which theories can be tested, tenured history

proessors who dont seem to be succeeding very well at

getting certain points across, and elementary mathematics

teachers with six languages spoken in their classroom.

A teacher cant just look at

hersel every now and then and

evaluate whether she is growing

as a teacher. We need to establish

routines and systems o analysis

or using such records.Similarly, the value o pre-practice teachers records transcends

the individual who made them. Teacher preparation instructors

can use the inormation they urnish to determine what parts o

a course are working in practice, where more or less emphasis

or time is needed, and how proessional training can be most

eectively sequenced.

Ultimately, the mindul use o records o practice can help

signicantly in better preparing novice teachers, continuously

improving practice, and undergirding rigorous and relevant

research.

Story by Jeff Mortimer

Photos by Mike Gould

Notebook supplied by Linda Denstaedt

StaYing in touch

Wed love to hear rom you. Send us news about your

achievements and experiences. Send us comments and advice.

Our address is:

Oce o Development & Alumni Relations

U-M School o Education

1001 SEB, 610 E. University

Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1259

e-mail: [email protected] c h o o l o f e d u c a t i o n : i n n o v at o r - f a l l 2 0 0 7 1 3


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Nancy Benjamin had no burning desire to teach when she

received her certicate rom U-M in 1949. But in that era, the

career choices or women were very limited. I didnt want

secretarial work, she says. And I liked children.

Benjamin, now eighty, never dreamed that she and her late

husband Marshall would start their own school which grew rom

a handul o kindergarteners to one o the top private schools

(K-12) in Florida. Housed on two beautiul campuses on North

Twenty-nine years later, to me,

the Benjamin School is still a very

special place.

Palm Beach, the Benjamin School enrolls 1300 students,

boasts an outstanding college placement rate and enjoys the

support o prominent locals, including gol superstar Jack

Nicklaus, a past trustee whose ve children are Benjamin grads.

Although ocially retired rom the school (now a non-prot),

Benjamin, known as Mrs. B to students and sta alike, is

a amiliar gure on campusoten reading to children under

trees. She attends all school productions, and even took a

walk-on part in Fiddler on the Roof. Im still very connected to

the school, she says.

Although both Nancy and Marshall Benjamin made the school

their lies work, Mrs. B insists that Marshall (who died in

1985) was the visionary. My mother always said that he never

taught at a school that suited him, she says. He wanted to run

his own school. The young couple moved rom Michigan to

Florida where, or several years, they ran a small kindergarten in

a rented house. Then ootloose and ancy ree, as Benjamin

puts itthey sold the little school and taught in Eritrea, Arica,

or two years. Returning to Michigan, and determined to start

another school, they drove a truckload o chairs and tables to

Florida. In 1960, they opened the North Palm Beach Private

School in a small house and a huge, dirt-foored garage. Again

they started with only a kindergarten, but it just grew, recalls

Benjamin. The kindergarten parents liked the rich curriculum

science, arts, music, even oreign languagesand especially

the emphasis on reading, a passion o both the Benjamins.

(They studied with Mae Carden, the ounder o a well-known

phonetics approach to reading.) Year by year, the Benjamins

added another grade.

They thought theyd stop at sixth grade, but the Nicklauses and

other parents urged them to build a junior highand backed

their requests with donations. We ended up with a middle

school and no indebtedness, Benjamin recalls. Eventually

a high school was added, and the school renamed in their

honor. While growing their school, Nancy and Marshall raised

an adopted son and daughter; another son died tragically, in

childhood, o a brain tumor.

Benjamin says that the school insists on many o the values

important to her and Marshall, including a healthy respect or

authority. Students rise when their teacher enters the room.

All children participate in athleticseven as scorekeepers,

Benjamin says. You have to learn to submerge your own

personality to the group.

Nothing pleases Benjamin more than to see the schools

graduates return as teachers. French teacher Lisa Arline, who

attended the elementary school in the early sixties, recalls

that her experiences were so happy that, ater she graduated

rom college, I came back to see Mr. B about a teaching job.

