May 2017 Newsletter

Deaf Studies holds event, “A Celebration of Intersectionality”

The Department of Deaf Studies held an event, “A Celebration of Intersectionality” on Tuesday, April 25th, 2017. For the celebration, we were fortunate to be able to host a Marlton School Art Exhibit that showcased over 30 different Deaf View/Image Art (De’VIA) artwork completed by Marlton school students. The center of the art exhibit was a set of 13 self-portraits in the tradition of a De’VIA artist, Nancy Rourke, that commemorated 200 years of American Sign Language in the United States (1817-2017).

Marlton School Art Exhibit – Self-Portraits by Marlton School students in the tradition of a De’VIA artist, Nancy Rourke to commemorate 200 years of American Sign Language in the United States

The Marlton School Art Exhibit was followed by a very inspiring presentation, “The Future is Female, Intersectional, and Deaf”, by Leah Katz-Hernandez. Leah’s presentation centered on her journey towards becoming the first Deaf Latina woman to serve as the West Wing Receptionist for the former President Obama– a position commonly known as ‘ROTUS’ or Receptionist of the United States. She thrilled the audience by sharing stories of her beginnings in politics starting with a volunteer position with the 2008 Obama-Biden campaign, and moving on to the Obama-Biden Inaugural team and then to the White House. She closed her presentation with several inspiring words of wisdom and encouragement, urging those wishing to pursue a career in politics to persevere and to not be afraid to reach out for support when needed.

Leah Katz-Hernandez in front of her last PowerPoint slide

Next Generation Science Standards Event

The Center for Teaching and Learning partnered up with the CA Teachers Summit: Better Together to host a free evening event on Wednesday May 10 at CHIME Charter K-8. This event was called "Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS): Preparing students for 21st century citizenship and careers".

The keynote speaker was Tara Tiger Brown, a science education and entrepreneur, who is also co-founder of LAMakerSpaces, Connecting Camps, and KitHub. Ms. Brown spoke about connecting STEM/STEAM learning to the real world. Following the keynote were four teachers who shared their various experiences working with NGSS and STEM/STEAM: Marty Eisen and Mel Zernow from Granada Hills Charter High School, George Cordova from Tacoma Elementary, and Lewie Chappelear from Monroe High School.

Those with questions can contact the Center for Teaching and Learning via email or phone: 818-677-7494.

View our event flyer (.pdf)

Education Week

This year the Michael D. Eisner College of Education and CSUN’s Career Center were thrilled to host the 1st Education Week at CSUN. This week in April was dedicated to showcasing education with events that were meant to inspire undergraduates about careers with purpose and even learn more about its various benefits such as long-term job satisfaction using relevant alumni data. In addition, this week included the Education Expo which connects our current students and recent alumni to meet and network with prospective employers eager to meet them.

The Education Week events included:

• Stand and Deliver, This classic movie based on the true story of Jaime Escalante, who inspired his students from the “barrio” to succeed, is inspiring. It shows how a teacher can have a profound impact on their students long after they graduate.
• Education Expo: Career Fair, Network with 60 school districts and educational organizations to highlight your work and gain employment.
• Credential Office Information Session
• Separating Fact From Fiction, A focused discussion utilizing CSUN alumni data that connects the dots on long-term career happiness and retention. This hands-on lecture led by Dr. Bettina Huber, Dr. Rick Moore and Dr. Kenneth Chapman, explores data that answers what is fact and fiction when considering an educational career.

View the full flyer here (.pdf)

Education on the Edge

The CSUN Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) held its most recent Education on the Edge event on April 3rd. The speaker discussed ways to reconnect children with nature and move away from too much screen-time. Scott Sampson, dinosaur paleontologist and host of the PBS TV series “Dinosaur Train,” talked about “How to Raise a Wild Child” in the Northridge Center of the University Student Union.

Though the Education on the Edge series is typically focused on educators and parents, this speaker also connected with students in the community. In the afternoon of April 3rd, Dr. Sampson presented on “Dinosaurs of the Lost Continent” to local middle school students from Vaughn Next Century Learning Center and CHIME Charter School.

Sampson is a dinosaur paleontologist, science communicator, museum executive and advocate for connecting people with nature. He is president and CEO of Science World at TEKUS World of Science, on of Vancouver, British Columbia’s most popular cultural attractions and a recognized leader in science learning.

CSUN Partners with North LA County Regional Center to Assist Families Impacted by Developmental Disabilities

The Family Focus Resource Center (FFRC) at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) has entered into a $476,175 contract with the North Los Angeles County Regional Center — a nonprofit organization that provides and facilitates support services for individuals and the families of people with developmental disabilities — to create a Family Empowerment Team in Action that will help underserved populations access the regional center’s resources.

The team features faculty members and students from CSUN’s Master of Social Work program and Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing working with an FFRC coordinator and a regional center representative to directly assist clients. It also will provide cultural sensitivity training for vendors of the regional center, as well as advocacy training to encourage clients to seek educational services. The program began in December 2016 and represents a collaborative effort between the regional center and CSUN’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Michael D. Eisner College of Education.

Read more on our website

Center for Teaching and Learning

The CSUN College of Education’s Center for Teaching & Learning continues to provide high-quality professional development to our local community! In the past months, the CTL has worked with Birmingham Charter HS, Granada Hills Charter HS, Hadden Elementary School, Sunland Elementary School, Stonehurst Elementary School, PASS (Primary Academy for Success) school, Placentia Yorba-Linda School District, Santa Ynez county, San Gabriel Valley SELPA, Palm Springs School District, Madera County, and even Mission College. If you would like more information about brining practical, knowledgeable speakers to your school or district, please contact Dr. Wendy Murawski at wendy.murawski@csun.edu or Steve Holle at holle@csun.edu or call the Center for Teaching & Learning at 818-677-7494.

