Washington State University

Her junior high school students in Japan love movies and songs from the United States.  Teacher Kiyomi Yamashita wishes they would show similar enthusiasm for American-style classroom participation.

“Students here don’t hesitate to ask questions or share their thoughts,” says Kiyomi, who is finishing up a two-month visit to Washington State University.  “We Japanese think too much about what others think of us. We wear the same uniforms, eat the same lunch.  I’ve decided to encourage my students to give their opinions, even if their opinions are different. It will be my biggest challenge.”

She is in Pullman thanks to a longstanding partnership between the WSU College of Education and the Nishinomiya school system.  She’s devoted much of her time to improving her English, with the help of WSU’s Intensive American Language Center.

Kiyomi began studying English at age 13.  At 32, she is learning all the doors that mastery of the language can open.  To take that message back to her own students, she decided to make a video of two Japanese exchange students describing their experiences at WSU.  Both Takato Hara and Miki Kano told her that they hadn’t been keen on learning English when they were in junior high, but now they’re eager.  One communication tip they shared:  Simply saying “My name is … ” is a good way to start a conversation.

Kiyomi’s impressions of U.S. classrooms have been shaped by a visit to Pullman’s Lincoln Middle School, plus sitting in on a WSU course in classroom management taught by Assistant Professor Hal Jackson. “She’s been a pleasure to have in class,” says Hal. “She’s surprised by how frequently college students participate in discussion.”

Weekends have taken Kiyomi to the Nishinomiya sister city of Spokane, which she visited on her first trip to the U.S. two years ago; to Seattle, to visit a teacher friend; and to Los Angeles, where she played tourist in Beverly Hills, Hollywood and Santa Monica.

Being at WSU has also whetted her appetite for international travel. She’s met students from other countries and realized she could converse with them in English. The experience, she says, has “opened my mind.”

Kiyomi will return to Japan with memories of many kind, friendly people who laugh a lot. That could be because her ready smile prompts smiles in return, whatever language is being spoken around her.

Anna knows which local plants make good medicines. Raven Heart is a 12-year-old boy who idolizes Sky, who is educating his people on the dangers of a proposed gold mine behind their Alaskan village. Raven Heart’s mother died of cancer after being exposed to chemicals used in the Exxon Valdez oil spill cleanup.

This cast of characters populates a prototype video game created by Clinical Associate Professor Leslie Hall. She will discuss the game during Friday’s Academic Showcase from 1 to 4 p.m. on the first floor of the Education Addition on the Pullman campus. The showcase of researchers’ work is new on the annual homecoming weekend schedule, and much in keeping with our annual “Scholarship and Excellence” theme.

Leslie worked on the video game prototype with James Sanderville, a former WSU graduate student and enrolled Klamath tribal member.  Their goal was to inspire young residents of Nanwalik, Alaska, to take an interest in their traditional language, Sugcestun, as well as the culture and knowledge of their people, the Supiaq Alutiiq — and learn research skills along the way.

The WSU duo’s choice of this particular village was inspired by a National Science Foundation program officer who just happened to be assigned to the Arctic regions. Leslie will talk about what it took to put the game together, and its creators’ hopes for the future of the project.  There is unquestionably a need for such games.  According to the National Geographic, a language dies every 14 days.

Phillip Morgan, program coordinator for our K-12 Health and Fitness Teacher Education program, will get a big salute at the Cougs’ Saturday football game against USC.

The Martin Stadium video screen will light up with his picture during the announcement that he is the Washington State University employee of the week.   The honor is sponsored by WSECU and is inspired by nominations made to WSU Athletics.  In this case, athletics intern Josh Grubich made an especially enthusiastic nomination.  He regaled Courtney Ioane, marketing assistant for the Washington State ISP Sports Network, with tales of the professor’s skill and enthusiasm.

Or as Phillip jokes, “my students told some lies about me.”  If that’s the case, a lot of them are lining up to fib.   In the past week alone, three glowing letters have come in to his email box from former students.   They were passed along by Phillip’s proud wife, Sharon.   The enthusiasm of  Mason Skeffington ’06, who’s loving his job as a West Seattle elementary school teacher, was typical:

“Dr. Morgan, it is teachers like you who really got me excited to do what I do.  I could have done many things with my life (and still could) but I chose to teach!  Having great professors at WSU prepared me for what may lie ahead.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your guidance and I hope that all is going well with you out at Wazzu.  Good luck with your new batch of scholars. I’m sure they are just as excited to have you as I was.”