Twenty-nine years later, to me, the Benjamin School is still a

very special place.

Story by Eve Silberman

nancy benjamin(ab 49, certt eDuc 49)


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Kevin Karr(abeD 91,

certteDuc 91)

When Northside principal Kevin Karr transerred to King,

another Ann Arbor elementary school, the parents and kids

hed let behind said theyd miss him. He never anticipated how

much one amily would miss himenough to move, just so

their two kids could attend the school where he was principal.

I was touched, he acknowledgesthe more so because

he and the mother had occasionally clashed. However, those

whove observed the U-M School o Education graduate on the

job arent surprised. Kevin is a natural leader, says ormer Ann

Arbor school board member Kathy Griswold.

Now 39, Karr taught at Northside several years. When he was

just 30, ater a brie stint as acting principal, he took the top

job. Karrs biggest challenge was to improve the dismal reading

and writing skills o too many students. When he let ater six

years, the reading and writing test scores had risen rom below

average to among the districts highest. Karr emphasized

balanced literacy, an approach that encourages both group

and individual reading. He visited classrooms regularly. You

have to both deliver the message and support the teachers,

he says.

At the more afuent Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School,

Karr deals with proessional parents who sometimes set very

high goals or their children. He works on helping parents

develop and set realistic expectationswhile orcing himsel to

be straight about his own. His courses at U-M, he says, led him

to set very high standards or the work I do. (Another bonus

o attending U-M: he met his wie, Stephanie. She teaches

math and science, and they are the parents o Ryan, 12.)

Karr has a masters degree in educational leadership and is

a ormer Michigan Marching Band scholarship winner. He

had pondered more lucrative careers than education, but his

enjoyment o helping children learn won out. The gratications

can be sweet. Encouraging King students to write letters,

he was stunned when U-M head ootball coach Lloyd Carr,

responding to a ourth-graders letter, showed up at school

on Karrs birthday. (Karr had joked to King students that the

ootball hero was his long lost cousin, who spelled his name

dierently.) The letter in itsel brought Karr pleasure: I have to

keep this letter top secret, the girl had written, because we

dont want my nice, caring, un principal to know.

Story by Eve Silberman


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DR. NANcY cRAIk BEIGHTS (BS 72, CERTT EDUC 72) - Ater

31 years o teaching. Nancy is now the coordinator or math

and computer science (pre K-12) or Collier County Public

Schools in Naples, Florida.

SOpHIA HOllEY EllIS (AB 49, CERTT EDUC 49, MMS 50,

AM 64) - In 1950, Sophia began teaching elementary science

in Detroit Public Schools. She retired in June 2006, ater a

teaching career o 56 years. She was named the National

Council o International Visitors, US State Department Phyllis

Layton Perry Educator o Year in 2006.

MARTHA H. FAlES (CERTD DENT 35, ABED 43, CERTT

EDUC 43, AM 68, PhD 75) - Martha is enjoying retirement

and playing with great-grandkids. She says, I never had a

chance to spend time with my grandkids now I can learn what

I missed!

MRS. ROBERT JOHNSON (Patricia Greiling Johnson)

(ABED 67, CERTT EDUC 67 - Patricia received a Lietime

Achievement Award March 22, 2006, rom the MI Adult Ed &

Training Conerence. She has been teaching 3rd grade and

adult ESL since she graduated rom U-M in 1967.

MEGAN kuTz (AB 00, AM 01, CERTT EDUC 01) - Megan

is looking or outstanding uture teachers to possibly mentor

or be a student teacher in her classroom. She says, The

MAC program was incredible, and Id like to give back i an

opportunity should arise.

STEvEN G.W. MOORE (PhD 92) - In July 2007, Steven was

named CEO/ED o The M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust

in Vancouver, Washington. The trust provides grants and

programs or higher education, arts & culture, social services,

and science education.