CSUN Simulation Services

Faculty in the College of Education are talking about the CSUN Simulator. Shyrea Minton, from EPC, writes about her use of the system with her counseling students:

"After connecting with Sally Spencer last semester (fall 2016) for an observation of the CSUN Simulator, I had the opportunity to have my collaborative consultation class, EPC 621, engage in the simulation experience, and it was a tremendous learning opportunity for my students, and for me. I was pleasantly surprised at how simple the process was in terms of creating the scenario. I found it extremely helpful to have the brainstorming session with both Sally and Tori (Interactor) to generate the scenario. Further, it was an immense help to me to unpack the created content of the scenario to produce the learning objectives for the session, and agree on a schedule for the day.

The actual experience was a great way to assess students’ level of understanding of course content, while also observing their use of concepts and theory learned in class. What I particularly liked about this experience was that students were able to experience resistance and confrontation in the consultative process. I find this to be extremely valuable, as students often do not experience resistance or confrontation in consultation while they are trainees. I was very pleased to see students draw on the interpersonal skills that they have learned throughout the program, along with various techniques/strategies that we have reviewed throughout this semester to help them successfully navigate the consultation experience and multiple facets presented during the scenario. Further, it was wonderful to see students use the brain—their fellow students—during the simulation experience. The ability to consult with colleagues on the spot during a consultative experience is not something that is available when consulting with teachers and parents in the field, so this experience was an excellent way to allow students to draw on knowledge from colleagues who were observing. Students also reported how beneficial they found the experience to be, because it allowed them space to practice.

I am looking forward to using CSUN Simulation Services as part of this course going forward, and I am actively assessing which classes may be enhanced by engagement with the simulation software. Thank you to Sally and the team for making the simulation available to our students, and I highly recommend that others take advantage of the excellent learning tool.”

Dr. Shyrea Minton, EPC

Fourth-Annual Rally in the Valley Held in the CSUN Matadome

California State University, Northridge Colleges of Engineering and Computer Science and Education hosted the fourth-annual Rally in the Valley event on Saturday, May 6th in CSUN’s Matadome. The event organizers, Professor Susan Belgrad from the Michael D. Eisner College of Education and Dr. Li Liu, College of Engineering and Computer Science and Education worked with professors in both colleges to offer an additional STEM Student Showcase that engages the elementary school students not directly engaged in robotics to show their research into the many ways that technology and engineering add value, innovation and invention to our daily lives.

The robotics coopertitions featured at the Rally this year engaged over 400 elementary school students from the San Fernando Valley and beyond in several STEM-related projects. The events included student engineered and programmed LEGO Mindstorm EV3 robots that competed in Follow- the-Line, Obstacle Course, NASA Space Challenge, TEAM Talk and the popular SUMO challenge.

Co-sponsored by LAUSD, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and funded by PP&G Aerospace Learning and Development and the NASA-EPDC grant, the educators whose school teams participated have worked tirelessly to help their young STEM learners design, build and program their bots. The students have worked to acquire programming abilities as did not know the Obstacle Course Challenge until they arrived on the day of competition. Dr. Susan Belgrad offers high praise to the originator of the RIV, Dr. Jawa, a professor of engineering at Cal Poly Pomona who created the REAL robotics challenge for elementary schools within the university's service area. Educators at Stanley Mosk Elementary deployed their student teams at this competition and left with trophies the first two years they competed. With CSUN's support they held their first school-wide event in 2015 that convinced CSUN to bring the event to its campus for deployment across CSUN's service area. Stanley Mosk was recognized by LEGO Education last year as one of only two LEGO Education Model schools and funded teacher Oscar Rios to lead training. David Garringer, Assistant Principal has been an avid and indispensable organizer and supporter of provider during the year-round planning and implementing of the RIV event.

Read more and see pictures on our website

CTL Partner School Awarded the California Gold Ribbon

The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is proud to announce that one of its partners, Granada Hills Charter High School (GHC), has been awarded the California Gold Ribbon Award in recognition of the outstanding performance of its students in both English and math. The announcement was made last week in Sacramento by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson “All of us at Granada Hills Charter High School are honored that the state has recognized the tremendous success of our students and the hard work of our teachers and support staff,” said Executive Director Brian Bauer. “This award recognizes the dedication of everyone in the Granada Hills Charter family: students, teachers, staff and administrators. All of them are essential to providing the high-quality education The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is proud to announce that one of its partners, Granada Hills Charter High School (GHC), has been awarded the California Gold Ribbon Award in recognition of the outstanding performance of its students in both English and math. The announcement was made last week in Sacramento by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson “All of us at Granada Hills Charter High School are honored that the state has recognized the tremendous success of our students and the hard work of our teachers and support staff,” said Executive Director Brian Bauer. “This award recognizes the dedication of everyone in the Granada Hills Charter family: students, teachers, staff and administrators. All of them are essential to providing the high-quality education our community deserves.”

To earn a Gold Ribbon, high schools must exceed state averages for student performance on California's Smarter Balanced Assessments. Along with measuring student performance, the California Gold Ribbon Schools Program also judges a school’s success in implementing a range of educational policies and programs, including local accountability plans. The Gold Ribbon program replaced the Distinguished Schools award, which honored schools based on student outcomes measured through standardized tests.

Read more on our website