Archive for October, 2010

Measures Of Effective Teaching Scoring Program (MET) Seeks Video Coders

Program Description:

ETS is conducting a large-scale research project involving the viewing and coding of video footage of school classroom instruction. Raters will be required to complete online training and pass a certification test. Training will take place in December and include instruction on how to use the coding protocol and enter data. Coding will start in early January 2011 and continue through June 2011. Raters will commit to a minimum of 16 hours and to a maximum of 40 hours per week and will have a fixed schedule for the duration of their employment. We offer 4 hour and 8 hour shifts 7 days a week that are expected to be  between the hours of 8:30am and 10:00pm EST Monday through Friday, and 8:30am to 8:00pm EST Saturday and Sunday.  The payment for coding will be $18/hr. Coding can be done at home on your personal computer. No previous experience in classroom observation coding necessary.

RESPONSIBILITIES FOR RATERS:
Raters will be required to:

• Complete online training and pass a certification test to be eligible to score; payment for training is provided.
• Be familiar with and consistently adhere to protocol regarding calibration and coding procedures.
• Maintain effective coding standards regarding calibration, coding rate, and coding accuracy.
• When required to do so, discuss a video segment and support its code using the language of the coding instrument.
• Maintain contact with the Lead Raters throughout the coding period and be available and willing to discuss video segments and codes.
• Under the direction of the Lead Rater, code video segments in ways that are consistent with coding standards.
• Maintain a consistent rate of coding within an approved range.
• Pass daily calibration tests before beginning to score that day.

Experience and Skills

Candidates must hold a Bachelor’s degree and have a substantial math background or strong understanding of mathematics. Individuals with college math minors, math teachers and graduate students with some teaching experience are encouraged to apply. Candidates must be able to view online video  for extended periods of time. No previous classroom observation coding is necessary.  Conscientious and deadline-oriented individuals who have a great attention to detail are encouraged to apply.

Software Requirements

Windows XP or later of Mac OS X 1.4+
Mozilla Firefox 3.6+ browser w/ Adobe Flash player 10.1+
At least 5GB free hard disk space
Broadband or DSL internet connection
Minimum 17-inch monitor

APPLY HERE

San Francisco Teacher Residency Program

The San Francisco Teacher Residency is recruiting aspiring teachers in critical subject areas. We are looking for future math, science, bilingual, and elementary education teachers who are committed to teaching in an urban setting.

San Francisco Teacher Residency (SFTR) is recruiting talented college graduates, career changers, and community members of all ages.  The program will give candidates the tools to make an immediate impact in the classrooms of the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD).  Combining a yearlong classroom  apprenticeship with targeted master’s level coursework, the program offers much more than just an affordable route into teaching. SFTR provides Teacher Residents with the practical learning, hands-on experience, and ongoing support essential for successful careers in teaching.

What You Get By Joining SFTR

• A Master’s degree from University of San Francisco or Stanford University at reduced cost.
• A CA Teaching Credential
• An $11,800 stipend for living expenses
• An AmeriCorps Education Award for those eligible
• A great transformative career making a difference in the lives of students
• A network of colleagues dedicated to student excellence

Who Are We?

The San Francisco Teacher Residency is a partnership between the San Francisco Education Fund, San Francisco Unified School District, University of San Francisco, Stanford University, and United Educators of San Francisco. All partners are committed to improving the quality of training for teaching in San Francisco’s hardest to staff schools and subjects.

What is the San Francisco Teacher Residency?

SFTR is a program designed to provide teaching candidates with a:

• Yearlong classroom apprenticeship with a master teacher
• Rigorous, aligned coursework
• Focus on the San Francisco context
• Collaborative learning environment

The program’s unique blend of theory and practice, combined with an emphasis on collaborative learning and peer support, gives Residents a strong, field-tested foundation for success in the urban classroom. By the time SFTR graduates become the teachers of record in a SFUSD classroom, they will have gained valuable teaching experience, an understanding of the challenges that lie ahead, and an ever-expanding support network of fellow educators to lean on for support and advice.

An Affordable Route into Teaching

Upon admission to SFTR, Residents will be eligible for reduced tuition at the University of San Francisco’s School of Education. To help with living expenses during their yearlong preparation, SFTR provides an $11,800 stipend and eligibility for health care benefits, made available through AmeriCorps.  Upon successful program completion, residents will also be eligible for an AmeriCorps Education Award which can be applied to the cost of the master’s degree.