SAM MullER (AM 71) - Sam is a retired Michigan public

school teacher who earned a masters degree in education

rom the University o Michigan in early 1971. On June 9, 2007,

he was one o the nalists in a local poetry contest held inOrtonville, MI in Oakland County in Southeast Michigan. The

contest was part o a celebration called the CreekFest. It is an

event that calls attention to the importance o a local stream

called Kearsley Creek. Sams poem took third place in the

competition. He received a certicate o recognition and $50 or

that third place nish. The poem,Kearsley Creek 2007, traces

the waters fow rom Oakland County to its end in Lake Huron.

It concludes with this refection on lie:

class notesAs I become Lake Huron,

I learn a great truth rom my journey:

There are no endings really

only changes and new beginnings

And they all are truly wonderul!

MRS. JOYcE ANNA (pOpOSkA) pAcER (BS DES 63, CERTT

EDUC 63, AM 64) - Joyce describes hersel as: grandmother,

wie, caregiver with ve grandchildren, two daughters, and

two sons-in-law; secretary, White Eagle Lodge o the Polish

National Alliance or which she plans education events; artist

and naturalist o county parks; promoter o amily reunions and

amily memoirs; proclaimer o epistles in her Catholic Church.

SISTER MARY THIll (Sister Robert Francis Thill) (AM 74)

Sister Mary Thill received the 2006 Public Citizen o the Year

award rom the Ohio Chapter o the National Association o

Social Workers or her tireless work or over 30 years to raise

public awareness o the needs o older adults. She is currently

the patient liaison or the Mature Health Connections Program

at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo, OH.

DANNY TRIEFF (AM 03) - Danny now serves as a US Customs

& Border Protection (CBP) Ocer at the Seaport o Norolk, VA.

obituAries

ROSE E. FRAzIER (Marshall; Coburn) (ABED 73, CERTTEDUC 73, AM 74) was a teacher in the Detroit Public Schools

or 28 years. She served on the Detroit Federation o Teachers

Executive Board rom 1984-1994. She also served on the

Detroit Public Schools Policy Board/Proessional Growth

and Development.

EuNIcE HENDRIx (MS 47, CERTT EDUC 67) was a

naturalist who started Ann Arbor Public Schools outdoor

education program nearly 50 years ago. She was an early

advocate o conservation and environmental protection and

is remembered or outdoor education eaturing eld trips

and hands-on learning. In 1992, she received the Educator

o the Year award rom the Michigan United Conservation

Clubs. In 1993, a scholarship und was established in

her name at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens by the Ann

Arbor Public Schools Environmental Education Program.

(Inormation courtesy oAnn Arbor News)



20/28


Many a major university was home to a lab school

during the early twentieth century. Inspired by education

philosopher John Dewey, universities built elementary and

secondary schools right on their campuses, and used

them as sites to educate prospective teachers and local

children. Now, at the University o Michigan School o

Education, the idea o educational laboratory is being

revived and retooled or a new time.

In July, a bright yellow Ypsilanti school bus pulled up

to the School o Education, and children streamed out,

eager to participate in the Elementary Mathematics

Laboratory. The lead teacher, Dean Deborah Loewenberg

Ball, engaged the diverse group o 28 fth graders in

2 hours o stimulating, intensive problem work daily

under the attentive gaze o adults, who observed

while sitting on nearby risers or watching live video o the

whole event in a classroom nearby. Mathematicians and

mathematics educators came rom as ar away as India,

Caliornia, and Kentucky, to analyze the instructional

moves o a sel-described pedagogical daredevil and


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to examine the ways children made sense o complex

mathematical ideas.

Across campus, a second bus unloaded Ypsilanti middle

schoolers at the brand new Undergraduate Science

Building. For two weeks, these children explored the

rontiers o sciencewith a special ocus on nanoscience,

the science o tinyguided by doctoral students,medical students, research scientists, and School o

Education Associate Dean Joe Krajcik.

Our students engaged in meaningul and intensive

academic exercises that Im confdent will translate

into increased student achievement, says Ypsilanti

Superintendent Jim Hawkins. Unlike typical summer

camps, these new opportunities are pioneering designed

settingsnew, careully conceived and created contexts

or learning that can be utilized by multiple constituencies:

local children, prospective teachers, practicing teachers,

and educators across the nation and around the world.


