Via Press Release

(Corvallis, OR)- The Chief Education Office will be co-hosting a Quality Teaching and Learning Summer Institute at Oregon State University (OSU) from June 23-27. The inaugural institute will focus on the development of teacher candidate skills that will prepare them to support students on meeting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The five- day institute will engage educator teams in rethinking approaches to most effectively support teacher preparation. Cohosts include the Oregon Department of Education and the Oregon Core to College grant.

Institutional teams representing major Oregon universities offering educator certification programs will be attending including: Eastern Oregon University, George Fox University, Oregon State University, Pacific University, Southern Oregon University, University of Oregon and University of Portland. Together these institutions prepared 44% of new Oregon teachers during the 2012-13 year.

“Charged with improving outcomes for students from birth to college and career, the Oregon Education Investment Board (OEIB) knows that the single-greatest in-school factor for student success is an educator” said Chief Education Officer, Nancy Golden. “The Summer Institute will create a focused and dynamic opportunity for the Network for Quality Teaching and Learning to bring educators together to reflect on, and refine their approach to preparing new teachers to effectively support student success.”

The Network for Quality Teaching and Learning was created by HB 3233 to strengthen recruitment, preparation, induction-year support, and ongoing professional development for Oregon’s educators. The Network empowers educators to help implement curriculum needed to support students‘ success, document the impacts on results and infuse current preparation programs with in-the-field practices that are working for Oregon’s students.

The institute will feature morning sessions in which arts and science faculty, educator preparation faculty, and K-12 school partners will observe and participate in lessons with middle school students.

Attendees will then use reflective discourse to determine core practices identified to successfully engage students and further learning.

The institute is designed around the tenet that teachers improve their instructional skill by engaging in the work of teaching. To facilitate that opportunity, more than 30 youth from the Lane Equity Achievement Project (LEAP) program will actively participate in portions of the institute. LEAP’s mission is to ensure that each child in Lane County has opportunities for intellectual growth and success regardless of their location or need. While on the OSU campus the attending LEAP students have a host of opportunities to explore the college and future careers.

“The Lane middle school students will have opportunities to experience some of the best that OSU campuses have to offer, said Nell O’Malley, Director of Education Licensure at OSU. “In addition to being part of the institute, students will participate in hands-on STEM activities such as robotics, tsunami and wave exploration, and computer animation. They will spend time at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center for remotely operation vehicles development and estuary investigations. Throughout the week students will be chaperoned by STEM students at OSU and campus leaders creating multiple opportunities to explore career pathways. ”

Each afternoon, scheduled sessions will be open to the public. Sessions will address recruitment and retention of culturally and linguistically diverse educators, the new performance assessment (edTPA) adopted by Teacher Standards and Practices Commission, recent results from statewide surveys of educators, and even a demonstration that uses avatars to help future educators practice classroom management skills. Materials will also be available online after the institute has concluded. For a full schedule of events and additional information on the institute, click here.

The Oregon Education Investment Board (OEIB) is chaired by Governor John Kitzhaber, and led by the Chief Education Officer. It was created in 2011 to oversee an effort to build a seamless, unified system for investing in and delivering public education from birth to college & career. OEIB is dedicated to building a student-centric system that links all segments of the educational experience together to ensure each student is poised for a promising future.