At the end of the residency year, graduates earn a California Preliminary Teaching Credential and coursework leading to a master’s degree in education, which can be completed in a total of eighteen months. Upon successful completion of the residency, candidates commit to teaching in one of San Francisco’s hard to staff schools or subjects for a minimum of three years.

Eligibility

SFTR seeks strong candidates who are committed to teaching in urban public schools in math, science and bilingual literacy.

To be eligible to apply, candidates must:

• Hold a Bachelors degree from an accredited university
• Be a U.S. citizen, national, or permanent resident
• Pass and submit scores from the CBEST and CSET by set dates (see below)
• Apply and be admitted into University of Sanf Francisco School of Education’s Preliminary California Multiple or Single Subject Teaching Credential program with M.A. degree (MAT) for the 2011-2012 school year or
• Apply and be admitted into Stanford School of Education’s Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP) for the 2011-2012 school year
• Please note, applicants MUST be seeking a secondary math or science, Spanish bilingual (single or multiple subjects) credential for consideration of SFTR. Space will be limited for candidates for the elementary multiple subjects credential.
• Meet the admissions requirements for the San Francisco Teacher Residency and complete the supplemental application

SFTR Candidate Admissions Timeline for 2011-2012 Academic Year

January 4, 2011: Deadline for submission of Stanford Application

March 1, 2011: Deadline for submission of USF application and supplemental application to SFTR

March 1, 2011: Notification of Stanford Admission – For Stanford Applicants ONLY: Submission of SFTR supplemental application should only occur after admission to Stanford has been granted

April 22, 2011: Notification of USF/SFTR admission for upcoming program year

June 20, 2011: Classes begin for 2010-2011 program year at Stanford University

August 1, 2011: Classes begin for 2010-2011 program year at University of San Francisco

Please note: For your application to be reviewed you will need to have taken the CBEST and CSET exams by the following dates:

CBEST February 5, 2011 http://www.cbest.nesinc.com/CA16_testdates.asp

CSET  January 8, 2011 http://www.cset.nesinc.com/CS16_testdates.asp

Later test dates will not allow us to review your application in time.

To learn more about the San Francisco Teacher Residency program and application process please visit San Francisco Education Fund’s website at http: //www.sfedfund.org/ or contact Susana Carranza at the San Francisco Education Fund by phone at (415) 749-3700 ext 3027 or email at ,  Debbie Faigenbaum at the San Francisco Education Fund via email at or Peter Williamson at University of San Francisco via email at .

Martin Gardner’s Celebration Of Mind

Overview: Martin Gardner was a science writer, literary critic, author, bad poet, philospher, magician, debubker, puzzle maker, and much, much more. There will be a worldwide celebration of Martin’s life and work.

Where: STANFORD UNIVERSITY, HEWLETT BUILDING, RM.200

Campus map with parking locations nearest the Hewlett building

Enforcement Hours “A”, “C”, and “shared” resident/commuter lots are enforced Monday- Friday, 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Meters are generally enfored 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. unless otherwise posted. You are free to park in these areas after enforcement hours.

Stanford parking policies.

When: Thursday, October 21,2010, 6-9PM.

Who: Our speakers include:

• Persi Diaconis
• Susan Holmes
• Stan Isaacs
• Scott Kim
• Don Knuth

Why: October 21st is Martin’s birthday

The program will begin by short talks, introducing Martins life and work along with an overview of the Gardner papers, now at Stanford. Following an intermission, a documentary featuring Martin will be shown. Following a second intermission we will have a floor discussion on the many areas that Martin touched. We will have hands on displays of books and puzzles.

Bay Area Circle for Teachers

Bay Area Circle for Teachers Winter Workshop – January 29th

Date: Saturday, January 29th, 2011. Location: UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
More information at our website, http://bact.mathcircles.org/winter
We held our first Bay Area Circle for Teachers Winter Workshop two years ago and it was such a success that it is now going to be a Bay Area tradition. At this year’s workshop you can look forward to Math Circle lesson presentations by the San Francisco State University (CM)^2 Mathematician and Teacher Partnership Teams. These 9 teams of mathematical graduate students and SFUSD teachers will present lessons they’ve  created for San Francisco Math Circle and discuss how they’ve used the lessons in their classes.  Possible topics include Combinatorics of the game SET and Knot Topology. In addition, at this year’s BACT event we’ll be preparing instructors and mathematicians to work at the Berkeley Julia Robinson Math Festival, Sunday January 30th – UC Berkeley.

This program is free to all teachers and includes lunch and snacks provided by the BACT.