22/28


snapshots

cshPe celebrAtes

its 50thAnniversAry All yeAr

Fity years o excellence and leadership, a long-time #1 designation

as the top higher education program in the nationthe Center

or the Study o Higher and Postsecondary Education had much

to celebrate in 2006-7. A series o careully planned events,

ranging rom a national symposium to alumni reunions, unolded

across the year. Topics or consideration included refection on

the expansion o higher education, the challenge o educating a

diverse population, and visions or the uture. A special symposium

involving University o Michigan leaderscurrent and ormer

eatured remarks by Nancy Cantor, Chancellor and President o

Syracuse University; James Duderstadt, President Emeritus and

Proessor o Science and Engineering, University o Michigan;

Charles Vest, President o Massachusetts Institute o Technology,

and B. Joseph White, President o University o Ill inois, as well as

comments by University o Michigans own president, Mary Sue

Coleman. It was terric to re-establish relationships with so many

members o the CSHPE amily, says Center Director Deborah

Carter. We hope to maintain those ties. Weve been celebratingour past, but were also excited about our uture. That uture

includes a new MA/MBA dual degree program with the Ross

School o Business, and a MA degree with a concentration in

medical and proessional education.

Folks rom the School o Educations Center or Highly Interactive

Curricula, Computing and Classrooms in Education (Hi-C3e) were

busy this summer, planning, acilitating, and hosting workshops

or both middle school teachers and students. In July, teachers

traveled rom as ar away as Texas and Arizona to Ann Arbor or a

week-long proessional development session ocusing on a new

science and technology curriculum: Investigating and Questioning

Our World Through Science and Technology. The curriculum,

which has been developed with unding rom the National Science

Foundation, contains units on physics, earth science, and biology,

and supports teachers as they engage students in scientic

practices such as explaining, arguing scientically, modeling, and

conducting scientic investigations. For a second year, HiC3e co-

sponsored a two-week nanoscience institute or Ypsilanti middle

school students, held in the new Undergraduate Science Building.

For more inormation about IQWST, go to: http://hice.org/iqwst/

nAnoscience institute/iQwst worKshoPs

held in summer 2007


23/28


eminent JournAlist gives Address for commencement 2007

The eminent New York journalist, Nicholas Lemann, author o The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy, and dean o the

Columbia Graduate School o Journalism, addressed nearly 400 graduates and their amilies at the April 2007 commencement ceremony.

Student speakers Caroline Lynn Keng, representing the undergraduates, and Dr. Penny Pasque, representing the graduate students, also

addressed the crowd rom the Hill Auditorium stage.

educAtion leAdershiP center lAunched

Drawing on the resources o University o Michigans Ross School o Business, as well as the School o Education, courses developed

or aspiring and practicing administrative leaders debuted in July and August as part o our new Educational Leadership Center. Topics

such as positive organizational scholarship, the study o organizational practices that lead to extraordinary results; school nance; and

the impact o administrative leadership on student achievement, were the oci o several orums and a summit. The Center is directed

by Dr. Kenneth Burnley.


24/28


snapshots

themAt worKshoPs held in summer 2007

Thought Experiments in Mathematics Teaching (ThEMaT), a NSF-unded research project led by Associate Proessor Patricio Herbst, incollaboration with Dan Chazan o the University o Maryland, hosted a summer workshop or teacher educators and a summer academy orresearchers at the School o Education. This project is pioneering the use o animated representations o teaching or teacher proessionaldevelopment in algebra and geometry. For more inormation, see http://grip.umich.edu

Images by Mindy Steffen

immigrAtion And higher educAtion conference

Challenges and Opportunities: Conversations about Immigration and Higher Education, a national conerence, was held on the Universityo Michigan campus in June. The School o Education, the Center or the Study o Higher and Postsecondary Education, the National Forumon Higher Education or the Public Good, and the National Center or Institutional Diversity joined with others, including the College Boardand the Institute or Higher Education Policy to sponsor the event, which drew participants rom Caliornia, Texas, Minnesota, Florida, ando course, Michigan.


