Welcome to the UW College of Education!

Dear Students, Colleagues, Alumni, and Friends of the College,
 
This academic year has begun as others in our recent past: with many challenges and opportunities to better serve our publics and with hope for the future of public education in our nation. The College of Education is a busy place to work and to learn! We have a focused and compelling mission to prepare competent and democratic professionals. In the contemporary environment of education accountability, we must include strategic efforts to measure our progress toward that mission. Most of this work channels through College governance structures that purposefully include students to assure that those voices are included and to share rationale behind program revisions. Each of our graduate programs began, last year, to review admissions criteria, alignment of curricula with contemporary professional standards, student access to the curricula, the formative and summative assessments embedded, and to begin planning for how we will follow these program completers into the next years of their professional lives. These efforts are lead by the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, our four Department Heads, and numerous graduate program coordinators in collaboration with all the faculty. We expect that these reviews will be completed this year with appropriate program revisions implemented by fall 2012.
 
Along the same vein, the Wyoming Teacher Education Program (WTEP) is not exempt from public and political accountability. We are fortunate to have a new Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs providing leadership on the implementation of recently required changes to the background check policy, second stage field testing of the Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA), the perpetual review of our teacher preparation program curricula, and new requirements for following new teachers as they launch their careers. He engages in this work with the deep collaboration of the Department Heads and the WTEP faculty as we strive to assure that our graduates of the WTEP are well prepared to enter the classroom with confidence that THEIR students will learn and thrive.
 
All of these efforts…and dozens more that others will never “see”, demonstrate that the UW College of Education is a vibrant community of teacher/scholars who recognize that their work in TEACHING, RESEARCH, and SERVICE must increasingly connect with student learning in pre-college settings. We appreciate the Wyoming School-University Partnership and the Science-Mathematics Teaching Center for their parallel and collaborative work as we strive to meet expectations. Our best avenue for positive impact on learning for all is through the teachers, school leaders, counselors, instructional technologists, and future community college and university faculty that we prepare…it is a “trickle-down theory” of impact on learning that is transforming our College.
 
Below, I provide a list of “fast facts” that I hope you will enjoy reading. Alumni and donor support of the College are strong which I use as one indicator that we are focused on the right goals. I am proud to serve as the dean of the UW College of Education and I invite you to contact me, visit us, and reach out to us for possible connections!
 
Best regards,
Kay
Kay A. Persichitte, Ph.D.
Professor & Dean
 
 
The UW College of Education…

• Accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education continuously since 1954
• Office of Teacher Education provides 1:1 advising, academic success programs, note and test taking help, support for state licensure processes, close collaboration with the UW Center for Advising and Career Services to provide two career fairs each year (one for WY districts only and one which brings representatives to campus from more than 25 states and US territories)
• Over $225,000 in scholarships awarded each year
• In Spring 2011, there were 1,117 undergraduate students and 583 graduate students in the College of Education
• In 2011-12, we have 64 full-time faculty members, 3 full-time administrators, 1 full-time director, and 19 full-time support staff in the College; 4 faculty searches are ongoing this year (includes 1 director)
• Elementary Education program requires specific methods coursework for Literacy, Math & Science, and Humanities
• The Statewide Elementary Program has exactly the same program requirements as the Laramie and Casper campus but offered with some distance technologies and on a different timeline for completion to support the site-bound students targeted for this outreach program
• All Secondary Education majors complete significant discipline-specific coursework; most are approved for transcript designation as a full major in the subject area on transcripts
• Methods coursework for all Secondary Education majors is discipline-specific
• Students in the Wyoming Teacher Education Program have multiple opportunities to engage in field experiences, practica, and student teaching in a wide variety of both rural and urban school contexts
• All Wyoming Teacher Education Programs require a full semester of full-time student teaching under the supervision of a Highly Qualified mentor teacher including structured interactions with College of Education faculty at the student teaching site
• Pass rates for the state-required licensure tests (Elementary Education and Social Studies Education) are above 85%
• UW College of Education is one of 21 states participating in a national assessment pilot for a robust performance evaluation of student teaching (Teacher Performance Assessment) as a summative measure of readiness to enter the profession (for all WTEP students)
• In spring 2012, we will place about 15 student teachers in Campbell County School District #1 (Gillette) and we have a pilot agreement in place to develop a two-year partnership (2012-14) for the placement of 25 to 30 student teachers per year. This brings the number of district partnerships that we have in Wyoming to nine.
• A new graduate minor in Research Methods was approved summer 2011
• The final chapter of the College reorganization was written as the Department of Special Education became part of the Department of Professional Studies in fall 2011. The College is now comprised of four departments: Educational Studies, Elementary and Early Childhood Education, Professional Studies, and Secondary Education
• We dedicated the Sullivan Family Student Center in January 2011, a facility that includes state of the art education classrooms in a remodeled building that was recently featured in Interior Design Journal
• We have begun Stage I Planning for the UW Literacy Research Center and Clinic to be housed on the ground floor of the Education Annex
• Donor gifts and state match are the basis for these current projects (all in initial stages): Sullivan Plaza (northeast corner of the Pasture); remodel of the Education hallway that connects Prexy’s Pasture to the Education Annex entrance; and design and installation of a canopy to connect the Education Building to the Education Annex over the existing walkway