Saturday will be a good day for Phillip.  But then, a lot of them are.

“There isn’t one time I’ve had in the classroom that I’ve had a bad day,” says Phillip, whose WSU teaching career began after years as a high school teacher and coach. “When I got this job, I felt I’d arrived. I’m where I want to be.  I don’t want to move up, I don’t want to move laterally. I love to teach.”

As the role of testing in education is hotly debated, there’s no argument about one thing: Tests should be valid and meaningful.

As a graduate assistant at the WSU College of Education’s Learning & Performance Research Center (LPRC), Antonio Valdivia is gaining expertise in examining exams. The quality and reputation of the LPRC’s work is reflected in the recent  internships that sent Antonio and two of his fellow doctoral students, Chad Gotch and Mo Zhang, far from Pullman.

With the support of a Fulbright grant, Antonio interned in his home town of Monterrey, Mexico.  His main goal was to build a research network between the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon and the LPRC, which wants to begin analyzing educational and psychological tests that are administered in other cultures and languages.  Antonio raves about the value of the project to his career:  “It involves research networking and project development in  international, cross-cultural and large-scale settings — all of these in real-life situations.”

Mo interned at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey.  She was part of a team that compares electronic rating systems that are used to score students’ essays.  The challenge is to find a scoring system that can efficiently and accurately assess writing ability. “The learning experience was extraordinary,” Mo says. “It not only enhanced my knowledge and aptitude in conducting scientific research, but broadened my horizon in the field of psychometrics as well.”

Chad learned a lot about the politics that swirl around educational testing during his internship at the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment in Dover, New Hampshire.  While there, he worked on a handbook to assist Pennsylvania school districts in validating their student assessment systems. “The internship helped me to put together some disjointed pieces of knowledge I had floating around in my head, and to understand the forces driving trends in testing,” he said. “The people at the center were all brilliant, and I was able to connect with a lot of professionals at a national student assessment conference.”

The projects in which Mo and Chad participated have been submitted for presentation at national conferences next spring — hers at the National Council on Measurement in Education, his at the American Education Research Association.

More good news…

For those who didn’t see it linked from our Facebook page,  recent doctoral graduate and Clinical Assistant Professor Paul Mencke wrote a guest opinion for the Spokesman-Review newspaper: Teacher’s use of lyrics sound.

And Ph.D. alumna Jennifer Cowgill, a Pullman elementary school teacher, has won the Association of Literacy Educators & Researchers’ 2010 Dissertation Award.

The College of Education’s mission is all about the ripple effect — sending graduates into the world to change lives for the better. Sometimes those ripples becomes waves that shape the landscape.

John Armenia is being remembered for the impact he left on the Washington state education system.   John, who died on August 28 and will be honored at a Bellevue memorial service on Thursday, was well into his career as a teacher and administrator when he earned an education doctoral degree from WSU in 1978. Even after his retirement as director of the City University of Seattle’s Educational Leadership Program in 2008, he was still going strong. He finished a five-year stint as president of the Washington State Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa, a professional association for educators, in 2009.  In May of this year, he was elected to PDK International’s board of directors.

Amy Kemp, PDK International’s director of leadership services, sent this note to our Professor Emeritus Don Orlich:

“John was such a visionary within PDK. Of his many contributions, the one that many would speak to was his total dedication to revitalizing the PDK chapters in Washington by creating PDK’s first state chapter. He not only created that chapter, but he led it, actually nurtured it through its formative years, and then when finally comfortable, handed  it off to other leaders. This is the mark of great leadership, to have a vision, to make a commitment, and then establish the means for that vision to continue well into the future.”

Guest blogger Sarah Goehri (’10) interned in the College of Education communications office in 2009-2010. Sarah is putting her communications degree to work in Los Angeles, where she is a public relations account coordinator.

My assignment:  Learn what I could about the the history of education programs at Washington State University by fishing through more than 100 years of course catalogs.   It was tedious and it was eye-opening.  I decided early in the project to focus on my second reaction.

As mentioned in the article that resulted, The Evolving WSU College of Education, Pullman only had 350 residents when Washington State College opened in 1892. I think some of today’s 101 classes have more freshmen than that now!

Overall growth wasn’t the only thing that intrigued me in my quest for historical highlights.  Cultural changes caught my eye. For decades, every catalog referred to WSU students as “he” or “him.”  It wasn’t until 1959 that the catalogs started using “student” as a more general term.  Of course, there were women majoring in education, psychology and physical education during those years but the catalogs only used male pronouns to describe everyone.  These days, I am so used to reading politically correct and gender neutral writing, that reading all-male references struck me as strange.