25/28


faculty & stuDent neWspROFESSOR MIcHAEl BASTEDO was one o sixteen individualsrom across the world to participate in the Institute or HigherEducation Policys Global Policy Fellows Program (GPFP) August2007 in Washington, DC. The program aims to bridge the gaps in

higher education or historically disadvantaged populations andto develop understanding about cross-national issues drivingexpansion o higher education worldwide. For more inormation seehtt://www.ihe.org/gobaoiyfeows

pROFESSOR ANNE cuRzAN rom the Joint Program in Englishand Education received the Henry Russel Award or 2007, and an

Arthur F. Thurnau Proessorship.

pROFESSOR DONAlD FREEMAN, Director o TeacherEducation, has been asked to join the Committee on Standardsor Teaching English in Primary and Secondary Schools, o theChinese Ministry o Education, as an international advisor. Thestandards will infuence the practices o ve million elementary andsecondary school teachers across the country, through web-basedproessional training and assessments.

pROFESSOR ANNE GERE was named the Gertrude BuckCollegiate Proessor. She also received a Global Ethnic LiteraryStudies (GELS) ellowship or Fall 2007 and a Michigan Humanities

Award or Winter 2008.

pROFESSOR pATRIcIA kING has been named to serve on theCore Commitments advisory board or the Association o AmericanColleges and Universities (AACU). A new multi-campus projectnational initiative, Core Commitments: Educating Students orPersonal and Social Responsibility, seeks to embed personal andsocial responsibility objectives pervasively across the institution askey educational outcomes or students and to measure the impacto campus eorts to oster such learning.

ElEANOR lINN,RETIRED SENIOR ASSOcIATE DIREcTOROF pROGRAMS FOR EDucATIONAl OppORTuNITY, receivedthe Harvard Graduate School o Education Alumni Councils2007 Award or Outstanding Contribution to Education, or herdedication to developing and supporting educators and policymakers who promote gender equality and rights or girls. For moreinormation, see htt://www.gse.harard.ed/news_eents/featres/2007/06/6_amni.htm

lEcTuRER IN cSHpE MAlINDA MATNEY became NationalPresident o Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity,a raternity o approximately 5000 current student members (over70,000 alumni) on 201 campuses. It is a special honor to be the rstemale president in the 88 year history o this raternity.

EMERITuS pROFESSOR AND FORMER DEANcEcIl MISkElis the 2007 recipient o the University Council or Educational

Administration (UCEA) Roald F. Campbell Lietime AchievementAward. The award was instituted by UCEA in 1992 to recognizesenior proessors in the eld o educational administration whoseproessional lives have been characterized by extraordinarycommitment, excellence, leadership, productivity, generosity,and service. Proessor Miskel will receive the award at the UCEAConvention in Washington, DC in November 2007.

pROFESSOR cARlA OcONNOR was named an Arthur F.Thurnau Proessor in 2007.

pROFESSOR BRIAN ROWAN and DEAN DEBORAH

lOEWENBERG BAll were elected to membership in the NationalAcademy o Education.

pROFESSORNANcY SONGER was named a Fellow in theAmerican Association or the Advancement o Science (AAAS), thepreeminent proessional society in the sciences.

FOUR o our doctoral students won the Outstanding GraduateInstructor Award: pAul FIEGENBAuM, ANNEMARIE HINDMAN,lIz kEREN-kOlB, and TAMMY SHREINER. These awardsare designed to honor graduate student instructors who havedemonstrated exceptional ability and creativity as teachers,continuous growth as teachers, service as outstanding mentors andadvisors to their students and colleagues, and growth as scholarsin the course o their graduate programs.

BRIDGET AMMON was awarded a Critical Dierence Grant romthe University o Michigan Center or the Education o Women.