Please pre-Register for the Workshop: http://bact.mathcircles.org/winter

Tutoring position for CMSC Students

Overview:
The Huckleberry Wellness Academy recruits and trains San Francisco youth in health education and medical support services, assisting them in pursuing careers in the health industry and post-secondary education.

We are looking for tutors to help San Francisco High School Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors in the following subjects: Geometry, Advanced Algebra, Algebra 2, Pre-Calculus, Calculus, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. Tutor availability will be between 3:00pm-5:30pm, Monday-Thursday. Tutoring will take place at the Huckleberry Youth Program Multi Service Center at 555 Cole Street

If you are interested in this wonderful opportunity in making a
difference in the lives of one of these students, please contact
Douglas Mungin at 415. 386-9398 ext. 325 or at

Huckleberry Youth Programs was founded on the belief that adolescence is a dynamic and challenging time of life, Huckleberry Youth Programs’ mission is to educate, inspire, and support underserved youth to develop healthy life choices, to maximize their potential, and to realize their dreams. Since 1967, we have accomplished this by providing San Francisco and Marin youth and their families with a network of services and opportunities by caring peers and adults.

Thanks,

Douglas Mungin
Academic Case Manager
Huckleberry Wellness Academy
555 Cole St.
San Francisco, Ca. 94117
ph: (415) 386-9398 ext. 325
fx: (415) 386-8212

Fall 2010 Mathematics Department Scholarship Awards

Jessie. F. L York Scholarship Award  $1,000

This scholarship was endowed by the family to honor Jessie York. An alumna of San Francisco State University, Jessie York’s professional career as a mathematics teacher encouraged women to enter the field of mathematics. This scholarship, in the spirit of Jessie York, will be awarded  to an undergraduate mathematics major so as to further this goal.

The Mathematics Bridge Scholarship Award    $1,000

This award was created and endowed by the Mathematics Department and other donors to encourage mathematics careers among groups historically underrepresented in mathematics. It will be awarded to an undergraduate mathematics major so as to further this goal.

Lawrence Chang Memorial Scholarship Award   $1,000

Lawrence Change graduated from San Francisco State in 1968 and received his Ph.D in Mathematics from UC Berkeley in 1972. Blind from early childhood, he pursued a teaching and research career until his death in 1983 at the age of 39. The family of Lawrence Chang and the Mathematics Department endows this award  to a graduate mathematics student whose academic career exemplifies Dr. Chang’s commitment to excellence in mathematics.

Sergio Martens Scholarship   $1,000

The Sergio Martens Scholarship was established in 1996 by John Metzger, President of Western States Life Insurance Company in memory of, Sergio Martens, a valued employee of the company, who had taught high school mathematics in Africa before coming here. The scholarship will be awarded to an outstanding undergraduate or graduate student.

Frederick Wm Walters Scholarship   $3,000

The Frederick Wm Walters Scholarship is a new scholarship being offered this year to a graduate student in the Math Dept. Mr. Walters has a passion for mathematics and physics, and has become a great source of  support for both departments over the years. He feels strongly about students pursuing graduate work in the two fields that he loves so much and would like to sponsor a deserving math student. This scholarship will be rewarded to one graduate student.

Milowski Scholarship $2,600

Alex Milowski is a SFSU Math Dept. alum who graduated with his Master of Arts in 2004. Alex’s commitment to the field of mathematics and his support of student access to education compelled him to make this scholarship to one first year graduate student. Alex would like to help students continue their education and overcome the obstacle of the rising cost of tuition, therefore has pledged one semester of tuition for a promising student.

The criteria for these awards are achievement, promise and motivation in mathematics. Applications for these awards are available in the Mathematics Department (TH 937) and are to be returned to the Department by 5:00 PM on Friday, November 5, 2010.

Why are students So Passive?

The brief posting below gives some thoughts on how to engage students more effectively in lecture classes.  It is from Chapter 4 Taking Stock of What Faculty Know About Student Learning, by Maryellen Weimer, professor emeritus of Teaching and Learning at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, in an excellent new book, Taking Stock: Research on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, edited by Julia Christensen Hughes and Joy Mighty. Hughes is the past president of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and professor and dean of the College of Management and Economics at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Mighty is president of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and professor and director, Centre for Teaching and Learning at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Why Are Students So Passive and What Can Teachers Do to Effectively Engage Them in the Learning Process?

