Welcome to 2008-2009!

Photos by Mallory Mitchell (senior) and Marina Bonner (senior)

After a brief break to begin the fall semester, the East Carolina University Teaching Fellows & Maynard Scholars blog is back up and running! Expect updates every Wednesday morning covering a wide range of our activities as Teaching Fellows, Maynard Scholars, education students, and ECU Pirates!

Regular updates will begin next Wednesday, but here's a few snapshots of what you can expect to see written about over the next few weeks.

ECU Teaching Fellows & Maynard Scholars eagerly await the presentation of Paul Cuadros, author of A Home on the Field and speaker at this year's Dean Leadership Seminar.

The ECU Marching Pirates, boasting several Teaching Fellows and Maynard Scholars, performs at a home football game.

Studying Abroad in Finland, Part II

by Ashley Upchurch (rising senior)

Two months post-Finland and I’m just now realizing the reality of it all. I’m somewhere in the middle of risk-taker and couch potato; I’ll jump off a 30 foot waterfall, but the high ropes course scares me to death. So, Finland was a pretty big step for me and throughout the entire semester I would periodically pinch myself to see if I really was dreaming. I realize now that I did actually fly 3000 miles across the ocean and lived on my own for the first time, not to mention on my own in a foreign country. That’s the reality of my past five months. But, another reality has begun slowly to appear. I am behind by a full semester on course work.

I’m quite convinced that there are more detailed instructions on how to retrieve credits from a semester abroad than there are on a car engine assembly line. I’ve got four people currently working on getting my credits from Finland and I’ve personally talked to three of them on a pretty regular basis for the past two weeks. There was so much I could have done before leaving for Finland that would have made this whole experience a lot less difficult. But, being the procrastinator I am, I didn’t even decide to actually go abroad until about 3 weeks before my plane left. Needless to say, I was pretty unprepared and it showed when I returned to ECU short 18 hours. I highly recommend following instructions, planning ahead, and talking to your advisor and the International House as much as possible before you study abroad!

All the same, there’s nothing I’d trade for this trip abroad. I’ll definitely take all the headaches associated with it now. I couldn’t have asked for a better college experience than the one I found in Finland. From learning new ways to be a better educator to meeting amazing people I’ll never forget, Finland was worth all the paperwork and last minute deadlines.

Studying Abroad in Finland, Part I

by Ashley Upchurch (rising senior)

A year ago around this time, I was racing through Speight, the education building, trying to get ready to study abroad. At the time, I was too busy worrying over paperwork to stress about actually spending a semester in another country. Three months later, my paperwork was filled out and all I had to do was stop having nightmares about freak plane accidents or ending up in Siberia instead of Finland.

My fears were both sound and outrageous. First of all, who ever heard of a plane suddenly falling out of the sky, all its passengers dead upon impact in the Atlantic Ocean? Then again, how on earth does a giant piece of metal soar through the sky? Hadn’t anyone ever heard of gravity??? My anxiety didn’t end with the plane ride alone: I was going to Finland to live alone for my first time so far from home that it would take three trips across the US and back just to get there.

Finland, in my mind, was barren tundra full of man-eating moose and little to no civilization. Obviously, I was exaggerating: I knew moose didn’t typically eat people and if there was a place for me to study in Finland, there must be some people around. All the same, come July when everyone was pestering me over my plans the next semester, I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember why I’d chosen Finland of all places!

Brandi, the assistant director of International Relations at ECU, had somehow brainwashed me into thinking one of the northern most countries in the world where the average temperature doesn’t go above 55 (I have a deep and passionate dislike for cold weather, by the way) was a great place to study. She explained how she’d spent so much time there and personally attested to its beauty and enjoyable nature. She explained all of this to me that December. Seven months later, I was boarding a plane and still questioning both of our decision-making abilities. Little did I know that just a week after getting on that cramped plane in the RDU airport, I would find myself enjoying the best food I’d ever tasted, experiencing life as I’d never known possible, and meeting more interesting people than I could have ever before claimed!

Not Just Surviving, but Flourishing

by Kaleigh Klemm (May '08 graduate)

Most of you have by now probably heard how difficult student teaching is, either from other students or from your professors. If you are anything like I was, your stomach is churning just at the thought of managing and running your own classroom. However, as I find myself on the home stretch, I’ve taken a few minutes to reflect on those things that simplified my student teaching experience, and made it all the more enjoyable.

Planning is the area of teaching that originally gave me nightmares – I could just see it taking over my life. However, I’ve found that a good organizational method and a detailed plan book will take you far in your student teaching career. Because I like to see the big picture, I usually plan in units that take two to three weeks. I want to know before I even begin teaching a new concept where my students will be at the end and what they will have grasped. So before I even begin thinking of all the little details of each lesson, I write out a day-by-day outline stating what I plan on covering and the objective number. I can always add to this outline once I determine exactly how I want to teach each concept. It is then easy to take each day’s activities and write a lesson plan. Transferring the day-by-day outline into a plan book is also a breeze.