Aside from the years of departmental and structural changes, there were hundreds of changes in the education classes offered.  Some of the classes that I found interesting were:
•    Carpentry (making bird houses, dog kennels and mini barns)
•    Constructive drawing (floor plans, elevations, cottages, barns)
•    School hygiene (affecting the personal health of students: heating, lighting, ventilation)
•    Shorthand and typewriting (offered as a major/minor for students teaching secondary education)

Mentioned early on in the catalogs, 1919 to be exact, was the Alpha Beta Club.  I like to think of this as predecessor to the Education Graduate Organization (EGO), which I wrote about during fall semester.  The catalog described the club as a collection of advanced and graduate students in the education department. Its members met monthly.  Oddly, the 1919 catalog was the only one that made a reference to the Alpha Beta Club, so we can only guess at how popular it was.  Clearly students had the right idea, given that the present-day EGO is very successful and has a strong presence within the college.

I tackled this research project during my final semester at Washington State.  I was able to learn parts of the university’s history that otherwise I would have never known — which was important, considering I called Pullman home for four years.  Learning how much WSU and the College of Education have grown during the past century reminded me of the inevitability of change.

Go Cougs!

The master teacher, the über teacher, the best of the best.  That’s the one that all parents want in their child’s classroom.

But how does someone know whose skills are top-notch?  Since 1987, one important indicator has been National Board Certification. More than 82,000 teachers have met its standards through study, expert evaluation, self-assessment and peer review.

The certification process is tough, but teachers don’t have to go it alone. Support programs are available, including the National Board program offered by the WSU College of Education. Director Debra Pastore and her team of certified instructors have helped 900 teachers from 95 school districts.

“WSU helped launched the statewide National Board Certification support system in 2000,” says Deb. “That’s when our dean, Judy Mitchell, wrote the initial grant proposal along with Pat Wasley of the University of Washington, Patty Raichle of the Washington Education Association, and Lin Douglas of the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.”

The Gates Foundation, Stuart Foundation, and Washington Mutual came through with $4.5 million. Since then, a new group of teachers has started WSU’s program each June. They work with facilitators all over the state. Some even complete the program on line.

Each teacher invests approximately 300 hours of work outside of the classroom during the year-long program. Much of their labor involves documenting student learning through work samples and videos. Those materials are part of what goes into a portfolio—aka “the box”—that is mailed off for assessment in late March.

“This is an extremely important day in the process,” says Deb. “The only other day more important is the day scores are released, usually in late November.”

Between 65 and 70 percent of teachers enrolled in the WSU program get good news, compared to a 40 percent national success rate. In Washington, those who earn certification get an annual bonus of $5,000 from the state, plus an additional $5,000 if they teach in a high-needs school. Those who continue teaching get the bonus for 10 years, until the certificate expires.

There is no expiration date on the pride of being at the top of their profession.

“Teachers have been the scapegoat for what’s wrong with education for many years,” says Deb. “Anyone who believes that has not spent time in the classrooms of these teachers.”

First, let’s pause to acknowledge A.G. Rud‘s first day as our dean.  To welcome him to Cougar land, here is the WSU fight song like you’ve never heard it before:  a banjo rendition by Don Peckham, ’74.

As A.G. tackles a new administrative role, the journal Teachers College Record is highlighting his scholarship with a review of a book he co-edited, John Dewey at 150: Reflections for a New Century.   Coincidentally, TCR is also headlining an opinion piece by WSU Associate Professor Jason Margolis titled “Why Teacher Quality is a Local Issue (And Why Race to the Top is a Misguided Flop).”

Jason wrote the commentary with a passion fueled by his experiences as a teacher and researcher.   It may be just coincidence that Dewey is among  the educational philosophers cited in one of five comments that were quickly posted regarding Jason’s article.  (Such comments in the journal are rare, says Jason, who was tickled that his opinions had stirred things up.)

Jason’s perspective on Race to the Top is the subject of a “Tip Sheet” sent out by WSU News Service, titled “Education Expert: Demand for ‘Teacher Quality’ Could Doom U.S. Schools.” Earlier in August, the expertise of Professor Phyllis Erdman was likewise featured in “Your Parents or Me! Book Explores How Culture Impacts Relationships.”

