College of Education Blog

Every fall semester, students in Early Childhood Education have the opportunity to participate in the student teaching in Ecuador program. During eight weeks in their final semester of student teaching students travel to Cuenca and teach at the elementary school of the Centers for Interamerican Studies (CEDEI). At CEDEI School, children ages two through eleven years old receive instruction in both Spanish and English in all subject areas. In addition to student teaching, UW-Whitewater students take a class about the cultures of Ecuador, which is taught by Bill Johnson, who is the film maker of the video.

See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRiLKJ08GUI

The students also study Spanish, dance, cooking, and participate in trips to historical and indigenous villages in the Southern Andes. For further information about the student teaching in Ecuador program, please, see our program website.

On December 15th Dr. Jean Peterson will be on campus as part of a gifted education workshop entitled “Social-Emotional Concerns and Counseling of Gifted and Talented Students.” Dr. Peterson is a professor and director of school-counselor preparation at Purdue University. A former classroom and gifted-education teacher and now a licensed mental-health counselor, she has done considerable clinical work with gifted youth and their families. Her extensive research has focused largely on the social and emotional development of high-ability adolescents and the asset-burden paradox of giftedness. Her most recent books are Gifted at Risk: Poetic Profiles; The Essential Guide to Talking with Gifted Teens; and Models of Counseling Gifted Children,Adolescents, and Young Adults.

The workshop was organized by Dr. Scott Peters, assistant professor in the Educational Foundations Department. The day’s activities underscores our new Challenging Advanced Learners graduate program. The workshop is sponsored by School of Graduate Studies and Continuing Education.

More information on the day’s events can be found here.

Additional information on our new program can be found here.

The University of Wisconsin System School Library Education Consortium (UWSSLEC) is pleased to announce that 40 Wisconsin teachers have been awarded WISE Scholarships to earn a license as a school librarian in Wisconsin. The WISE Scholarships are supported by a Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Scholarship recipients will take eight courses over the next two years to become 21st century school librarians. The courses, offered through a consortium of the University of Wisconsin campuses at Whitewater, Superior, Oshkosh, Madison, and Eau Claire, are largely online with one weekend meeting each semester. In addition, thirteen students currently taking courses through the UWSSLEC program have been awarded partial scholarships to complete their initial licenses.

Twenty-first century students need 21st century skills: problem-solving; critical thinking; information, communications and technology literacy skills; self-direction; flexibility; and creativity and innovation. The school library has changed from a store of resources to a learning commons where students and teachers investigate, collaborate, and seek and use information to explore ideas and solve problems. As technology continues to change the way society learns and communicates, the school librarian is more vital than ever before. This grant is educating teachers from around Wisconsin to become 21st century school librarians.

For more information on this program please contact Dr. Eileen Schroeder at schroede@uww.edu.

Laura Numeroff, author of “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” will present at the Early Childhood Conference April 9th and 10th at UW-Whitewater. For more information and to download the conference brochure, please click here. The Early Childhood Conference is a joint effort between the Curriculum and Instruction Department and Continuing Education Services.