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ID 2050-A13 - SOC SCI RES-IQP: Worc Tech Teacher Prep: Special Topics: Educational Policy Comparisons

This guide will provide students with relevant resources related to ID 2050-Worcester Tech Teacher Prep

Educational Policy Comparisons (Assignment #3)

Assignment #3: Education Policy

Goal: To discover how education policies affect K-12 education and impact teaching (through a literature search) and to write up a section of the IQP report on education policies.

Learning Objectives:

• Examine recent key education policies:

  • MA Reform Act of 1993
  • Every Student Succeeds Act

• Utilize different databases, search engines, and other library resources to seek information and answer questions.

• Evaluate sources of information for credibility, reliability, objectivity, and timeliness.

• Synthesize information for written IQP report section.

• Cite references using APA format.

• Reflect on one’s disposition as a student teacher in the public school system.

1. Work with the WPI librarian, Jason Cerrato (jcerrato@wpi.edu), to utilize library resources to learn about a couple of specific education policies. You will write a short summary about these policies, and how they impact current education and teaching.

Please review how previous students affiliated with the WPI Teacher Prep Program (TPP) have integrated a similar assignment into their IQP report and ePortfolio. To find previous student examples, navigate to Digital WPI, search using the keyword “practicum,” and filter (left hand menu) for “IQPs”.

Submit your written summary and analysis of the education policies on Canvas. After getting feedback and doing possible revisions, you will have a section ready for your ePortfolio!

2. Read the first half of Chapter 3 – Dispositions in The Student Companion to Community Engaged Learning (pg. 30-39). Note how the author’s definition of “disposition” is like our framing of “positionality” – the lens (or filters) in which one sees and experiences the world, and "several dispositions simultaneously influence a person’s thoughts and actions."

Please write a reflection (~paragraph or more) that address the following:

a) Have you participated in any previous service or community-engaged experiences in high school or college? How have these experiences (including any of your Pre-Practicum experiences) shaped your teaching or the way you work with your students?

b) The author describes a well-intentioned tutoring program on page 36. Have you ever experienced or witnessed a situation similar (i.e., “savior complex”)? Regardless, what can you learn or take away from that case to apply to your own teaching?

c) What steps can you take during your practicum to "be open to the possibility that interactions and discourse with other people [students, teachers, families] could change the way you think about an issue or a group"?

US Department of Education Resources (Federal/ National):

  • National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) - The primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education.
    • Fast Facts
    • Data Tools
    • ED Data Inventory – “ED Data Inventory is to describe all data reported to the Department of Education, except for personnel and administrative data. It includes data collected as part of grant activities, along with statistical data collected to allow publication of valuable statistics about the state of education in this country. The ED Data Inventory includes descriptive information about each data collection, along with information on the specific data elements in individual collections. The search function is keyword-based, and collects results from the series, study, and variable levels of each data collection”.  See Data Inventory List.
  • Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) - Data from the 2000, 2004, 2006, 2009-10, 2011-12. 2013-14, 2015-16, 2017-18 CRDC surveys. Student enrollment, educational programs, services, by race/ethnicity, sex, limited English proficiency and disability.
  • ​Consolidated State Performance Reports - Required annual reporting tool authorized under Section 9303 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). 
  • Nation's Report Card - Presents data about the academic achievement of U.S students, drawn from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a congressionally mandated project administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).​
  • Common Core of Data—US Public Schools - Covers public elementary and secondary schools and school districts in the U.S. Data includes total student population, student population by grade, by race, by gender, as well as FTE classroom teachers, student/teacher ratio, and free lunch and reduced-price lunch eligibility. See Public School Search for specific schools.
  • Digest of Education Statistics - National data. Covers number of schools and colleges, teachers, enrollments, and graduates, in addition to educational attainment, finances, federal funds for education, libraries, and international education. 
  • Condition of Education - Participation in education, elementary/secondary, undergraduate education, learner outcomes, graduation/dropout rates, degree completions, education attainment. 1990-present. Earlier in print.
  • From the US Census: Education Data

Massachusetts Department of Education Resources (State):

Worcester Public School Information (Local)

 

Relevant Databases:

  • Databases by Subject: Education & Teaching (General)
  • ASEE PEER: PEER—Papers on Engineering Education Repository. A repository of papers from The American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) conference and meeting proceedings covering all topics related to engineering and computer science education.
  • ERIC: Abstracts on educational topics. Maintained by the Education Resources Information Center of the U.S. Department of Education. Full text non-journal documents issued 1993+ are available free.
  • JSTOR: Online archive of eBooks and complete back-runs of scholarly journals in a variety of academic fields.

Journals:

Publications:

Worcester Telegram and Gazette