December 2011 - Vol.2 No.12

Carolyn Rogers, Faculty Chair, P-12 Leadership & Licensure Programs                      

LEA Specialization Meeting Minutes - December 12, 2011

Attended: Phil Corkill, Melissa McIntyre, Alma Rodriguez, Debbie Schreiner, Steve Hinshaw, Jerry Horgen, Ted Ray, Linda Crawford, Bob Pohl, Irene Singletary, Claire Boyce, Bill Wold, Sheldon Pride, Linda Crawford, Phyllis Wilson, Steve O’Brien, Pat Guillory, Lisa Garcia, Ruthie Jackson, and Sue Slater

Guests: John Melick and Catherine Pulkinen

Tiered Licensure
John Melick and Catherine Pulkinen attended the meeting to discuss the Tiered Licensure task force (see link: http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/About_MDE/TaskForce/index.html).

The task force is 16 member panel appointed by the Department of Education to be a representative.  Capella has 2 of the 16 seats. The work on the committee is very transparent and encourages participants to share with the panel. They’ve been looking at what other states are doing with mentoring, teacher evaluation and principal evaluation plans in Minnesota and how to link the plans with standards. The discussions for tiered licensure have discussed how this connects to student learning, student achievement, teacher growth, using data, knowing where your students are, etc. Many feel it shouldn’t be punitive. However there are significant implications for how would the tiered licensure process connect to special education, CATE, fine arts, etc.? How would this impact those coming from out of state? John and Cathy would like for feedback from One suggestion from the faculty requested that the panel look at the student performance piece. If you have questions or want to share additional feedback, please contact John at john.melick@capella.edu or Cathy at Catherine.pulkinen@capella.edu.

End of Quarter Updates
 

• Incompletes:

  • Q3 Incompletes: If you gave any incompletes for Q3 that have not been cleared up, please make sure that you submit the grade change forms by December 16, 2011. If a learner hasn’t posted work that was agreed upon for the incomplete, please contact them ASAP to remind them that the work must be submitted by the last day of this quarter. The grade change form can be found on iguide under Academic Resources.

  • Q4 Incompletes: If you have learners who will need an incomplete for Q4, please remind them that they must complete the request for an incomplete form on iguide. Once this has been submitted, it is automatically sent to Capella for processing. After the incomplete form has been received, faculty will be notified of the learner’s request. The instructor can then determine if an incomplete will be granted. If an incomplete is granted, tell learners where they should submit the missing work. You are encouraged to have learners submit work in the courseroom. If this option is chosen, be sure to remind the learner that their course will be removed from their home iguide page once the course ends and listed with their previous courses. As such, they will have to go to the area for their previous courses to gain access to the course after it ends. Also, provide them with a due date for turning in the remainder of the work and let them know when you will be completing the Grade Change form. If a learner is granted an incomplete, he/she can only complete assignments that are missing. Discussion questions cannot be included in the tasks that learners are allowed to make up with an incomplete.

• Posting Grades: Friday, December 16, 2011 is the last day of the quarter. The grading window opens on December 14, 2011 and closes on December 25, 2011. Since the window closes on Christmas day, we encourage you to post your work prior to that day if possible. Also, please be sure to follow the school’s grading guidelines when submitting grades other than an A, B, or C. They are:

  • (Fail): A learner’s course work does not demonstrate mastery of the published competencies or does not meet course expectations as described in the course syllabus or course learning plan.
  • NS (Not Satisfactory): A learner’s course work does not demonstrate mastery of the published competencies or does not meet course expectations as defined in the course syllabus or course learning plan. This grade is applied to those courses in which the learner has received approval to be graded on the S/NS scale.
    WF (Passive Withdrawal/ failure due to lack of participation): A learner has not actively participated in the course.
    WNS (Passive Withdrawal in an NS course): A learner has not actively participated in the course. This grade is applied to those courses in which the learner has received approval to be graded on the S/NS scale. Extended grading definitions can be found in the University Grading Policy on iGuide.
    Significance of WF and WNS: The administrative grades of WF and WNS have been established to identify learners who are unofficially withdrawn. These grades are converted to an F or an NS on learners' transcripts. The WF and WNS identify learners whose financial aid needs to be reviewed to determine if a portion of their financial aid needs to be returned.

• End of Course Evaluations: Remind learners to complete their end-of-term course evaluations. This is an important part of the process for improvement as an instructor and for the course.
   
• Submissions for SMR and IRB: The deadline for submitting IRB applications and SMR forms has expired. The due date was December 9, 2011. All such documents that are submitted after this time will not be sent to reviewers until the first day of the new quarter. This will start the 10-14 day review window.
   
