Practicum student Danielle Healy listens in as Midvale first graders Darcia Tally, Jenny German and Terrence Carey work in their draft books.

Practicum students visit the classrooms in groups of three, each week observing in a different room. The teachers and children participating in the methods program include: first graders and their teachers Rita Kehl, Angela Schraepfer, Wendy Mott, and Maureen Ritter; and Kindergartners and their teachers Staci Zembrycki and Catherine Gronemus. Practicum students observe second grade children in art classes with Meri Lau and computers in Judy Ballweg's reach class, to see how literacy is integrated, reinforced and enjoyed across all grade levels and aspects of the K-2 program at Midvale.

Holding the methods course within an elementary school setting offers the practicum students the unique opportunity to observe different examples of exemplary teaching and classroom organization. Each practicum student will observe at least nine classrooms, and see nine different teachers in action during the course of the semester.

Highlights from an observation session included a discussion when the practium students came back and shared their classroom observations with each other. For example, several groups of practium students had seen teachers working on whole class activities. These practium students discussed the different activities and strategies they had observed, how the teachers had organized the groups, as well as the topics the teachers had presented. Other groups had observed teachers working with an individual child or with a small group of children. Many of the practicum students were interested in how teachers managed to work with a single child, while the remaining children worked productively on their own. The groups who observed the art and computer classes shared the activities they had seen in those classrooms that supported young children's language development.

During this sharing time, the practicum students link their observations of teaching strategies with readings and activities discussed in their university course work. They questioned where the observed styles and activities fell in current debates about early literacy and reading instruction. The observations also provided an opportunity for the practicum students to reflect on how their views of literacy instruction might look in practice.

Lola Ferguson, the course instructor, is excited to take on this new program. She feels it benefits the practicum students by giving them time to hear from teachers in the field which allows them to identify with their future profession.

Collaborative action research projects will be conducted by all project participants. Through these action research studies participants will be able to explore how the use of the technologies affects their own teaching and learning.

"Educating Teachers for the 21st Century Through the Collaborative Use of Classroom Technologies" is the title of a new grant at two PDS sites, funded by the UW System for 1999-2000. The grant was collaboratively prepared by staff at Midvale and Lincoln schools, the CIMC and C & I. The project will support the exploration and implementation of video and web technologies in teacher education and professional development among methods instructors, pre-service teachers and K-5 students.

Jo Ann Carr from the CIMC is coordinating the project. This involves planning and arranging training sessions for education students, methods instructors and teachers, as well as coordinating the distribution of equipment. Other participants in the project include Maureen Miller, Jeff Maas, Julie Melton, and Claire Seguin from Lincoln Elementary and Mary Kay Johnson and Rita Kehl from Midvale. Participants from the UW include Chris Dowling, Lola Ferguson, Cristina Gomez, Kathy Blomker, Simone Schweber and Ken Zeichner. The project will be evaluated by Joan Peebles from the Madison Metropolitan School District and B. Robert Tabachnick, UW Professor Emeritus.

The first training session for the project participants was run by Chris Dowling of the CIMC and covered desktop conferencing. Desktop conferencing will be used as a rapid communication system among project participants. In this way, questions raised by education students during methods courses can be immediately discussed by the methods instructor, other education students, classroom teachers and even K-5 students. Each group can share their ideas, experiences and knowledge about the question or issue.

CIMC staff work with pre-service teachers, Lincoln and Midvale cooperating teachers, University faculty and district personnel on the use of new IT systems.

K-5 students in these classrooms will also be trained to use the video equipment in order to enhance their learning with technology. They will be actively involved in creating, editing and sending videos from the schools to the university. In some classes students will also use desktop conferencing to communicate between the Lincoln and Midvale campuses, linking the campuses through the use of technology.

K-5 students, cooperating teachers and pre-service teachers will all be supported by CIMC staff in the construction of Web sites. K-5 students will learn to construct their own Web pages to share their school experiences and learning. Pre-service teachers will be supported in constructing Web-based teaching portfolios during their student teaching semester. Student teachers at the Madison PDS sites have been responsible for teaching portfolios in the past; now they are able to work with a new teaching portfolio model.

Collaborative action research projects will be conducted by all project participants. Through these action research studies participants will be able to explore how the use of the technologies affects their own teaching and learning. Creating productive learning processes, rather than creating products, is the primary goal of the project, explained Jo Ann Carr.

A Zimbabwean saying tells us that it takes a whole village to raise a child. In the same way, it takes a whole school to prepare a teacher. This has been the emphasis of the Madison Professional Development Schools. UW elementary education students are accepted at one of the PDS pairs, Thoreau-Cherokee or Midvale-Lincoln, when they begin their field experiences and continue as a members of that community as they grow into professional educators.

