EduCoug

Published in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, June 29, 2012. Reprinted with permission. Photo by Dean Hare.

By Holly Bowen
Daily News staff writer

Dozens of teachers from rural Inland Northwest school districts are learning how to make math more relevant and interesting thanks to a National Science Foundation-funded program being administered by faculty at Washington State University and the University of Idaho.

Fifty teachers of grades 4-10 from eastern Washington and northern Idaho have been staying at WSU this month as part of the Making Math Reasoning Explicit program’s Summer Institute. They’re the first and second of three cohorts of teachers participating in the total five-year, $5 million professional development program. The first cohort began its work last fall, and by the time next summer rolls around, all three groups of teachers will be on-board.

Their numbers are few, so theirs is the shortest part of any university’s commencement program. But the “hooding” of doctoral program graduates represents the completion of long and sometimes exhausting journeys. First, these folks finished 18 or more years of formal education before they even began their doctoral programs. Many established careers. Then they spent years — three? 10? — taking classes, doing research, writing dissertations, all the while working to support themselves and their families.

So let’s pause to offer special congrats to our Washington State University College of Education 2012 doctoral graduates. May the wind be at their backs as they start their dream careers. EduCoug invited two of them — one a doctor of philosophy, one a doctor of education — to share their thoughts.

Patricia Celaya, a native of Mexico, came to Pullman from  the “different universe” of San Diego. She promised herself she wouldn’t return to California until she had that Ph.D. The advanced degree in counseling psychology would allow her the career options of providing psychotherapy, teaching, and doing research. Or all of those things.

“I was inspired by a professor at San Diego State University, Dr. Roberto J. Valasquez, who took the time to explain to me how I could achieve a Ph.D.,” she writes. “I was part of the McNair Achievement Program, which also provided me with information about graduate school and prepared me for the doctoral process.”

With diploma in hand, she is looking for work in California as a university psychologist. Eventually, she would like to provide services for underserved populations. Her time at WSU included working for Multicultural Student Services.

“I was fortunate enough to have assistantships which not only helped me financially, but allowed me to develop professionally,” she writes. “Helping students reach their educational goals made me accountable and helped me regain motivation during times in which the doctoral process became difficult.”

Patricia credits students and colleagues with keeping her from becoming too focused on day-to-day responsibilities. That “very solid Cougar family” she says, helped her reach her goal.

Jane Lotz-Drlik had two reasons to be emotional on May 5. It was both commencement day and the wedding anniversary she would have shared with her late husband, Yakima psychiatrist Dr. John Drlik. She writes:

“Jack and I collaborated in research around professional stress issues, stress interventions, and diverse populations. He was tremendously excited at the possibility of my undertaking the doctoral program. When he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, we put our work on hold in order to battle the cancer; I continued teaching while caring for Jack.”

Jack died in 2005. Jane mustered her energy, quit teaching, and moved to Pullman to begin her doctoral work. Then, in 2009, her own health was weakened by the stressful loss of Associate Dean Len Foster, who had been a special inspiration to her. He died after serving one week as acting dean following the death of Dean Judy Mitchell.

“I thought the Ed.D. program was over for me,” Jane recalls. “Thanks to the encouragement of friends and family, and the affirmation offered by many people, including Drs. Debra Sellon,  Jason Sievers, Tariq Akmal, Dawn Shinew, Arreed Barabasz, and academic coordinator Nick Sewell — and by my dissertation committee — I was able to build  my strength and continue the work.  I’m so grateful to everyone for helping me to, as my friend Claudia says, ‘Get ‘er done.’ ”

After 32 years as a teacher, administrator and staff developer, Jane is looking forward to job hunting “and the view around this bend in the road.”

It’s our pleasure every year to welcome WSU College of Education graduates from 50 and 60 years ago as part of the annual Golden Grads celebration in Pullman. It’s a chance for alumni to comment on how much the campus has changed since “back in the day.” The best part of the visit, judging by their animated responses, comes when they interact with students.

Today’s happenings included two recognitions of student creativity. One was presentation of the Inga Kromann Book Awards, for children’s books written and designed by teacher education majors. The other was the modeling of capes made by students in arts integration, a teaching methods course taught by Pauline Sameshima. The capes served as canvases on which the future teachers shared their personal stories and their teaching philosophy.

