Pa. Department of Education Officials Visit DeSales University
Two officials with the Pennsylvania Department of Education visited campus to highlight two state grants the University recently received.
Angela Fitterer, executive deputy secretary, and Carissa Pokorny-Golden, director of the Bureau of School Leadership and Teacher Quality, met with faculty and students in Dooling Hall to discuss DeSales’ education programs, as well as the newly awarded Aspiring to Educate: STEM/Computer Science grant and the Teacher Prep to Practice grant.
DeSales is the only institute of higher education in the Lehigh Valley to receive the grants, which aim to build and fortify Lehigh Valley teachers. Together, they total nearly $200,000 and span over the next two years.
The Teacher Prep to Practice grant will allow the education department to focus on recruiting new teachers to the workforce at the undergraduate, graduate, and adult studies levels, with an emphasis on attracting candidates from diverse backgrounds.
“There is a huge teacher shortage across all areas. It’s only predicted to get worse in the next few years,” said Katrin Blamey, Ph.D., chair of the education department and director of M.Ed. programs, who co-led the proposal along with Danielle Kearns-Sixsmith, Ed.D., director of field experiences.
The Teacher Prep to Practice grant focuses on three key areas: expanding dual enrollment with local high schools, connecting first-year students with teaching mentors from similar cultural backgrounds, and exploring yearlong student teaching rather than the current model of a single semester.
“The students talked a lot about their field experience. They’re getting into the field earlier, getting into different schools, and getting to interact and see educators do the important work. It’s helping them to be able to prepare for what that looks like and how they might react when they’re teaching professionally.”
For Ashlee Meeker, a second-year early childhood education major, the field experiences are the most important part of the program.
“We get a lot of information when we’re in the classroom,” she said, “but you don’t truly understand until you’re out there learning about students, where they come from, the different challenges they face, and the different school settings. Without these student teaching and field experiences, we wouldn’t be that prepared to actually go into the field.”
According to Blamey, the grant will allow DeSales to pay cooperating teachers to have a student teacher in their classrooms for an entire year. The University has partnered with the Bethlehem Area School District to pilot the initiative before rolling it out to other districts.
The Aspiring to Educate: STEM/Computer Science grant, which was authored by Kearns-Sixsmith, will allow the department to look into four areas:
- Funding scholarships for local teachers to receive their STEM endorsement through DeSales’ STEM endorsement program.
- Housing an AP Institute on DeSales’ campus where local teachers can train to teach the AP exam in calculus and computer science. The closest location is currently in Princeton, New Jersey.
- Gaining state approval to offer teachers a secondary certification in computer science for 7th-12th grades. If approved, DeSales would be among a handful of universities in the state to offer such a certification.
- Providing support and guidance to local schools that participate in the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science’s Science Fair.
“There are many capable educators in the Lehigh Valley who want and can aspire to be leaders of STEM education in our local area,” said Kearns-Sixsmith. “We want to provide opportunities to grow computational thinking and computer science, and with their help, we can.”
DeSales is one of only seven institutions of higher education in the commonwealth to receive the Aspiring to Educate grant.
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