July 7th, 2009

Dear Master’s in Teaching Student,

Welcome! We are excited about the program and are eager to meet you! During the next two years, we will work together to gain a deep and sophisticated understanding of the nature and inter-relationships of learning, teaching, and schooling. 

This email includes information you will need as you prepare for the coming academic year (a hard copy will follow in the mail).  Please read it carefully:

 

1. REGISTRATION AND ORIENTATION DAY (Saturday, Sept 19.   9am-4pm.  Location: Sem2A-3105)

Your attendance is expected for this registration/orientation meeting.  We will begin promptly at 9am.  You will have opportunities to meet other people in the program, ask questions, register, have your picture taken, apply for your library card, create an Evergreen email account, buy your books for the quarter, and purchase a parking sticker.  You will also complete the forms for the required FBI background check and State of Washington “Character and Fitness Supplement” (note: in order to complete these forms you will need to bring a list of three character references with addresses and phone numbers with you).

You will need to make arrangements to pay for the following:

• full time graduate registration (see http://www.evergreen.edu/mit/costs.htm)
• program fees (about $70 for retreat and magazine subscription)
• finger printing (about $72– through the Educational Service District Office 113. See http://www.esd113.org/)
• program books
• parking sticker ($40/quarter. See other commute options at http://www.evergreen.edu/commute/home.htm)

1. WEEK ONE RETREAT INFORMATION (September 29th –October 2nd)

Tuesday  &  Wednesday at local retreat center – place to be announced 9-4pm

Thursday  on campus 9-1pm   5:30-8:00pm Potluck to honor family and friends

Friday on campus 10-4pm

The faculty members in this program are committed to developing a community of learners. We want to provide the time and opportunities for all of us to become acquainted, determine the assets we each bring to this community, and develop a solid foundation for the year's work.  With these goals in mind, we will begin our work together on Tuesday and Wednesday, most likely at a local off-campus retreat site.  We will come back to campus to continue our work Thursday and Friday.  Thursday evening is a potluck to honor your decision to become a teacher and to include friends and family who will be supporting you during the coming two years.   For those of you eager to begin reading for the program, we will have our first seminar on Friday morning on Oliver Sack’s book: Seeing Voices A Journey Into the World of the Deaf.

1. WEEK TWO ONWARDS (October 6th – December 18th)

After the first week of class, you will be involved in program activities four days a week.  Thursday mornings will be spent in a range of public school classrooms. On-campus classes will be on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.  Due to space scheduling conflicts, we had to change the Tuesday meeting times.  The revised class schedule is below. We will let you know the exact room locations during observation week:

Tuesday *note time change*	Wednesday	Thursdays	Fridays
All Program 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.       Seminars 3:00-5:00 p.m.	All Program 10:00 – 1:00	Structured field experience Start of teacher’s workday and generally ending around noon   Note:  This quarter you will all rotate through observations in elementary, middle and high school classrooms.  Plan on about 45 minutes travel time to get to the schools.  You will need to be at the high school by 7:15am; the middle school by 7:45am and the elementary school by 8:40am.  We will give more details about this work at the beginning of the quarter.	Seminars 10:00 a.m.-noon     All program 1:00-4:00 p.m.

1. FALL QUARTER READING LIST Texts marked with an asterisk (*) indicate that this reading will be assigned in other quarters in the program beyond fall 2009

 

• Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices: A Journey Into the World of the Deaf, 1990/2000
• Joel Spring,  The American School: From the Puritans to No Child Left Behind, 7th edition, 2008
• Barbara Rogoff, The Cultural Nature of Human Development, 2003 – selected chapters
• Carol Tavris & Elliott Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), 2007 – selected chapters
• James E. Zull, The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching the Practice of Teaching by Exploring the Biology of Learning, 2002
• John Bransford et al. (editors), How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, 2000 –chapters 2-3 (purchase PDF version on-line @ http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9853)
• *Elizabeth G. Cohen, Designing Groupwork: Strategies for the Heterogeneous Classroom, 2nd edition, 1994
• *Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish, How to Talk So Kids will Listen & Listen So Kids will Talks, 1999.
• George Counts, Dare the School Build a New Social Order?, 1932/1978
• B.F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, 1971
• Jerome S. Bruner, The Process of Education, 1960/1963/1977
• Rethinking Schools magazine to-be-distributed in program
• You will also have a set of articles to read throughout the quarter which will be accessible on reserve in the library once the quarter begins.

 We look forward to seeing you on ORIENTATION DAY.  We hope you enjoy the remainder of the summer.  Maggie Foran, our Advising and Certification Officer, will be sending you a reminder about Orientation with a map of the campus in late August.   The faculty will be off campus for much of the summer, but if you have questions about the program, Sonja will be available after September 1st at wiedenhs@evergreen.edu.

Sincerely,

Sonja Wiedenhaupt, Faculty

Jana Dean, Faculty                       

Michael Vavrus, Faculty

cc:      Sherry Walton, Director of MIT
Maggie Foran, Associate Director, Education Advising and Certification
Loren Petty, Field Experience Officer