Saundra L. Wetig

Teacher Education

2008 ATE Conference: Reinventing the Educational Landscape: Renewing Hope, Heart and a Vision for Teachers, Learners and Communities

It is always my goal to learn new ideas to bring back into my own practice and share with the UNO Community. Attendance and participation at three conference sessions in particular were incredibly valuable and provided me with information and resources to differentiate my classroom by process and product (instructional strategies and assessment). The first session was titled: Encouraging the Use of Cooperative Learning by Teacher Candidates. This presentation discussed instruction and assignments incorporated in an elementary methods course that are designed to increase teacher candidate’s use of cooperative learning in their field experience teaching. Several research based cooperative learning models (Kagan & Johnson and Johnson) were shared. The session engaged the participants in several of the cooperative learning strategies to demonstrate the ease of integration in P-16 classrooms. I have shared the strategies with two of my former students who are currently student teaching in the Omaha Public Schools.

The second session I will discuss was one titled: Cooperative Learning: Preparing Teachers for Diverse Classrooms. The presented shared methods for preparing pre-service teachers to use cooperative learning in their classrooms as well. The presenters provided participants with cooperative learning tips, strategies, and resources. Many of the strategies I have already implemented, and will continue to use in my university classroom, but more importantly I will share the ideas for pre-service teachers to share in their Intermediate Field Experiences in our

Attendance at the session, Formative Techniques for an Exemplary Assessment Process provided me with data on how other states and teacher education institutions are using performance assessment that call for formative techniques within the assessment cycle. Participation and attendance at this session provided participants with 15 different techniques for assessing K-12 students formatively.

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