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TEACHING & LEARNING
Using
Strengths to Strengthen Education
Whitmore (R) works with students
in the Puertas Abiertas program. |
A
project at Horace Mann Elementary School in Iowa City aims
to support English-language learners at the school and provide
teacher education students opportunities to interact with
a diverse group of children.
The project is called Puertas Abiertas, which means “open
doors” in Spanish. It’s funded through a five-year
federal grant the elementary school obtained and is now in
its second year with some 50 children participating.
The children, in grades K-6, stay after school for two hours
each day to work on literacy, math, and other goals.
“Puertas Abiertas extends the school day for students
so they have time to get more content,” said Stacey
Medd (BA ’88, MA ‘02), an English as
a Second Language teacher at Horace Mann who helped get the
project started.
College of Education students are paired with a child and
work with them for an hour each week on reading and writing,
choosing activities and books that match the individual child’s
interests.
“The project is intended to validate and extend the
children’s home knowledge,” said Associate Professor
Kathy Whitmore, who facilitates sending pre-service
students in her “Methods of Teaching Reading and Language
Arts” class to work with the children.
The project also includes activities and support for the whole
family. Medd said one of its most successful initiatives so
far was a session explaining the goals and expectations of
parent-teacher conferences to parents who may not have attended
one.
“The big idea is that we have a strength perspective,”
Medd said. “We’re not going in there and trying
to fill holes. We recognize that the students are all competent
learners, smart kids, great thinkers, and we’re just
trying to expand what they know by using their strengths and
the strengths of their families.”
Sarah Engle (BA ’05) is among the approximately
100 teacher education students who chose to be involved in
the project during its first three semesters of existence.
She said it’s been fun putting the things she’s
studied into practice. But really, Engle said, she’s
learning as much from the child she has been able to teach.
“I consider each individual child as someone who brings
their own background into the classroom,” Engle said.
Whitmore said her research documents the interaction between
her students and the children.
“The child teaches them and they teach the child,”
Whitmore said. “It’s a reciprocal exchange.”
Whitmore said the project is also a good opportunity for her
students to interact with a diverse population.
“Across the country, and especially in Iowa, classroom
teachers are primarily white, middle class, but the student
population is becoming increasingly diverse,” Whitmore
said. “All of our teachers need to be prepared to work
with diverse learners.”
–by Heather Spangler
Empowering
the Powerless
Serving
as an Iowa City Human Rights Commissioner, an outreach
director for the Iowa Non-profit Resource Center, and
as a professor of special education, Paul Retish
says human rights have been the center point of his
life.
“Special Education is human rights,” Retish
says. “It is giving power (at some level) to those
who are powerless. Whether they be mentally deficient
or behavior disordered, it’s a short step to go
from working with these folks to working with other
such as the poor and disadvantaged.”
Retish’s most visible volunteer work can be seen
locally through the activities of the Human Rights Commission’s
Education Committee. The committee, which also includes
School Psychology Associate Professor Kathryn
Gerken, sponsors movies, speakers, panels,
forums, and workshops to eliminate prejudice, intolerance,
and discrimination.
One of the most successful is the Building Blocks program,
where local people, newly relocated, and low-income
residents with poor work histories are offered tips
to gain employment or improve their work situation.
“It’s more of a ‘Learn How to Use
Your Skills’ clinic than a job fair,” Retish
said.
About a dozen of Gerken’s and Retish’s students
help staff Building Blocks stations that focus on topics
ranging from preparing job applications and résumés
to providing information on cultural awareness and how
to dress for an interview.
The group has offered six programs over the past two
years, with over 150 people attending.
“Human rights should be every one’s business
and concern,” Retish says. “If we assist
each other, we will all be better off.”
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A
Living Legacy Retires— Contributions Reach Throughout
the World
Yager leaves behind a legacy, looks
forward to identifying outstanding teachers. |
Jeff
Weld (BS ’83/MS ‘94/PhD ’98) sees
Professor Robert Yager’s reach as a
science educator as nearly boundless.