• Availability during the Break (dissertation courseroom & out of office): Mentors should post their accessibility to mentees between terms in the dissertation courserooms. Also, faculty are asked to set up an out-of-office response so that anyone contacting you via Outlook will know your availability.

New Courseroom Training
As you heard during the School of Education leadership meeting, the university is changing its courseroom platform to Courseroom 3.0 (aka Blackboard 9). All instructors will have to go through the training to teach a course. The first rollout in the SOE will be in Feb 2012.  First course instructors will be in the first groups of instructors to teach in the new platform. As such, these instructors must go through training for Courseoom 3.0 in January 2012. The rest of the faculty will begin getting training information for February and March. Please remember that there will be no exceptions to the new courseroom training. If you do not successfully complete the training, you will not be offered a course until such time that you do complete it.
 

Quality Matters (QM) Training on Updated Rubric
QM has a new rubric that is currently being used to evaluate courses. QM is asking all Peer Reviewers to complete a brief training to update their knowledge of the rubric. Please note that the deadline to complete this update is December 31, 2011. Peer Reviewers MUST complete this self-paced online training on the changes reflected in the 2011-2013 QM Rubric to maintain their eligibility to serve on formal peer review teams. 

Interest Surveys

We have received about 51 surveys from the P-12 LLP faculty, which is short of about 29 faculty. If you have not completed the survey that Melissa sent out at the end of November, please do so ASAP. This information will be used for planning working assignments in 2012.

High School Dropouts

Dr. Corkill engaged the faculty in a discussion about high school dropouts. He was alarmed about an article that he read that said that 7,000 students drop out each day and wanted to have the faculty reflect on what this means for P-12 education. Points shared include:

• There are issues with tracking students when they leave a district, so it’s questionable about the accuracy of the numbers if they haven’t been able to address those concerns.
• There are significant implications for every area of our education system.
• We pay on the other end (correctional facilities) when students are not successfully completing high schools.
• There is also an issue of students completing schools that have completed high school but have diplomas that don’t amount to much as they haven’t been prepared fully in their school system.
• An important piece is the factors that contribute to dropout and what can be done to address this.
• It would be interesting to have this as one of our focuses in our courseroom. This could be done via adding discussion questions or assignment in courses specifically related to this important topic.

LEA Blog
Ted has completed the Capella Lead Talking Points blog that is used to engage faculty in discussion about trends and topics related to P-12 education. To access the site got to:   http://capellalead.blogspot.com

Mentoring Update

• Mentoring Meeting: The next mentoring meeting was scheduled for December has been cancelled.
• Dissertation Compilation for P-12 LLP: Dr. Beazley has completed a compilation of dissertations completed in the three P-12 LLP specializations. He will review this document in the next P-12 LLP meeting in January.
• Mentoring Update: If you have not sent in your mentee updates for Q4 to Skot, please do so ASAP. He is working on a report to update leadership on the progress of P-12 LLP learners.

Quarterly P-12 LLP Faculty Meeting
The next quarterly P-12 LLP meeting will be held on January 3, 2011 at 8am CST. This will be an important meeting in which Dr. Rogers will be sharing some important changes. As such, all faculty in the LEA, SEL, and C&I specializations are requested to attend.

C&I Specialization Faculty Meeting Minutes - December 13, 2011

Attendees: Skot Beazley, Sam Song, Candace Adams, Marc Boston, Donna Flood, Adrienne Gibson, DeArmas Graham, Carol Holzberg, David Ibarra, Michael Jazzar, Salha Jeizan, Cassandra Jenkins, Amy Kuo-Newhouse, Chris Stabile, Amy Williamson (Over Seas), Irene Singletary, Randall Sampson, Carole Burnworth

Agenda

Here is the Week 8 update for the P12 – Fall 2011 dissertation population.

There are 616 total P12 learners in the Pipeline.

So far after 7+ weeks of this quarter:

· 102 have passed at least one milestone (3 through 16) including graduates (16.6%).

· 18 stopped their program (i.e., Dismissal, Admin. Withdrawal, Change of Program: 3.0%). I expect a few Dismissal folks to win their appeal, and return to dissertation in Winter…we will see.

· 13 graduated (2.1%). The total for Summer was 3.0%. Congratulations to these mentors as well.

· 362 are at Milestone 3 (58.8%).

· 495 are at Milestones 1-7 (80.4%). Meaning, less than 20% are conducting research right now.

· 109 are inactive for Fall (17.6%). In Summer, only 11.2% were inactive.

· 279 are currently operating on a milestone extension (45.3%). We need to work hard for this group and make sure we are doing all we can to keep them engaged and making progress.