During its years as a Professional Development School pairing, the Thoreau-Cherokee site has called upon a long list of school personnel to meet with pre-service teachers during the seminar time. Several have shared their expertise in curricular areas such as: Karen Roth and Cindy Gleason in the area of literacy, Chris Felton in ESL, and Cindy Koehn with hands-on computer learning. These teachers have shared specific instructional strategies with the pre-service teachers and act as resource people.

Jessica Engebretson, a student teacher at Thoreau,
shares her piece of the community puzzle with the
Thoreau-Cherokee seminar.

The pre-service teachers quickly learn that school and teaching are more than instruction. To meet these needs the pre-service teachers have requested to learn from many different members of the school community. Over the past several semesters the field seminar has been visited by special education instructors Carrie Macklin-Ritz and Tina Fedora, LMC specialists Laura Holt and Sandy Christianson, and Vera Napati, a special education instructor who focuses on cooperative discipline, classroom management, and the emotional aspects of teaching and learning interactions.

Pre-service teachers also benefit from the expertise of the school community in dealing with the social context of children's lives and the effects of this on teaching. Bonnie Augusta spoke with the pre-service teachers about issues of homophobia and inclusive education. Thad Scott discussed his teacher research and personal experiences as an African American male in the schools and Kelly McCann, from the Allied Drive Community Center, discussed the role of preschool for children in the school community.

The pre-service teachers also learn some of the practical realities of teaching. Ann Colville, the Cherokee social worker, discussed legal rights and responsibilities of teachers, and Kristina Brieby talked about her experience putting it all together and making it work as a first year teacher.

What pre-service teachers learn as members of a PDS school community is that teaching is about more than what happens in their classroom. The whole school community contributes to educating children and at the Madison PDSs the whole school contributes to educating future teachers.

A total of 17 UW elementary education students are in their field placements at the Thoreau-Cherokee site this semester. Fifteen of these students are working towards their 1-9 certification and two on their 1-6 certification. Seven of these students are completing their full time student teaching, five at Cherokee and two at Thoreau. The ten remaining students are in either their math/science/ social studies practicum or their reading/ language arts practicum. This year at Thoreau four teachers are working with pre-service teachers for the first time or returning to mentoring after an absence. These teachers include Clare Gilmore, Amy Marty, Bridget Nolan and Carol Ross.

This semester at the Lincoln-Midvale site there are also 17 UW elementary education students in their field placements. Twelve are at Midvale and five at Lincoln. Ten students are working towards their preK-3 certification and seven on their 1-6 certification. Nine students are at the schools for their practicum experiences and eight are completing their student teaching, four at Lincoln and four at Midvale. These pre-service teachers, along with Cookie Miller, Mary Kay Johnson and Ken Zeichner, hold seminar on Friday afternoons, rotating between the two school sites.

SHAPE, Students Helping in the Advancement of Public Education, tutors are once again involved at three PDS sites, Midvale, Lincoln and Cherokee. This is the fourth semester this program has been running. This semester the total number of UW students participating as SHAPE tutors is 49. Twenty-three of these tutors are placed at Cherokee Middle School, fourteen at Lincoln Elementary and twelve at Midvale Elementary School. More than half of the student tutors are working four hours per week at their site; the remaining student tutors are at their sites for two hours per week.

The SHAPE tutors come from many undergraduate majors, and several have second language skills that they bring to their tutoring. This semester 13 of the student tutors are returning to the SHAPE program for a second, third or fourth semester. The tutors' college experiences are varied also; two thirds of the tutors are in their freshman or sophomore year and the remaining third are juniors or seniors. Despite their varied backgrounds all the student tutors share a commitment to working with children and public education.

This semester Cherokee teacher Marge Passman visited the 1-9 social studies methods class on campus. Marge has worked with many education students as a cooperating teacher at Cherokee and this semester was able to share her expertise with a larger number of pre-service teachers. In the 1-9 social studies methods class Marge discussed the new state social studies standards; working with the standards as a teacher; and preparing middle school students to meet the standards.

Course Planning
Courses to be held during the 1999-2000 academic year are being discussed. If you have suggestions for a course, please contact your IRT or Jessica Doyle. Below are possible course topics that have been brought to the IRTs and Jessica's attention so far:

• supervision and mentoring student teachers

• reading recovery strategies

• brain-based teaching

For more information about the Madison PDS:

Lincoln.........................Cookie Miller

Midvale................ Mary Kay Johnson

Thoreau........................ Nancy Booth

Cherokee........................... Jessica Doyle

UW Supervisor..,,,,,,,,,,,,. Michele Genor

PLEASE NOTE
Links to individuals in this newsletter may be out of date. For current contact information, please
click here.

Helen Meyer
556b Teacher Education Building,
225 N. Mills St.
Madison, WI 53706-1795

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