You’ll find more Golden Grad pictures on the college Shutterfly site.

The WSU Alumni Association’s campus-wide events continue on Thursday.

Ever come across a commemorative plaque and wonder about the person being honored? If you approach Cleveland Hall from the north side, you just got something else to wonder about.

Today, a small group gathered to witness the planting of a tree and a plaque-adorned rock that honor Peter Harrington, 1953-2002. Peter was a computer technician who worked at the College of Education and, later, at WSU’s Information Technology office. When he died of a heart attack, his IT colleagues honored him by planting a Japanese maple in the atrium of the Information Technology Building. But the  expansion of the adjacent Martin Stadium eliminated the atrium. So, Peter’s plaque was moved to Cleveland Hall, home of the College of Education.

Among those present for the planting were education faculty members Marcia Katigbak Church and Tim Church. Marcia described Peter as “kind of a rebel/nonconformist but not in an annoying way—sort of a funny, ‘glint in his eyes’ way. I was still a grad student then—he was ready to help and very approachable. He had lots of stories, like a local historian.”

He was the sole information services person during his stint in the college, Tim said.

“I found Peter to be very helpful and service oriented, just as our college IS staff are today. He had a wry sense of humor and was lots of fun,” Tim said. “For several years he was a regular at Friday evening sessions at Rico’s pub with several of the faculty. I suppose because he chatted with almost everyone who needed computer help, he had more informal knowledge about what was going on in the college than anyone.”

Peter was a Pullman High grad (’71) who studied at Fairhaven College (part of WWU) and WSU. The folks who gathered to remember Peter were, pictured above from left, Chris Kell, Geoff Allen, Jackie Kell, Kathy Vogeler and David Wherry, all from Information Technology; and Lynn Buckley, Krenny Hammer, Marcia Church and Tim Church, from the College of Education.

WSU grounds supervisor Kappy Brun did the honors of planting the maple.

Many, many teachers are exemplary parents. Karen Bleibtrey’s daughter is a reminder of that.

Karen and her husband, Jim, raised three kids in tiny Victor, Mont. She taught fifth grade science in nearby Corvallis, south of Missoula. It’s no surprise that her kids got a strong message about the value of education. The message echoed in the brain of her teen daughter Sunni, this way: “I love sports. I’m good at basketball and soccer. I could go to a small college and make the team. But, nah. I’ll go to a university where I can focus on my education.”

When she got to Washington State University, Sunni discovered that she could combine her athletic zeal with a career path by majoring in sport management. Now a senior, she’s president of the Sport Management Club and works for WSU Athletics. And, as reported in WSU News, she’s organizing a second Moms Weekend run this coming Saturday — nearly a year after her own mom died, very quickly, of breast cancer.

Karen’s obituary recounted how she found her own career:

Sure, there’s a ton of online resources for teachers: educational websites, magazines, quizzes. But with so little time for browsing and reading, how do they know which web materials are worth using?

WSU College of Education students to the rescue.

Writing reviews of teacher resources was one of the service learning projects tackled this year by students in Assistant Professor Pauline Sameshima’s Arts Integration class, aka T&L 390, in Pullman. The effort got a rave review of its own from Larry Beutler, editor of Clearing, an online journal of community-based environmental education.  He told Pauline that the resources exceeded his expectations, and wrote to the students:

“The reviews were insightful and creative, and the layout and design of each section was attractive and compelling. I was impressed by the in-depth analysis that you did on the materials, particularly the comments about how you would use the materials in a classroom. Your perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of the various materials will be very helpful to current and incoming teachers as they look for tools to teach these important topics.”

Over the last two semesters, the topic areas that the students picked have included: climate change, biomes, place-based learning, forests, the solar system, oceans and aquatic environments, food chains, Washington history and salmon,  and alternative energy.

The reviews represented one of several arts integration service-learning projects tracked through WSU’s Center for Civic Engagement. Students also made more than 120 curriculum bags (instructional directions and sample product in a gallon-size zip lock bag) for three after-school programs and for the Palouse Discovery Science Center. Some students will be going to those sites to present their lessons.

“By working with community partners in need, students help to make a difference and also have the opportunity to apply what they are learning in courses,” Pauline said.