SEL Specialization Faculty Meeting Minutes - December 15, 2011

To: SEL Faculty, Carolyn Rogers, Crystal Jundt

From: Carol Pasanen, SEL Core Faculty

Date: December 15, 2011

Re: Notes from December 2011 SEL Meeting

Present at Meeting:  Bill Brown, Dennis Flood, Scott Hollinger, Kathy Mondell, Lynn Young, Carol Pasanen

Meeting Notes, December 14, 2011
 

1.   End of Term Update

We discussed the requirement that learners must request an Incomplete by Friday, December 16—form available on iGuide. Grades must be posted by December 25.

 

2.   New Courseroom Training

All faculty who want to be eligible to teach for Capella beginning Q2 2012 are required to participate in a faculty development course about navigating the new courseroom format. These courses will be offered beginning in January 2012—we will receive notices regarding signing up for a course. It was mentioned that there were questions about whether or not faculty will be paid to take the training. Carol heard that we would not be paid; Dennis said he attended the last conference call session about the new courseroom and said there was discussion there that there might be pay…we will see…

 

3.   P-12 LLP Faculty Meeting, January 3, 8:00 a.m.

All P-12 LLP faculty (including SEL, LEA, and C&I) are required to attend a meeting with Carolyn Rogers on January 3 at 8:00 a.m.  Dr. Rogers will be discussing important changes for our specializations at that meeting.

 

4.   Course Enrollment for Q1 2012

Carol went over the current enrollment numbers for Q1 2012. While some course enrollment numbers are up, others are down. In particular, it looks like ED7545 will have only one section this term. Faculty can expect some workload decreases next term. We will know more as we get closer to the beginning of the next term.

 

5.   New LEAD Dissertation Template and Related Rubrics

Several of our newer mentees have recently completed the SMR process or will very soon. All of these mentees will be using the new dissertation template. Carol went over the template and illustrated how the rubrics could be used to help assess a learner’s work.
 

6.   Research Help Desk

Mentors are encouraged to use the Research Help Desk for assistance with learners’ SMR forms and proposals. The Help Desk usually responds within 24 hours and can offer guidance and assistance on any part of the process. Using the Help Desk can save weeks of a mentor’s and learner’s time and can help get the learner going down a path that will lead to an approved SMR and proposal. Mentors (not learners) can contact the Help Desk at SOEResearchHelpDesk@capella.edu

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Meetings At-A-Glance (Click here for a printable version)

Specialization	Date(s)	Time	Number	Code	Person(s) Responsible
Quarterly P-12 LLP: C&I, SEL, & LEA Faculty	1st Tuesday of January, April & July 2012	8:00 a.m. CST	888-227-5650	28228#	Dr. Carolyn Rogers
C & I Monthly	2nd Tuesday each month	8:00 p.m. CST	888-227-5650	85378#	Dr. Skot Beazley
LEA Monthly	2nd Tuesday each month	8:00 a.m. CST	888-205-5513	348314#	Dr. Melissa McIntyre
SEL Monthly	2nd Wed. each month	8:00 a.m. CST	888-205-5513	356054#	Dr. Carol Pasanen
Monthly Mentoring P-12 LLP:  C&I, SEL, & LEA Faculty are encouraged to attend	11-15-11   12-13-11 Cancelled	8:00 p.m. CST ------------	888-205-5513 ------------	348314#   ------------	Melissa & Alma   Phil & Carol

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Residential Colloquia

2012 Academic Calendar

(Click here to download the pdf version of the calendar)

Professional Organizations & Other Valuable Links

American Association of School Administrators (AASA).

www.aasa.org/

American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

www.aft.org/

Association for Effective Schools, Inc.

www.mes.org/

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).

www.ascd.org/

Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE).

http:cpre.wceruw.org

Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).

www.ccsso.org/

Edutopia: The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF).

www.edutopia.org/

National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE).

www.nabse.org/

National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP).

www.naesp.org/

National Education Association (NEA).

www.nea.org/

National Middle School Association (NMSA).

www.amle.org/

National School Boards Association (NSBA).

www.nsba.org/

National Staff Development Council (NSDC).

www.nsdc.org/

North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement (NCA CASI).

www.ncacasi.org/

U.S. Department of Education (U.S. DOE)

www.ed.gov/

Archives

Previous editions of the LEADnews are available by clicking the links below:

 

November 2010 - Vol.1 No.1	June 2011 - Vol.2 No.6
December 2010 - Vol.1 No. 2	July 2011 - Vol.2 No.7
January 2011 - Vol.2 No. 1	August 2011 - Vol.2 No.8
February 2011 - Vol.2 No. 2	September 2011 - Vol.2 No. 9
March 2011 - Vol.2 No. 3	October 2011 - Vol.2 No. 10
April 2011 - Vol. 2 No. 4	November 2011 - Vol. 2 No. 11
May 2011 - Vol. 2 No. 5

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