Yager, who retired in January, helped form the College’s
Iowa Science Education Center in 1957 and has dedicated decades
of his life to preparing first-rate science teachers.
“By now there are thousands of teachers and hundreds
of collegiate faculty of direct lineage from Bob, each of
whom is probably a demanding and encouraging soul, just as
each of us was schooled,” Weld said. “The math
can get mind-boggling when you consider the numbers of students
each of us has impacted, passing on with each encounter little
bits of Bob Yager’s legacy.”
Yager said he has accumulated many proud moments throughout
his career, including planning and executing a new science
program for seventh through twelfth graders at University
High School, which closed in 1972, and staying in touch with
130 Ph.D. graduates.
He is the recipient of many awards and honors, including being
recognized by the National Association of Research in Science
Teaching with their most prestigious award—the Distinguished
Contribution to Science Education through Research Award.
Yager is one of only 18 educators who have been so honored
in the association’s 80-year existence.
Yager plans to continue working with the National Science
Teachers Association during retirement. He’ll be involved
in the Search for Excellence in Science Education, a program
he initiated to identify outstanding teachers and programs
across the country.
Yager feels the UI Science Education Program’s future
is bright. “The greatest thing about the program is
how it’s moving in the right direction by hiring a more
diverse staff in terms of ideas, gender and race, and that
it is focusing on more targeted and continued lines of research,”
he said.
Although Yager has left his teaching post, his legacy will
continue to live on in science classrooms everywhere.
“The next time your child comes home from science class
with homework, take a look at it,” Weld said. “If,
unlike when you were in school, she’s assigned to skid
her bicycle down the driveway and calculate her momentum and
relate that to highway traffic safety laws rather than to
memorize Newton’s Laws, you’re witnessing Bob’s
legacy.”
–by Heather Spangler
Management
Professor Manages Retirement
Richard Shepardson retires. |
After
34 years, Classroom Management Professor Richard Shepardson
is retiring.
Shepardson came to The University of Iowa in 1972 as the director
of Elementary Field Experiences, but has served in many roles
throughout his career. He taught Introduction to Elementary
Education, served as chair of the Elementary and Early Childhood
programs, was associate dean of Teacher Education and Student
Services, and served as the College’s interim dean from
1998-99.
He created the Overseas Student Teaching Program, the Elementary
Undergraduate Advising Office, and helped bring the popular
Food Cart to the Lindquist Center.
Shepardson started an Elementary Classroom Management course
in the early 1980s and through that course has taught almost
every elementary education student in the last 20 years.
“It’s enjoyable to walk through an elementary
building in Iowa and have students who were in my class reintroduce
themselves and tell me they are still using some of the ideas
they picked up in that course,” Shepardson said.
Jeff Motz, (BA ‘04) a teacher at Hoover
Elementary in Iowa City, took Shepardson’s course in
2004.
“I find myself going back to the management techniques
that he taught me, thinking to myself, ‘Wow, that really
works!’ Motz said. “He is an excellent teacher.”
Before coming to Iowa, Shepardson spent 10 years teaching
fifth and sixth graders in California. He earned his master’s
degree from San Jose State in 1968 and earned his doctorate
in 1972 from the University of Texas at Austin.
Returning to graduate school after 10 years of teaching experience
helped him connect with nontraditional students at the UI.
Don Healy (PhD ’92) said he benefited
from Shepardson’s guidance and support.
“Dick had a profound influence on me,” Healy said.
“I can honestly say, as can many nontraditional students
that I would never have achieved a Ph.D. without his help.”
Shepardson said he looks forward to spending time in his garden
during his retirement as well as ballroom dancing with his
wife, Marty, chasing his favorite bands, and traveling to
visit his two sons and three grandchildren.
–by Heather Spangler
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