My next piece of advice involves utilizing those resources made available to you. This includes both material resources and people. I strongly recommend that you ask your clinical teacher for any files she has on whatever you are teaching. Even if your teaching style is different from your clinical teacher’s, he or she may still have helpful information, overheads, worksheets, or activities already available. Also, do not be afraid to ask your clinical teacher, other teachers, and other interns for advice. Everyone’s teaching style and classroom management style differs, so by discussing ideas and issues with them, you will acquire a vast wealth of knowledge that may be helpful not only during your student teaching, but also throughout your teaching career.

This brings me to my last suggestions: collaborate with the teachers on your team, in your grade, or in your subject area. We plan as a fourth grade team, and while I often plan activities for the whole team, they offer me guidance and often recommend activities that have worked well in the past. For instance, I talked with one of the teachers about possibly conducting an economy simulation, only to find out during team planning that another teacher had several resources for us to use. However, collaboration extends beyond just your team. By collaborating with the resource teacher, the special teachers, and the remediation teacher, you can guarantee the best education for your students. Collaboration also fosters a team mentality where everyone helps everyone else. Friendships stem from this attitude and result in a much more positive work environment.

I hope you will remember these few tips as you enter your Senior II semester. Find what works for you, and remember to begin each day with a fresh state of mind. Despite all the stressful moments, know that each day is a new adventure – an adventure that will lead you into the next chapter of your lives.

Junior Trip: New York City

by Kristen Hales (rising senior)

The Junior Trip to New York was a fabulous experience. Having never been that far north before, many of us weren't prepared for just how cold New York City can be! We left Greenville at a sunny eighty degrees, and reached NYC in time for a brilliant drizzly day and very cold weather. Luckily though, most everyone had checked the weather, and brought along coats and umbrellas.

After our preliminary tour, we were allowed to sight see and peruse the city for things to do. Groups went shopping, to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, China Town, the Empire State Building, museums, and Broadway shows. Teaching Fellows made sure we were well fed as well. The juniors and chaperons dined at Carmines on Thursday evening, where we were given an eleven course family style dinner fit to feed a king! Friday, we had another excellent dinner at Radio Perfecto in Harlem, and Saturday we dined at Carnegie Deli before going to see Mamma Mia, a musical based on the music of ABBA.

The trip home was enjoyable, but everyone was sad to leave the hustle and bustle of Times Square, which was less than a block from the hotel where we stayed. I know I speak for all of the Junior Class when we thank the Travel Committee and the office for providing us with excellent transportation, lodging, and entertainment in New York City!

Senior II Reflection: Special Education

by Hayley Flynn (May '08 graduate)

Over the course of the Senior II Student Teaching experience, it is expected that we all teach countless lessons across content areas, establish our own classroom management plan, and have contact with parents and families. In addition to such requirements, I have also created, implemented, and reported on an action research project.

As a Special Education major, it is required that I do an action research project. Action research is one way for teachers to make sure that they are practicing effective teaching methods that benefit their students. In beginning an action research project, the teacher must identify a problem, either behavioral or academic. The teacher must then identify an intervention, or a way to correct the problem. Research must be done on the chosen intervention by gathering information from sources including peer reviewed journals. Once a research based intervention is chosen, baseline data must be gathered. Baseline data is the student’s current level of function including the frequency of a given behavior or a group of scores on a test. At this time the intervention can be implemented. Throughout the intervention, it is important to gather data to chart the student’s progress.

This semester, I chose the topic of multi-sensory instruction to increase spelling scores of basic sight words. My baseline data showed that my students had difficulty spelling basic sight words. My intervention had the students go to multi-sensory based centers to work with a group of 10 basic sight words. In one center, students use whisper phones to spell words (auditory). In the second center, students use sand trays to spell out the words (tactile/kinesthetic). In the third center, students spell out words using magnetic lettering (visual). Prior to each center time, students are given a spelling test probe to chart their progress throughout the intervention. So far, the intervention is showing promise, specifically with students with learning disabilities.

Photos from the School of Art, 2007-2008

Photos by Robyn McLawhorn (rising senior)

Every year, undergraduates in ECU's School of Art and Design have many opportunities to show their work, in addition to the senior show each one of them will host. There are currently a handful of art education majors in the ECU TF/MS program, and they're all quite active in the SOAD community as well as in the TF/MS program.

Rising senior TF Sarah Wittmer, a former art education major who never quite could give up art & design courses after switching to history education, works at the Printmaking Guild's table at the annual School of Art and Design Holiday Sale. Each individual program in the School of Art has a Guild, which coordinates each program's extracurricular activities. About 10% of Holiday Sale sales go to the guilds, while the other 90% go straight to the artist.


Rising senior Robyn McLawhorn, an art education major, is doing her required concentration in photography but had great success in her metal design survey course as well. Her work was accepted to the spring SOAD Undergraduate Show, an annual extravaganza of the finest undergraduate art & design work.