2013 Community Scholar in Residence

Pre-service and brand new teachers sometimes feel like they are struggling to stay alive in a strange and, to say the least, challenging environment.

As the cohort leader of the Early Childhood Education (PreK through 3rd grade) licensure program, a joint program between the Department of Family and Consumer Studies and the Urban Institute for Teacher Education, I am responsible for helping these “newbies” navigate this strange and challenging environment.

The mission statement for the Urban Institute for Teacher Education (UITE) reads: The mission of the UITE is to prepare educators to serve urban students and educational communities in all their rich diversity. We conceive of educational diversity as the dynamic engagement of cultural and urban traditions, including individual differences in ability. In preparing teachers and leaders to work within and across differences, we collaborate with community-based initiatives, seek out community partners and continually work to discover fresh and innovative ways to approach both curriculum and pedagogy. Our goal is an educational process in which teachers, leaders, and teacher educators draw upon multidisciplinary research and direct urban inquiry to serve all students well.

The mission statement of UITE guided my work with the graduate students (12) in the Early Childhood Education cohort and my work as the Community Scholar in Residence this year. I also have a personal goal and mission for my students. That is to provide them with as many, varied, meaningful, collaborative and diverse classroom experiences as I can that will aid them in becoming outstanding classroom teachers; teachers who approach teaching issues from a social justice framework. Teachers engaged in their learning communities, successfully integrating research, teaching and partnership work into their classrooms.

Through our partnership and collaboration with UNP and the Community Learning Center and after-school programs at Mountain View Elementary, we achieved our goals—both collective and personal. Student teachers planned and implemented after-school programming that spanned 210 additional hours and included math and literacy activities, tutoring and homework help. They also helped students in the computer lab and conducted enrichment activities in cooking, art, drama and physical education while conducting research for individual action research projects.

We also planned and started a six week Mommy & Me program for preschool students and mothers of the Mountain View community. Each week parents and their children participated together in Literacy activities and hands-on, developmentally appropriate learning stations. Mothers were given suggestions and advice on working with their preschoolers at home and at the end of every session, each child was given a take-home bag with materials and activity instructions for continued learning. Our Thursday Mommy & Me days became the highlight of our week!

I also had the chance to become actively involved in working with SLCC, the University of Utah, UNP, Salt Lake City School District and other community partners to design and implement a pilot for Paraprofessional Pathways for future professional development. This is an ongoing project and I’m pleased to say that I will continue working on this project during the 2013-2014 school year, and hopefully beyond.

It was a wonderful, positive year. Thank you all so much for the opportunity to be involved with so many wonderful people and projects this year as the UNP Community Scholar in Residence. I have learned so much and have grown leaps and bounds as both a professional and a person.