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The Education Program consists of 3 core options of
study for the Applied Associate in Arts and Science.
Those options are:
Our Professional-Technical program is designed for
students who are interested in becoming Early Childhood
Educators or Child Care Providers. We also provide
education courses for the, students who are transferring
into 4-year institutions with the goal of becoming
K-12th teachers.
Currently our program consists of 2 full-time,
tenured faculty members: Betty Peace-Gladstone and
Tasleem T. Qaasim, who are responsible for teaching 12
of our education courses on a rotating schedule, the 3
bilingual/bicultural courses are taught by adjunct
faculty. We have a total of 15 courses currently
in the program.
From 2000 through 2005 our program was awarded over
$2 million dollars through competitive City and Federal
Grants. In 2000, we wrote our first grant of
approximately $1 million over five years for the City of
Seattle Child Care Comprehensive Grant (CCC). In
2002, as the Architect of the Seattle Early Reading
First Grant (SERF) for the City of Seattle that was
awarded over $3 million from the U. S. Department of
Education. Both of these programs made major
contributions to the advancement to early learning in
our region.
The SERF project was a partnership among the City of
Seattle, Shoreline Community College, Seattle Public
Schools, the Seattle Public Library, Public Health, the
University of Washington, and five local early childhood
centers. The Seattle Early Reading First (SERF)
partnership has made significant and measurable progress
helping low-income, African American and Latino
preschoolers and their families by improving their
reading readiness and preparation for kindergarten.
The SERF program was one of 29 grants awarded out of
over 200 applications nationwide. The SCC
Education department was responsible for the program
coordination and service delivery for the following
components:
- Developing "Best Practices" for
literacy programs based on current
scientific research and school readiness
guidelines;
- Providing college-level classes for
the advancement of knowledge of the
participant child-care providers;
- Improving the professional
qualifications of early education
teachers at the selected sites;
- Identifying and procuring classroom
materials and support for teachers and
children, including books, supplies,
improved classroom environments and
better literacy curricula;
- Providing training and professional
development for child care teachers,
including one-on-one coaching in the
classroom;
- Assisting with increased family
involvement in literacy through "Family
Literacy Nights" at Seattle public
libraries.
Winning the award of these grants provided an
exceptional opportunity to contribute to our community
while enhancing the expertise and reputation of the
college. During the implementation of these grant
programs, the Education Program:
- Provided staff for the
administration of these grants including
a Project Manager, 2-program
coordinators, 6 coaches, 9 trainers, 1
literacy specialist, and 2
administrative assistants;
- Developed Instruction for
Off-Campus, Neighborhood Classes;
- Provided Off-Campus Evening Student
Advisement & Registration;
- Provided Dual-Language models for
ESL students through translation
equipment and interpreters;
- Increased enrollment of
underrepresented students;
- Designed and developed curricula for
infusion of current scientific research
into 12 education courses;
- Designed a 4 tier - career pathway
for ECE teachers in SERF Program.
Results from the SERF program indicated that in 2003,
66 percent of SERF children had met a standard score of
85 or higher on the Peabody-Picture Vocabulary Test and
by 2005, 93 percent of SERF children met that benchmark,
documenting a 27 percent increase. In 2003, 37
percent of SERF children met the standard score of 85 or
higher on the Metropolitan Readiness Beginning Reading
Skill test and in 2004 (the very next year), more than
54 percent met that benchmark documenting a 17.5 percent
increase in one year!
While most SERF teachers had been working in early
childhood education for several years, very few have
degrees in early childhood education. WE changed that
paradigm by providing college-level courses in the
evening at the worksites, in the communities where those
teachers worked and lived. By 2006, over 40 early
childhood educators had received a Child Development
Associate Certificate for completing a one year program,
completed at least 12 credits towards their AA degree or
received their Associate degree in one of our 3 core
options as the result of these grants in our program.
Principally due to our work with SERF I; in 2007, the
U.S. Department of Education refunded the SERF program
for an additional $4 million. Currently we have 20
new SERF teachers slotted to participate in our program
in the near future. Although the current SERF
program focuses on training and not teacher education;
we are involved in the development of their training
modules, once the training needs of the teachers have
been more fully identified.
To enhance our role in responding to the Washington
State Department of Early Learning Initiatives, we are
developing math and science course integration for our
program. Shoreline Community College proposes to
enhance the capability of educators of young children to
support math and science learning throughout the early
childhood years. Towards this end, new college
coursework in early learning will be developed and
offered (EDU 106 Math in Early Education) and existing
coursework will be enhanced with science content (EDU
140 K-3 Instructional Methods and EDU 150 Early
Childhood Curriculum). Opportunities for students
to observe and participate in math and science education
in early childhood classrooms will be enhanced as we
provide training in math and science to the classroom
staff of the on-campus child care facility, allowing
them to better demonstrate math and science education at
work in an early childhood setting through this
innovative curriculum. Diverse sources of support
will be provided to students to ensure achievement and
success as they complete the requirements for
certificates and degrees in Education at Shoreline
Community College. Students will also be given
consistent encouragement to utilize existing resources
on our campus. We have already begun
implementation of these activities, which will reach
completion by the end of the 2008 - 2009 academic year.
