September 14, 2011- Seminar Overview

Mapping the Field of Urban Education in Rochester; Susan Norman, Director Xerox Center will present an overview of the educational issues confronting teachers and children in Rochester.

September 21, 2011-  Including Diverse Students

Refugee students represents a growing population of students into the RCSD.  Jay Piper, Principal of No. 15 School, The Children's School of Rochester, will share his experiences with newly arrived refugees and how teachers work with them.

September 28, 2011-  Classroom Culture, Power or Influence

Creating Culture within the classroom can be a good management strategy for teachers.  Tom Gallaher, former superintendent, principal and teacher will help pre-service teacher work on professional development plans around creating classroom culture.

October 5, 2011--Meeting the Emotional Needs of Students in the Classroom

Meeting the Emotional Needs of Students in the Classroom, has become another area of responsibility for many teachers, especially in urban areas.  Andrew Dorrow, guidance counselor from RCSD will share his experiences in working with teachers and emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children in guiding them towards positive learning situations.

October 12, 2011--Social Justice and Politics in Teaching

William Johnson, former Mayor of the City of Rochester and Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Rochester Institute of Technology will talk about his experiences of being a mayor in Rochester and how politics influence educational policy and reform.

October 19, 2011---Techniques for Tutoring:  Academic Conferencing, Formative Assessments, Goal Setting

Susan Norman, Director of Xerox Center will share successful tutoring techniques for high school youth.  These include academic conferencing techniques, goal setting and formative assessments with your tutees.  Handouts given.

October 26, 2011--Non ESL teachers working with ELL in the content area

Christine Sickles, Principal Jefferson High School will be presenting strategies and techniques for pre-service teachers working with a diverse population.  You may not be an ESL teacher but have a significant number of ELL in your classroom.  If you are teaching in the content area how will you differeniate instruction?  Please join us for an engaging discussion.  Handout given.

November 3-  No Xerox Seminar

November 9- Designing Lessons to Engage Urban Middle and High School Students.

Susan Norman, Director of the Xerox Center will present examples of lessons that work for middle and high school students at the Saturday School in Rochester NY.  She will also show videos of lessons being taught by Geneseo College students.

November 16- Interactive Technologies in the Classroom

Kim Davis Hoffman and Michelle Costello, Librarians from Milne, will help you try out a number  of free software applications for the classroom.  In this workshop, students will learn four interactive technologies (Voki, Xtranormal, PollEverywhere, Google Docs) that benefit both the teacher and the student.  Through use of these resources, discover ways to encourage active learning and foster student engagement.

January 26, 2011

            Feng Shui Your Classroom- Sharon Peck will discuss ways to engage students with please classroom environment and set ups.  Discussion will include gender neutral activities, set up of centers, teachers desks, types of posters displayed, etc.

February 2, 2011

            Classroom management Strategies- Dan Delehanty

TBA-Ciaccio (2000) also discusses the technique of total positive response to student misbehavior as a method of developing relationships with students and a method of effective classroom management. Every incidence of student misbehavior is dealt with in a positive versus negative manner in an effort to disarm students that may exhibit some of the most challenging behaviors.  Total positive response involves the use of positive strategies to meet student needs, combined with caring and total acceptance. The challenge is to find the positive in the negative. Because at-risk students have egos that are often severely damaged, criticism can cause them to tune teachers and authority out.  Additionally, emotionally damaged students cannot effectively deal with criticism and channel it to improvement.   We must make it our responsibility to find ways to generate and maintain student interest and involvement on a consistent basis by making our classrooms safe, accepting, interesting and engaging places (Haberman, 1995).  By creating lessons that have meaning to these children, teachers are responding actively and constructively to the background or prior knowledge and experience of their students.

February 9, 2011

            Rain Date for Above seminar

TBA

February 16, 2011

            Power point to SMART board for teachers.  Graduate students Bill Jones and Chris Bonawitz will discuss ways in which presenters can change their powerpoint presentations into more engaging SMART board ready, interactive sessions for their students or for other audience members.  Room 328 South Hall

February 23, 2011

            Response to Intervention---

At 17 percent, Rochester City Schools have more special-ed students than any district in the state, and there is concern that some students - particular black and Hispanic boys - may be misclassified, though experts don't agree on how often that happens or the reasons why.

Response-to-Intervention is an approach to instruction that is gaining popularity among educators because it provides academic intervention at the first sign a student is struggling. And the intervention intensifies depending on the level of need. The program was introduced in 14 elementary and secondary schools throughout the city of Rochester this year.

Advocates tend to refer to RTI as a philosophy about teaching rather than a program, because the goal is to keep students in their general ed classrooms. The reason: academic performance is higher when students are not segregated into special ed environments. RTI can be used individually or with a group of students, and most importantly, teachers must exhaust every available tool and resource to help students keep up with their peers before a referral for special education evaluation is made.

Caterina Leone Mannino, director of extended learning and intervention at the Rochester City School District  will provide an overview for pre-service teachers of RTI.

March 2, 2011

Questioning the Influence of Culture on Teaching and Learning: “Do Teachers Really Need to Know Their Students to Teach Effectively?

Sonia James-Wilson, Ph.D.

Educational Consultant and Founding Director of the Urban Teaching and Leadership Program, University of Rochester

In this interactive session, participants will explore the links between racism, teacher expectation and academic performance, and participate in a debate about “microcultural” approaches to culturally relevant pedagogy.

March 30, 2011

            Behavior management strategies for Classrooms Faith Hart, Rochester City School District.

One of the leading causes of teacher attrition is cited as a lack of classroom management skills. Ms. Hart has a Special Education background and has been pushing into classrooms to help teachers learn to provide good learning environments for their students to gain the respect of their students and mastery of their classrooms.

April 6, 2011

            Differentiated Instruction; Tina Fenton, Educational Consultant.

Engaging students in the learning process using activities that motivate and challenge students to remain on task is probably one of the most frustrating events in the teaching learning process. But if you know your students' profiles, you have a better chance at keeping them on task to completion of any given assignment or activity. In a differentiated classroom, activities are suited to the needs of students according to the mixed ability levels, interests, backgrounds, etc. Good activities require students to develop and apply knowledge in ways that make sense to them and that they find meaningful and relevant.

April 13, 2011

            Urban Youth and the 40 Developmental Assets, Lee Holiday, City of Rochester, Youth Programs

The Search Institute’s research on urban youth and thriving flushed out 40 developmental assets that urban professionals can utilize in multiple settings of programming and interactions with youth. These assets have demonstrated ability to bring out positive qualities and experiences that help youth grow up happy and healthy. 

April 20, 2011

            African American Vernacular and Standard American English; Debra Fossitt, RCSD speech and language specialist.

How to modify students’ behavior to use appropriate language on formal assessments while embracing home language and community values. What are the many controversies surrounding African American Vernacular and Standard American English?  Discussion will include how to discuss English usage among African American descendants as well as the historic SAT gaps in test results of Caucasian and non-Caucasian students.

*  Room for Feb. 16^th semester in SMART Board room, South Hall 338