TASHARA BAIlEY, a doctoral student in higher education, wonthe Best Oral Presentation in the Social Sciences award or hertalk, Midwest Institutional Study: Engineering Persistence, givenat the annual Yale Bouchet Conerence on Diversity in GraduateEducation.

ElISA cOllINS and NATAlIA FORRAT were awarded ellowshipsrom the University o Michigan International Institute to supporttheir research abroad. Elisa will be doing research work in thePhilippines, and Natalia will be studying in Russia.

SONIA DElucA FERNNDEz was awarded a Minority Fellowship

in Education Research rom the American Educational ResearchAssociation (AERA). This selective award will provide support orSonias research on graduate students socialization to doctoralstudy and aculty careers.

ANNEMARIE HINDMAN and SARAH ScOTT, both in EducationalStudies, won Dissertation Fellowships rom the SpencerFoundation.

kATHRYN McINTOSH-cIEcHANOWSkI was awarded the BestDissertation o the Year by the National Association o BilingualEducation. Her dissertation title is Everyday Meets the Academic:How Bilingual Latino/a Third Graders Use Sociocultural Resourcesto Learn in Science and Social Studies.

JulIA pluMMER received the National Association or Researchin Science Teaching (NARST) 2007 dissertation award or her study,Students Development o Astronomy Concepts Across Time.

SARAH ScOTT was awarded the Helen M. Robinson Grant, givenannually by the International Reading Association to assist doctoralstudents in their dissertation research in the areas o reading andliteracy.


26/28


Development report

With a little over 14 months let in the Michigan Dierence

Campaign, we have begun to see the proverbial light at the

end o the tunnel. But, as you have read throughout this issue

o Innovator, our work in reshaping teacher education is ar

rom over. The commitment rom our alumni and riends to help

make a dierence the Michigan Dierence is nothing less

than astounding.

In the last year alone, countless loyal alumni and riends have

stepped up with generous gits. A ew examples include:

$500,000 rom University o Michigan Regent Emeritus David

Brandon (ABED 74, CERTT 74) and his wie Jan or the

development o a center housing collections o resources and

digital records o practice or use in proessional education and

research. The Center will be named in their honor.

A $1,000,000 bequest rom the estate o Ms. Nelda Taylor

(ABED 31, CERTT 31, AM EDUC 38) or a new endowed

scholarship or undergraduates rom the state o Michigan who

exhibit nancial need.

$600,000 in new gits, pledges, and bequests given in

commemoration o the 50th Anniversary o the Center or the

Study o Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE).

This eort, organized around unrestricted and graduate student

support, was spearheaded by alumni rom multiple cohorts o

the program and has proven to be a truly galvanizing initiative.

It has resulted in a staggering 17-old increase in annual giving

to CSHPE.

As we work collectively to improve educational practice at

all levels, we will need to raise additional resources that will

support our students and aculty while taking care o the acility

that has housed educational research at the University o

Michigan or over 75 years. Our commitment to education is

unwavering, and we continue to rely on our alumni and riends

to help us achieve our goals.

You may have heard about Phase I o the presidents Donor

chaenge. This program, which will be retired at the end o this

calendar year, was an astounding success or the University

and matched your donations towards undergraduate need-

based scholarships dollar or dollar. Phase II o the presidents

Donor chaenge, announced in September o this year,

provides a 50% match or new gits and pledges to graduate

ellowships. This includes gits designated or students whohave come back to school to pursue a Master o Arts with

teaching certication. This is a wonderul opportunity or

the School o Education and will help us achieve our goal o

attracting and retaining the most capable graduate students.

I you nd yoursel in Ann Arbor, be sure to stop by the

Development and Alumni Relations suite (1001 SEB). We would

be happy to take you on a tour o the building and share some

o its recent renovations. With lead unding provided by Verne

(AB 62, MBA 63) and Judy (ABED 62, CERTT 62) Istock, we

have been able to brighten the hallways, add some beautiul

artwork, and restore some o the vintage eatures o our

building. It truly has changed the way people eel about comingto learn and work within our building.

