College of Education Outreach

Education neither starts nor stops at the classroom door.

Making connections is critical in the education process. And nothing is more important than the connections The University of Iowa College of Education makes with students, educators, and the community. Reaching out to others is what we do. It's who we are.

Because engagement is elemental in essentially every thing we do, and because our engagement adjusts as public and educational needs change, the College's community connections are a continuing dynamic. Listed below are a few ongoing outreach examples illustrating the College's strong commitment to and long-standing tradition of reaching out and enriching education in Iowa .

For more specific information on the College's outreach efforts, please contact Jill Fishbaugh.

• The Iowa ePortfolio™ Model is one of the college's largest outreach initiatives, reaching thousands of teachers and administrators across the state. Educators learn to convert paper artifacts to electronic media that document their mastery of Iowa's eight Teacher Quality Standards. The Cedar Rapids School District, Des Moines Public Schools, Clear Creek-Amana, Grant Wood AEA, as well as many others have adopted the ePortfolio framework as their evaluation system. Schools from all over Iowa, including Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn, Sioux City, Exira, Ankeny, Green, Grinnell-Newburg, Delwood, Dubuque , Orient Macksburg, Urbandale, Burlington, and Turkey Valley have sent teachers to our workshops. After completing their training, they return to their schools and conduct workshops for other new teachers and experienced-career teachers. College staff provide phone and email consultation with dozens of external constituents as they implement the innovative framework. For more information, visit www.education.uiowa.edu/eportfolio/whitepaper.pdf .

• A series of educational television shows called Education at Iowa are created, produced, and broadcast weekly on UITV (cable channel 17) reaching thousands of eastern Iowans.

• Each year, helping professionals from over 50 Iowa counties attend the Annual Summer School for Helping Professionals (ASSHP)-the state's largest workshop of its kind. For over two decades, ASSHP has offered programs and leadership that have enhanced the personal and professional development of helping professionals, which has resulted in an improved quality of services offered within our communities across our state.

• For nearly a decade, the College has hosted the annual International Day for 6-12 graders, serving over 250 eastern Iowa students each year. This event centers on a current international issue or trend, especially those that deal with human rights. For more information, contact Social Studies Education Associate Professor Greg Hamot.

• Iowa Testing Programs

• Iowa Testing Programs (ITP) supply testing materials and scoring services for 370,000 Iowa students in grades K-12 from all public districts and most private schools. The costs to Iowa schools are subsidized annually by about $2 million through national sales of the Iowa Tests.

 

• Each year, ITP offers 700 Iowa school administrators and teachers professional development through 10 different on-site programs offered by Iowa Testing Programs at locations throughout the state.

 

• On a daily basis, ITP provides direct consultation and service to Iowa educators by phone (50 calls/day) and by email (25 messages/day).

 

• All Iowa schools obtain testing materials, scoring services, and consultation from Iowa Testing Programs on the use of these assessments: Iowa Writing Assessment, Iowa Listening Assessment, Iowa Algebra Aptitude Test, Constructed-Response Supplement, and Iowa Early Learning Inventory.

• The Connie Belin and Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development

Through each and every program and project, the Belin-Blank Center reaches out to the community, offering a vast array of engagement opportunities for gifted students, their parents and educators.

    For example, 30,000 Iowa school children participate in Invent Iowa, a program and curriculum that encourage K-12 students to explore the invention process.

    As another example, schools in all of Iowa's 15 AEAs-95 percent of which are considered rural or small-participate in the AP Online Academy, a program that delivers Advanced Placement (AP) courses to high school students across the state utilizing online technology and the ICN. Each year, approximately 1,000 Iowa students from 262 schools register to take one or more of the 15 AP courses offered. These students reside in 94 of Iowa's 99 counties. Iowa ranked second in the nation this year in the terms of increasing the number of AP exams taken by junior and senior high school students. Iowa not only increased access to AP courses but the level of performance by Iowa 's students is among the best in the nation.

    One of the Belin-Blank Center's major missions is to help teachers learn to recognize, encourage, and teach gifted and talented students. By enabling teachers to work more effectively with the gifted students in their classrooms, all the children in Iowa's classrooms can benefit. Through the Center's Summer Workshops for Educators, the Center works with hundreds of teachers in Iowa, many of who are now leading advocates for gifted education in their communities.

