Never Say Never, Part I: Ideas Become Reality

By Kathleen Van Steenhuyse, Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, IA

As I write, we are in the midst of moving our whole Social Sciences and Career Option Programs Department to a new academic building, the NEW Cedar Hall, on the east side of the Kirkwood Community College campus. It will house all of the Social Sciences, and eight transfer programs, in addition to the department offices. Furthermore, the whole building will have wireless Internet access. Cedar Hall is a perfect example of “Never Say Never!” The core space in the center of our floor is what we are calling the Educational Resource Center (ERC). The ERC includes two oversized classrooms with trapezoidal furniture for modeling changing the learning environment quickly and effectively to match teaching objectives, a curriculum and research laboratory with a separate room for materials storage, and eight microteaching rooms. The microteaching rooms will be equipped with data projectors, DVD/VCRs, cameras and microphones for recording the micro-teachings, computers, white boards for right handed and left-handed teachers, a document camera, and a polycom unit. There is one-way glass and audio for the instructor to observe from outside in a hallway, so as not to disrupt the flow of the presentations. Recording the micro-teachings allows the faculty, the student peers, and the pre-professional candidate all to review presentations and reflect.

Over 20 years ago, one of our now senior faculty members, Professor Susan Simon, and several education colleagues, pitched an idea to upper administration to give the Education Programs at Kirkwood a special space for a curriculum laboratory, a research center, and microteaching rooms. The prevailing attitude at that time was that such a space was more the province of a four-year institution and not a priority at Kirkwood, but Susan and her colleagues kept lobbying.

In October 2000, the Chief Academic Officers of the community college system in Iowa, received a letter from Sandra L. Renegar, the Practitioner Preparation Consultant in the Iowa Department of Education, who worked with the colleges and universities in the state that prepare teachers and other professional educators. Sandra’s revolutionary idea was to include community college programs in a collegial peer review of the new teacher preparation approval processes. Quoting in part, Sandra said:

In a performance-based approach to practitioner preparation, students in a program must demonstrate by “performing” the acts associated with effective teaching. This requires faculty to specify the performance indicators associated with these acts, orchestrate opportunities for students to demonstrate them, and evaluate the performance against the standards the faculty identified for the competency. The knowledge base of what teachers should know and be able to do have zeroed in on a common core of teaching knowledge and skills that became the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) standards. These standards are compatible with the advanced certification standards of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The number of states using INTASC standards as part of the licensing process continues to grow. In 2001, the professional education core based on the INTASC principles will be required in all practitioner preparation programs in Iowa.

The strengths associated with this move toward performance-based teacher education include the opportunity for teacher education students to learn their craft and be evaluated in context. Learning to teach without spending extensive time in actual classrooms is rather like trying to learn to swim without leaving the pool deck! At its best, performance-based teacher education allows future teachers to connect theory and practice by engaging in teaching and learning in settings similar to those where they will serve as professional teachers. Thus, evaluation of practitioner preparation program graduates may be a more accurate representation of their teaching potential.

This statewide change in Iowa and the unprecedented invitation to join with the four-year institutions by the Iowa Department of Education anticipated the new national focus on teacher education preparation. The National Science Foundation (NSF) promoted the role of community colleges in the preparation of elementary teachers in particular, noting that over 50 percent of these teachers nationwide received their content preparation in community colleges, and suggested that it was more than time for the community colleges to be accepted as full partners in the preparation of new teachers, especially in mathematics and science. NSF began awarding grants to institutions in higher education who partnered with community colleges in this effort. No Child Left Behind, for all of its drawbacks, also had the positive effect of creating a climate and a spotlight for emphasis on teacher education preparation at every level. NACCTEP was born the week after September 11th, recognizing this national mission (and I was honored to cast Kirkwood’s vote in Chicago that day as a founding institutional member). During this same period, the U.S. Office of Education sponsored the Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant Program, and through the good offices of the Kirkwood Community College Grants Office, our Department, and a partnership with the Education Division of Mt. Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Iowa Department of Education, and the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners, a $6.2 million grant was awarded. That grant was recently extended to October, 2009, a fourth year, and in a forthcoming article, we will share the work of this statewide two- and four-year effort, as Never Say Never, Part II.

By 2003, Kirkwood Community College had a new Executive Vice President of Instruction, Mick Starcevich, (now the President of Kirkwood) whose experience was based in K-12 as a superintendent and with 14 years as an adjunct in the graduate program for education at Drake University in Des Moines before coming to Kirkwood. Mick Starcevich “got it” when we presented the needs of our programs to him, and gave us space in a 40 year-old “temporary” building that had been part of the original campus. His challenge to us was that we prove by the usage of the building that we needed this space and promised that he would consider including space in a new building if we proved our case. We were after better-prepared students who would be transferring to four-year teacher preparation programs with confidence and ease and we believed that a greater emphasis on practitioner experience would be the key.

In the fall of 2004, 1,551 students in Education Careers, Early Childhood Education, Sign Language Interpreter Training, Disabilities Services Careers (which includes Special Education), and Human Services Careers used the ERC; in spring, 2005, when enrollments were smaller, there were still were 1,151 students using the facility. We staffed the building with work studies, which accumulated 432 hours of service that year in the ERC. We expanded our work study hours to include some evenings after that first year, and our case was made. We also scheduled Advisory Committee meetings to garner community support and invited the President’s Cabinet and the Board of Trustees to tour the facility and to see demonstrations of the students using the areas. By the time the decision was made to go for a bond issue, the first in Kirkwood’s history, to build a new academic building and to tear down the original 40 year old “temporary” building, the decision to include the ERC and to expand it was well supported.

As we moved into this exciting new facility that very first day, Susan Simon got her reward. One of her students in Disabilities Services Careers came for an advising session and exclaimed, “WOW, you have come from the darkness into the light.” We are committed to making the Career Option Programs at Kirkwood Community college, especially the education programs, models for the nation, and this new facility will advance our mission. “Never say never,” is a motto and an attitude that will carry our future teachers a long way.

Additional information on the ERC:

What is an ERC?
The ERC is a place where educational materials and resources are gathered and also a learning environment for students, a place to practice using the educational materials and resources. The ERC will be a place for students to be videotaped as they practice teaching and observe others teach.

What are examples of educational materials and resources that would be housed in the ERC?
Examples: Preschool, elementary and high school classroom textbooks, supplementary reading materials, educational games, science materials, kits, educational videos, and educational computer software.

Why do we need an ERC?
Students need hands on experience with real materials as they complete coursework projects. Other colleges and universities have Curriculum Labs or Educational Resource Centers. When our students transfer they are at a disadvantage because they have not had the opportunity to use these materials while at Kirkwood.

Examples of how the ERC will be used?
• Students will use the textbooks and materials as they do microteaching.
• Students will analyze different materials and evaluate suitability for students of various abilities and needs.
• Students will be videotaped as they instruct and conduct interviews.
• Students will use the resources to construct learning centers.
• Students will use the resources to construct and flannel board stories.

Who will use the ERC?
Students in several programs including Early Childhood, Education Careers, Human Services, and Disabilities Services Careers.

Does the ERC belong in the library?
Many of the functions of an ERC could be accomplished in the library. At this time, the library doesn’t have room for these activities. The librarians are concerned about the noise that the activities of the ERC would create.