In partnership with the ESL/ABE program, the
Education Program will provide specific support to
students who are working towards English fluency, but
are not native speakers of English. Students who
are second language learners have the option of
enrolling in the new I-BEST program (to be launched in
the Spring Quarter of 2008), which starts them on the
pathway toward obtaining basic Early Childhood
Credentials (State Training and Registry System (STARS)
is a career development system designed to improve
child care through basic and on-going training for child
care providers, Food Handler Certification and First
Aid/CPR Certification training) as they continue to move
towards English fluency. We are attempting to
identify what the benefits would be for childcare
providers, who are currently working in field without
the recommended course work. We would like to see
the State include job incentives in the IBEST program
for these low wage employees. We have had advocacy
meetings around this issue.
Another option for ESL students is for them to
participate in a three-course series of Education
courses that are delivered in either a Dual-language
model (Spanish/English) or with translation services; so
there is no delay in their acquisition of course content
as they work towards English proficiency. Our
Bilingual/Bicultural core was successfully piloted
through our grant programs and it is our desire to
maintain for future ESL students.
The Education certificate and AAAS curriculum
includes four-online classes, which assist with student
retention by providing some flexibility in scheduling of
course schedules for students. Several options for
Credit for Prior Experiential Learning are available to
streamline completion of a certificate or AAAS degree.
Where appropriate, an individualized transcript review
by Education faculty maximizes the ability of students
with prior coursework in Education to transfer credits
from other institutions with minimal disruption in their
progress toward completion of their degree or
certificate. This is an extremely valuable option
for those students.
The Education Program at Shoreline is one of the
colleges in partnership with the Early Learning Network
(ELN) of Seattle, and there have been several meetings
with a focus on collaboration between these colleges
regarding articulation of coursework. Because
Shoreline has a Credit for Prior Experiential Learning
policy in place, and a faculty transcript review process
for course equivalencies supplemented by waivers,
students experience a great deal of support in
maximizing the transferability of coursework. We
are sensitive to their need to maximize the transfer of
credits from other institutions, particularly for
coursework from other Education programs in the
community college network. Shoreline has also
worked on articulation agreements with the four-year
colleges in Washington for Elementary Education
programs. We are in the process of doing the same
thing with the new Child and Family Studies major at the
University of Washington, so students experience strong
support as they transfer in to Shoreline and as they
transfer from Shoreline to other institutions. We
are also working on an articulation agreement with
Mayville State College in North Dakota, for an online
degree in Early Childhood Education, and hope to have
this in place within the 2008 calendar year.
We are working with our on-campus childcare facility
to develop a framework for a lab school on-campus.
The SCC Education Department is preparing the foundation
for curriculum development for the necessary coursework
to support this program. This will require a
combination of curricula review and update, new course
content, and new MCO's and master syllabi for the
selected courses to incorporate math and science content
into the education coursework. This program will
include lectures, workshops, and curriculum notebooks.
We will infuse the latest scientific content into two
specific courses (EDU 140 and EDU 150). We will
train six Parent Child Center (PCC) staff in these new
math and science courses to ensure that they will be
able to model infusion of this course content into the
child care center. The PCC is currently used to
provide observation for SCC Education Department
students doing their practicum and we plan to enhance
this role through these modifications.
We are excited about the Department of Early Learning
Initiatives, Thrive by Five, Washington Learns and see
these as important initiatives for the future.
Although we, at Shoreline, have not received any funding
or other incentives directly from DEL, we are hopeful
that as the State more fully develops the scope; they
will set aside the funding for the community colleges to
implement the empirical research, development of 'best
practices', curricula changes, and instruction that will
be necessary to fully implement such an ambitious
program. We understand that the Department of
Early Learning has indicated Requests for Proposals for
various grants through their 'Thrive to Five
Partnership' to move their initiatives forward. Based on
or successful experience with grants that were
forerunners to this initiative, we should be in a
competitive position. We hope to be able to have
sufficient time to respond to these grant opportunities
when they become available. We also see this as a
pivotal time to pursue federal and private sector grants
in education, but it is extremely difficult to invest
the intensive time necessary to write a successful grant
proposal while performing the responsibilities of
teaching full time.
We hope this provides a deeper understanding of our
Education Program, primarily the Professional Technical
component, and the increased work demands. We
believe that through our work at Shoreline, we have
demonstrated our ability, as a program to write, be
awarded, and manage significant grants that are useful
in Professional Technical Programs. However,
procuring funding, program management, combined with
full time instruction continues to require extensive
time, effort and flexibility. It is our hope to
find innovative ways to do all three functions without
overly taxing ourselves as faculty. Any support from the
Board of Trustees will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Tasleem Qaasim and Betty Peace Gladstone
Professor(s) of Education 1/23/08
Program
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Course
Descriptions |
Classes offered this quarter Designed to provide
students with a broad liberal arts background of study
during their first and second years of college with an
emphasis on education. The state's two-year and
four-year schools developed transfer agreements that
allow students from a community college to transfer at
least 90 credits (60 semester credits) to a four-year
college or university. The degrees satisfy some - or all
- general requirements for a bachelor's degree.
Professional-Technical Degree: Associate of Applied
Arts & Sciences Degree There are several areas of focus
for those interested in a professional-technical degree
that will take them straight to the workforce.
Faculty As a student at SCC, you will have the
opportunity interact directly with our outstanding,
award-winning faculty who are interested in your
education goals. >
List of Education Faculty/Staff
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