MONDAY
-Writing Interventions: Theory and Practice - This is something I've always been interested in. According to the professor, we'll learn theories for teaching normally developing students as well as students with special needs to improve their writing. Based on the readings I've downloaded and printed, we're covering very young children (there seem to be a few that are about handwriting and basic spelling) up through older adolescents (structure, style, etc.). While the subject matter is right up my alley, I'm not a huge fan of the professor for reasons I won't go into... Well, an hour and forty minutes a week is unlikely to drive me over the edge.
-Seminar in Consultation and Evaluation in Reading - My beloved Dr. Masullo teaches this class, which begins 20 minutes after the other ends; class from 5:10 until 9:00 is going to be a bit brutal, but it's only one day a week. During the first session, we talked a lot about the role of literacy coaches, which is not something I've learned about yet. We'll be learning about current issues in reading services and about how to work with other teachers in schools on professional development, which apparently is something reading specialists may be asked to do. In fact, there's a theory circulating that every middle and high school should have a literacy coach whose full-time job it is to assist core subject teachers in effective literacy instruction. I don't know if it will go anywhere, but the trend seems to be leaning that way, because, in theory, the specialist can reach more students that way than if she simply taught a few classes of her own. Should be an interesting class.
TUESDAY
-Introduction to Measurement - Ok, math is not my thing, but I have a good feeling about this class, in part because my professor is fabulous. He's incredibly high energy and he's an excellent lecturer. (He is also clearly Italian, so I am predisposed to adore him.) From what I understand, statistics will be involved in the class, but that's not solely what it's about. In education (and psychology), it's important to know how to design tests that will accurately assess whatever it is you're looking for, as well as how to look for flaws in pre-existing tests so that you don't misinterpret the results, how to administer pre-existing tests so you don't cause the results to be flawed, how to analyze test scores, etc. Today, because we hadn't done any reading yet, we spent at least an hour going over the history of measurement. It sounds terribly boring, but it was actually fascinating. My professor really emphasized the way that national and global events caused developments in the field of measurement and I was riveted. For example, the first personality tests were developed in the 1920s. Why? Well, it makes perfect sense if you think about what was going on in the US then. Some veterans, home from WWI, were exhibiting symptoms of shell shock, a condition that had never been observed before. Others were coping well. The military (for practical reasons) and psychologists (for research purposes) were interested in the ways that different people responded to the same sort of trauma, but they needed some kind of way to measure and assess personality. Enter personality tests. So we'll see if I'm as positive about this class once I have to start using my calculator, but at the moment, I think I'll like it a lot.
THURSDAY
Practicum: Literacy Assessment and Intervention II - This one will require the most time on my part, not because of assignments but because of the practicum that goes along with it. For the second semester, I'll be seeing a client twice a week in the school's reading clinic, and writing endless reports about his/her progress. I'll be given my client assignment on Thursday. I like the professor; like a lot of the professors I've had, she's an alum of TC. She'll be covering additional techniques we can use that weren't covered in the co-requisite for Practicum I. Three practica are required to graduate with a reading specialist degree. In the last one, which I'll take in the fall, I'll be tutoring a small group of adults, rather than a single child like this one and like Prac. I.
Tentatively, I'll go to Heritage on Mondays and Tuesdays this semester. Hard to believe my fellowship is halfway over already!
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