    For detailed information about all the Belin-Blank Center 's programs and projects, visit www.education.uiowa.edu/belinblank/.

• For nearly a decade, the New Horizons Band has been a valuable outreach connection between the College of Education and the community. Created by Music Education Professor Don Coffman, the band brings senior citizens, elementary students, and teacher education students together. Hundreds of people have participated in the program since its inception. The Band has performed over 400 concerts, reaching thousands of people in eastern and central Iowa .

• One day each week, Art Education Assistant Professor Rachel Williams volunteers at the women's prison in Mitchellville , Iowa , helping the women draw, paint, tell stories, write about their life, and read the stories of other women. She also volunteers by teaching art at Iowa City's Oaknoll Retirement Residence every Friday and teaches art at the ECHO Alternative High School in Tiffin, where she involves her Art Education students with a weekly art program at the school.

• CiviConnections: Constructing the Past, Creating the Future is a national, federally funded program linking history, civics, and service. Associate Professor Rahima Wade directs 33 teams of three teachers from schools or districts to not just talk about history, but to lead their students in developing solutions for social problems in their communities when they put those ideas to work. For more information about the CiviConnections project, visit the NCSS website.

• Early Childhood Literature/Elementary Education Associate Professor Kathy Whitmore developed a highly successful literacy program called Escula Familia for Iowa City elementary school Horace Mann's growing number of Spanish-speaking students.

• College of Education and University students interested in tutoring adults volunteer to staff the Adult Literacy Project in West Liberty created and directed by Literacy Education Associate Professor Carolyn Colvin. This program helps increase literacy among immigrant families in West Liberty, Iowa .

• Each semester nearly 50 tutors (mostly teacher education students) work individually with children experiencing a prolonged difficulty learning to read through the America Reads program led by Literacy/Elementary Education Associate Professor Linda Fielding.

• Allison Aubert, an undergraduate Secondary Education Social Studies student, started an after-school reading and tutoring program at West Liberty Elementary using College of Education students as tutors.

• School Counseling Assistant Professor Tarrell Portman makes over a dozen presentations throughout Iowa, traveling over 800 miles and meeting with nearly 300 school counselors and administrators.

• The College helped launch an outreach program almost two decades ago that brings together high school students from Native American tribes each summer to get a glimpse of college life. The goal of the Iowa First Nations Summer Program is to inspire the students to imagine themselves as future researchers, scientists, doctors, and teachers. It is an example of how the College of Education works hand-in-hand with other UI colleges and the community. For more information, contact the College's coordinator of technology, John Achrazoglou.

• Through a collaborative effort between the Grant Wood AEA, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City area school districts and AEAs, Goodwill Industries, and the business community, the Iowa High School-High Tech program connects high schoolers with disabilities to high tech careers. For more information, contact the College's coordinator of technology, John Achrazoglou.

• For over a decade, Special Education Professor Jo Hendrickson has directed the annual Inclusion Conference that connects school professionals, educators, future teachers, parents, and the community as all work together to advance opportunities for children with disabilities.

• Counseling Psychology Professor John Westefeld provides ongoing consultation for thousands of Iowans affected by suicide. He also conducts workshops for deans of students from many of Iowa's colleges entitled, "Suicide: Prevention, Intervention, and Postvention."

• School Psychology Associate Professor Kit Gerken leads efforts at the Broadway Neighborhood Center for School Psychology graduate students to work with five year olds from Iowa City's lowest income families. The graduate students provide skill assessment, functional analysis, and tutoring every Wednesday evening.

• School Psychology Associate Professor Kit Gerken and Lecturer Christine Novak developed a program where their graduate students work with more than two-dozen students, ranging in age from 14-20, enrolled at the ECHO Alternative High School in Tiffin, Iowa. Their outreach work varies, but always includes group work with a different focus, such as human rights, respecting differences, and volunteering.

• Career Development for School-aged Children from Rural and Low Socio-economic Backgrounds is a career intervention program developed by Counseling Psychology Assistant Professor Saba Rasheed Ali for a number of Iowa schools, including as West Liberty .

• Social Adjustment and Academic Achievement in Iowa Children from Minority and Low Economic Backgrounds is a short-term counseling intervention for homeless families in Iowa City developed by Counseling Psychology Assistant Professor Will Liu.