I you would like more inormation on giving opportunities or

alumni relations matters, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We are here to serve you.

On a personal note, I want to say how happy I am to serve as

the (still relatively new) Director o Development and Alumni

Relations or the School o Education. I can count not only

several o my childrens teachers and educational leaders

among our alumni, but also many o my own teachers and

mentors. What a pleasure it is to serve this historic institution.

THANk YOu FOR All OF YOuR SuppORT.

Sincerely,

Michael S. Dubin

Director o Development and Alumni Relations

School o Education Development Team: Lois Hunter, Secretary;

Michael Dubin, Di rector; Kathryn Taylor, Associate Director


27/28


the presidents

donor challengechAllenge

To increase the amount o scholarship support available to graduate and

proessional students.

incentive

University o Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman will match all gits or graduate and

proessional support ($1 or every $2 donated) including scholarships, ellowships,

internships, and student awards.

need

Scholarship support is critical in recruiting the most talented students to attend the University

o Michigan School o Education. Private support can signifcantly increase our ability to

recruit the best and brightest students.

urgency

The Presidents Donor Challenge is available to ALL University o Michigan graduate programs,

which means the matching dollars could go ast. Make your git now to ensure additional

matching support or a School o Education graduate student. The Presidents Donor

Challenge will end when $40 million in graduate support is committed through gits and

pledges (University-wide), thereore exhausting $20 million in matching dollars.

Amount

Gits will be matched $1 or every $2 donated

$20 million is available rom the Presidents Donor Challenge or all U-M graduate

programs until $40 million is received

time frAme

September 1, 2007 to December 31, 2008

Five-year pledges signed beore December 31, 2008 will be matched

Previous pledges paid beore December 31, 2008 will be matched

Challenge ends ater $40 million in graduate and proessional student support is committed

guidelines

Gits or pledges or graduate and proessional scholarships, ellowships, internships, or awards

All gits up to $1 million will be matched

Challenge match unds will be deposited in an endowed und or graduate and proessional

student support.

um school of educAtion gift oPPortunities

Gits o any amount, to any scholarship, ellowship, internship, or student award

will be matchedA minimum git o $50,000 will create a named endowment

Corporate matching unds will also be eligible or the Presidents Donor Challenge match

Your gift is tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

For additional inormation please call 734-763-4880, the Ofce o Development and Alumni

Relations, or email [email protected]


28/28

School o Education

610 E. University

Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1259

The RegenTs

of The univeRsiTy of michigan

Julia Donovan Darlow

Laurence B. Deitch

Olivia P. Maynard

Rebecca McGowan

Andrea Fischer Newman

Andrew C. Richner

S. Martin Taylor

Katherine E. White

Mary Sue Coleman, ex ofcio

leadeRship Team

of The school of educaTion

Deborah Loewenberg Ball, Dean

Joseph Krajcik, Associate Dean, Research

Edward Silver, Associate Dean, Academic Aairs

Henry Meares, Assistant Dean

communicaTions Team

of The school of educaTion

Je Mortimer, Eve Silberman, Writers

Elena Godina, Yvonne Pappas, Designers

Mike Gould, Photographer

Eugenie Potter, Laura Roop, Editors

Marti Dalley, Lori Helvey, Linda Rayle, Copy Editors

The University o Michigan, as an equal opportunity/afrmative action employer, complies with all applicable ederal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination and afrmative

action, including Title IX o the Education Amendments o 1972 and Section 504 o the Rehabilitation Act o 1973. The University o Michigan is committed to a policy o

nondiscrimination and equal opportunity or all persons regardless o race, sex, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender

identity, gender expression, disability, or Vietnam-era veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. Inquiries or complaints may be

addressed to the Senior Director or Institutional Equity and Title IX Section 504 Coordinator, Ofce o Institutional Equity, 2072 Administrative Services

Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1432, 734-763-0235, TTY 734-647-1388. For other University o Michigan inormation call 734-764-1817.

Documents

Innovator vol. 38, Fall 2007. Re-Imagining Teacher Education