Phyllis was busy this summer as she went into the home stretch of her stint as interim dean.   As she explains in an article she wrote for the journal Animal Human Interaction, she’s been working with two WSU colleagues on an equine-assisted growth and learning program for kids called PATH to Success.  The trio spent a week participating in the Horse Warriors program in Jackson, Wyoming, where they were mentored by nationally known specialists in the field of equine mental health and learning programs.  That’s also where Phyllis was smitten with a horse named Beau.

In other faculty news: Professor Brian McNeill has been elected a fellow for Division 45 Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues of the American Psychological Association.  Brian’s expertise is Latino healing traditions, and he is co-editor of the book Intersections of Multiple Identities: A Casebook of Evidence-based Practices with Diverse Populations (Routledge, 2009).

And Associate Professor David Greenwood is saying his farewells. After nine years on the Pullman campus, he’s heading up to Lakehead University on the shore of Lake Superior, where he will swat black flies, hear wolves … and hold the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Education.

What began as creative conference organizing became, for Heidi Stanton, an introduction to some marvelously open people.  And a course in  exhibit planning. And an unexpected dissertation topic.

Heidi is the Washington State University employee and education doctoral student behind “The Power of One” exhibit at Pullman’s Compton Union Building Gallery.  It features poster-sized photos of 30 students, faculty, staff and community members, all paired with handwritten observations about their lives or the role of diversity.

You can see some of the posters in the WSU Today article published last spring, when Heidi expected them to be displayed in connection with Northwest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) student leadership conference.  The project took longer than expected, however, and the CUB display has only now gone up.

Heidi directs the Gender Identity/Expression and Sexual Orientation Resource Center. When planning the conference, she wanted to bring the “Shared Heart” poster project by photographer Adam Mastoon, which features gay teenagers.  That wasn’t available, but Mastoon suggested he create a project for the WSU community.  Heidi loved the idea. She  sought participants via the LGBT e-mail list and the general campus announcements.

“I started getting interest from people who I would never have thought to invite, and it ended up being a really rich sampling of the community:  administrators, community members, parents, youth, gay, straight … all different kinds of people, all excited about telling their stories,” said Heidi.

Adam flew from his Rhode Island home to Pullman, where he introduced himself to participants by describing his own journey from out-of-place gay teen to happily partnered professional.  That session was the start of much labor on his part, and Heidi’s.

Meanwhile, Heidi planned the conference, ran the resource center, and continued working toward her Ph.D. in higher education administration.  She was struggling to find a focus for her dissertation on campus climate.  (“Administrators tend to think that the campus is safe and inclusive, and the students have a different perspective,” she explained. “Both sides are true.”)

One day, she mentioned to Associate Professor Paula Groves Price that the portrait project would someday be a good research topic.

“Paula said ‘No, that’s your dissertation. That’s something you’re passionate about,’ ” Heidi said. “When I talked with my committee, they were all on board with that. ”

Her dissertation title:  “Writing in the Margins: How participants in the Power of One Project perceive campus climate.”

“I think there is an assumption that the portrait project is about gay and lesbian people, but it is really about how these 30 people experience campus climate.  It really isn’t about sexual orientation, it is about visibility and mattering,” she said. “Fewer than half of the participants identify as something other than heterosexual. Each one was remarkably open.”

“The Power of One” (which includes the EduCoug blogger among its subjects) will be on display in the first-floor CUB Gallery until Sept. 10, when it will close with a 1 p.m. reception.

The luggage didn’t make it, but the cats did.

A.G. Rud, our new dean commencing mid-August, is in Pullman this week for meetings and house-hunting.  His busy schedule got off to a slow start when he and his wife, Rita, had an unplanned overnight stay in Spokane, where they waited for their luggage to catch up with them.  Two of the family’s cats did make it on board the Ruds’ flight, although the critters reportedly were not thrilled about their day of air travel.

The Ruds are pet people, as attested by posts on A.G.’s blog, source of this picture of their cat Wendy.  That blog is on hiatus, but you can find a link to it at the end of the  WSU Today article announcing his appointment. The article includes links to his biography and the journal of the John Dewey Society, which A.G. edited for the last six years.

His interest in animals is professional as well as personal.  He is fascinated by the human-animal bond and research into the use of pet animals in the classroom.   Maybe that will be one of his future topics on the College of Education’s dean’s blog.  In a recent email, he mentioned a former WSU dean of veterinary medicine:  “I’ve read about Leo Bustad’s work and am thrilled to be going to work at what folks have called the place where the serious study of the human-animal bond started, with Bustad the father of the bond!”

In addition to three feline household members, the Ruds have a dog and may be getting another.  A.G. confesses to having “a major Chihuahua obsession.”