• Through the Medical Adherence for Children from Low-income and Minority Backgrounds project, Associate Professor Dan Clay examines pathways to find reasons why low income and minority children die at a higher rate for common childhood illnesses (like diabetes and asthma) than children who are not from these groups.

• Measurement and Statistics Professor Stephen Dunbar leads the development of statewide alternate assessments of reading and math skills for English language learners in grades 3-12.

• Foreign Language Education Associate Professor Micheline Chalhoub-Deville leads the statewide assessment of English language proficiency.

• Social Foundations Associate Professor Scott McNabb serves the state as an ex-officio member on the state board of the Iowa Association for Alternative Education, an organization that provides professional support for alternative school teachers. Since accepting the position in 1994, he's become intimately aware of teachers' challenges and innovations by studying specific alternative education projects and educators.

• School Counseling Professor David Jepsen serves as vice-chair of the Governing Board of the FINE (First in the Nation in Education) Foundation. Tasks involve setting and implementing policy including funding research (supporting grants), applying knowledge (apply research in classrooms), sharing knowledge (conferences, newsletter, research papers), and identifying excellence (honoring schools, programs, and research). The policies effect as many as 25 school districts in Iowa and approximately half dozen researchers each year, as well as the many Iowa educators who attend annual conference (about 100) and who read the materials from FINE.

• Elementary Education Clinical Assistant Professor Pam Ries teaches the Every Child Reads classes for 3- to 5-year-old care providers for the Southern Prairie AEA and the Jefferson/Keokuk empowerment board. In conjunction with the Child Care Resource and Referral and Iowa Public Television, she provides early childhood literacy trainings in Fairfield and Burlington, also for childcare providers who work with 3-5 years olds. In addition, she consults with the Harmony, Cardinal, and Keota school districts to help them improve their students' reading achievement.

• In an effort to enhance the learning experiences of all elementary education pre-service teachers and graduate students in literacy programs, Literacy Education Assistant Professor Gail Boldt and Associate Professor Kathy Whitmore created the Exemplary Literacy Teaching Archive Project. With the idea of bringing the classroom into the classroom, the project filmed classroom literacy lessons in several Iowa school communities, then archived the instruction for future learning and training on DVD. The College uses the DVD in undergraduate and graduate teacher education courses, where approximately 400 students see it each year. It is also being used at conferences where it reaches over 100 viewers each year.

• Rehabilitation Counseling Professor Vilia Tarvydas's The Long Term Training: Rehabilitation Counselor's Training Project works to increase the supply of qualified personnel available in Iowa 's vocational rehabilitation agencies. Through outreach, recruitment, value-added education, and enhanced learning strategies, the project will maintain and upgrade the skills and knowledge of employed rehabilitation personnel in Iowa , implementing evidence-based practice through applied research.

• Science Education Professor Robert Yager received a $90,000 grant from the Iowa 's Teacher Quality State Grant Program for his project, the Iowa Chautauqua Assisting with Reforms Project. The project fosters collaboration among 36 teachers primarily from Charles City and Cedar Falls . The teachers take part in a two-week summer workshop, three-day short courses during the school year, and ongoing collaboration through web-based interactions learning how to adapt science class teaching methods promoted by the National Science Foundation in grades K-9.

• Science Education Lecturer John Dunkhase received a $90,000 grant from the Iowa 's Teacher Quality State Grant Program for his project, the Science and Mathematics Inquiry Learning Enhancement (SMILE). The project is a collaboration involving the UI Science Education Center, the science and mathematics faculty, the Grant Wood AEA, and five eastern Iowa school districts to increase science and math achievement of all grade 5-8 students who qualify for free and reduced-priced meals.

• Science Education Professor Edward Pizzini works with 79 teachers from 38 different schools across Iowa in the "Teachers as Action Researchers" project. The project's focus is implementing action research into the classroom and as a vehicle for professional development to improve classroom practice and raise student achievement scores. The participating teachers have an impact on 4,656 K-10 Iowa students. Pizzini also leads the SNAG: Science-Narrowing the Achievement Gap project, where students who come from high poverty, low socio-economic backgrounds and who are underachievers are tracked to determine whether the achievement gap between them and their peers narrows. Teachers learn professional development to assist them in teaching these groups of students.