Students are passive in part because instruction continues to be so didactic. A survey of 172,000 faculty in the US (nearly one out of every three) found that 76 percent list the lecture as their primary instructional method (Finkelstein, Seal, and Schuster 1998). Lectures can be engaging, but most encourage passivity with excessive amounts of teacher talk. In Nunn’s (1996) observational study of participation in college classrooms, on average less than 6 percent of class time involved student interaction. That’s three minutes of student talk per 50 minutes of class time.

So if teachers lectured less, what would students be doing in class? They could be learning from and with each other. The viability of group work, especially co-operate learning structures, is well documented by educational research. In the post-secondary arena, Springer, Stanne, and Donnovan’s (1999) meta-analysis of studies on group work in math, science, and engineering disciplines showed these collective learning experiences positively affected academic achievement and persistence in college. Often, the case for students learning from and with each other is a hard sell in heavily content-oriented disciplines, but the evidence from research on student learning conducted in those fields verifies more generic findings.  For example, in chemistry (and even though these studies were conducted within non-educational disciplines, they are well-designed and carefully executed educational studies), McCreary, Golde, and Koeske (2006) found that students in labs led by students (who had successfully completed the lab previously and were trained in conducting the labs) learned more than students in labs taught by instructors. Lewis and Lewis (2005) found that when one chemistry lecture per week was replaced by a guided discussion facilitated by peers, students in the discussion sections did not learn less (as measured by final exam scores), causing the researchers to conclude: “Fears that students who had less exposure to lecture would learn less proved to be groundless in this study” (p.139).

The case for active learning in general is made across a patchwork of different studies done by educational researchers as well as faculty researchers based in the disciplines. The diversity of the approaches used to study those methods that engage students makes them difficult to compare but Prince (2004) has done a masterful job of organizing and integrating this work. He concluded that “…there is broad but uneven support for the core elements of active, collaborative, co-operative and problem-based learning” (p.223). This support is not just for involvement in activity per se but substantiates that the various kinds of student engagement explored in these studies results in better learning — whether that is longer retention of content, greater facility in applying what has been learned, or a deeper understanding of the content.

Full article

Part Time Paid Academic Tutoring Position

Overview:

Thurgood Marshall Academic High School’s Dream Academy is looking to hire a friendly and flexible tutor seeking part time employment. We have an immediate opening for a tutor who:

• Can work at Thurgood Marshall High School three days per week part time after school
• Have 9-12 grade subject expertise, specifically high school level language arts and math (Algebra, Geometry, Calculus, Statistics) and Science (Biology, Chemistry, Physics)
• Are able to commit to working until at least June 2011

Applicant Qualifications:

• Must possess a B.A./B.S. degree. Long term experience as a tutor will be given consideration.
• Have at least two years of tutoring and or teaching experience
• Committed to providing educational opportunities for all students
• Advanced degrees and or current teaching credential is a plus

Salary/Responsibilities:

Our pay rate is $20 per hour, depending on experience and education. Your primary responsibility will be the educational development of your students. This includes:

• Engaging in group tutoring sessions
• Engaging in focused one-on-one tutoring sessions
• Communicating with students, facilitators, parents and teachers
• Writing monthly progress reports for each student served
• Participating in meetings with the tutor services coordinator

Contact Information:

If you are interested in applying, please email your resume and cover letter to murrayk@sf usd.edu or call Karen Murray at (415) 695-5612 X 3117

CSME Teacher Fellowship Meeting Friday Oct. 15th 2010

Questions are the Answer

This 90-minute activity will allow participants to examine their own ideas about student assessment, experience a variety of science assessment techniques, and analyze authentic student responses to different types of science assessment probes.

Facilitated by
Kimberly Tanner, Associate Professor, Department of Biology & director, SEPAL Allison Busch, Lecturer, College of Science and Engineering, Senior Program Coordinator, SEPAL

About SEPAL

The Science Education Partnership and Assessment Laboratory, was founded in 2004. SEPAL aims to offer science undergraduate and graduate students opportunities for learning pedagogical and professional communication skills helpful in whatever career path they choose. These opportunities come in the form of coursework, partnership programs, and science education research projects. More information can be found on our website: http://sepal.sfsu.edu.

Friday October 15th 2010 Hensill Hall 245 4:00 PM

Open to all SFSU & Incoming Transfer Students
Dinner will be Provided RSVP Today in SCI 211 or Email jmchan@sfsu.edu

CURRENT SCIENCE FELLOWS: you are required to come to this meeting.
CURRENT MATH FELLOWS: You are strongly encouraged to attend.

ALL ATTENDEES PLEASE RSVP THROUGH THIS LINK: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CSME1015