Michael Dunn knew about “special needs” long before he began his career in education. His dad couldn’t hear. Family members learned to cope with that on their own. They had to; they lived in a rural Canadian town far from health services.

First as a school teacher and then a researcher, Michael turned his focus to written words. The associate professor at WSU Vancouver, part of the College of Education’s special education program faculty, studies ways to help kids — with or without an obvious disability — who struggle with writing. He shared his expertise last week at the first graduate seminar supported by the Wilma Kamerrer Special Needs and Special Education Endowment.

“Writing can be so taxing on students that they have little mental energy left for composing,” Michael said at the Pullman event.

His solution is a three-step teaching method in which students are asked to draw a picture that tells a story. Then they’re told to think about the story. Only then do they actually write the story down.

That approach syncs with Michael’s interest in response to intervention, or RTI. In a nutshell, RTI means not giving up on a student who is struggling. It involves screening for problems, providing help, and monitoring to make sure the student progresses.

“It’s not the traditional ‘wait to fail’ approach, where a student gets to grade three and only then do you decide what kind of help he needs,” said Michael, who is certified to teach RTI methods.

RTI can be expensive. It takes time and the involvement of specialists. But there are things teachers can do on their own to help students, and that’s part of what Michael discussed at the seminar. Soaking up his advice were master’s and doctoral students, including ones who will take their knowledge back to communities as far away as Ghana and Saudi Arabia.

The seminar also featured a presentation by Connie Beecher, a recent WSU doctoral graduate who gave advice on how to communicate research and scholarship agendas.

Sisterly support for education

The Wilma Kamerrer Special Needs and Special Education Endowment, like so much philanthropy, has roots in a personal connection.

Wilma was a farm girl born on the Palouse in 1927. She grew up to be the first female president of the Seattle First Bank branch in Pullman, according to Kate Kamerrer, who is married to Wilma’s nephew and is director of accounting at WSU Facilities Operations.

Wilma, who never married, died of cancer in 1981. Both she and her sister Helen Kamerrer Schmidt, a high school home economics teacher, were big supporters of education in general and WSU in particular.

It was through the estate of WSU alumna Helen – who also died of cancer – that an endowment was established in Wilma’s name. The endowment originally helped support Camp Roger Larson, a camp for children with disabilities that was run for many years by the College of Education. It was founded by Larson, a physical education faculty member.

“The Kamerrer family was friends with the Larson family, and Wilma lived just down the street from Roger and his wife,” Kate recalled. “As a result of their friendship, both Helen and Wilma supported Camp Roger Larson before they died and with their estates.”

Another reason for the sisters’ interest in the camp at Lake Coeur d’Alene was their passion for outdoor adventure. Helen and Wilma travelled, fished, camped, and skied extensively throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.

“We have some great slides of their various trips (several large tubs full in fact) and other fun ‘artifacts’ including skis, tackle boxes, ice skates, and other vintage camping gear.” Kate said.

Say you’re a teacher. And you have this popular, mind-expanding lesson plan that gets your seventh graders to explore how people around the world celebrate winter holidays. Only this winter, one of your students is a Jehovah’s Witness. His family doesn’t believe in celebrating holidays.

Do you design a separate curriculum for that young man and risk making him feel left out?

Not if you’re Barb Godby. In that case, you work with a colleague to come up with the massively engaging and educational Civil War re-enactment described in SpongeBomb SmartyPants: Re-enactment teaches history.

In the WSU News story, the 2005 graduate explains how she learned the importance of teacher collaboration when she studied secondary education at WSU. In an interview, she also praised our faculty for emphasizing that students need different ways to process and make sense of information. “WSU also had a lot of cutting-edge teaching about the brain, about teaching to every child in their own way,” she said of her undergraduate lessons. “That wasn’t the mainstream idea that it is now.”

Barb has worked at Cram Middle School in Las Vegas for five years. She loves teaching seventh and eighth graders, she says, despite “the hormones and the craziness and the angst. It’s my favorite age.” And despite struggling through a case of pneumonia and her grandmother’s death during planning for the first Civil War project, she’s looking forward to working with her colleagues on an even bigger re-enactment in May. “We’re a family here.”