AE Phillips "Outstanding Educator" celebrated by the Ruston Kiwanis Club

The Ruston Kiwanis Club recently recognized outstanding contributors in the city including  one Oustanding Educator from our own COE, Mrs. Hayley Hay. As noted in the Ruston Leader, Hay, "was chosen because she was the most qualified recipient." Mrs. Hay currently teaches second grade at AE Phillips Laboratory School in the College of Education at Louisiana Tech University where she also serves on multiple committees including the After School Teaching Program and Crisis Management Team, to name a few.  To learn more about Mrs. Hay and the other recipients, check out the link below to the Ruston Daily Leader: http://rustonleader.com/node/66557

Donors Choose a LATECH COE Graduate to Support

Mrs. Tiph Sumrall, a Louisiana Tech University College of Education graduate and teacher at Buckeye Elementary, recently recieved funding on Donors Choose, a website for teachers to raise funds for important and engaging activities that may sometimes be costly. Through support from donors from around the region, including other Louisiana Tech University alumni, Mrs. Sumrall was able to purchase 17 stability balls to replace classroom chairs. By doing so, she hopes that her 1st grade students who often need to "jig...gle, bounce, or sway side to side" can stay focused and engaged during classroom activities. In addition, the replacement of the chairs with the balls will also," promote good posture, strengthen abdominal muscles, and improve circulation, balance, and coordination," according to Mrs. Sumrall. Congratulations on your award and your desire to truly serve the kiddos with whom you were entrusted to teach, Mrs. Sumrall!




To learn more about her project, you can visit her Donors Choose page:

http://www.donorschoose.org/project/freedom-to-move/1626056/?utm_source=dc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=feedback_proposalphotos&rf=email-system-2016-01-feedback_proposalphotos-donor&pma=true&pmaType=photos&pmaId=3031017&pmaHash=JH6JKoLV51oeBUTphfgTyg%3D%3D&lightbox=photoIndex0

Strong Evidence of COE and Lincoln Parish Schools Partnerships this Week

Only one day into a four day work week and only two weeks into 2016, our College of Education faculty at Louisiana Tech University are partnering with almost every elementary school in Lincoln Parish ! On Tuesday, January 19 the Department of Kinesiology, the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Leadership, and the new UTeachTech Program served more than 50 teachers and 60 University students through four separate professional development training sessions for staff and a STEM Day where UTeachTech candidates taught 30 fourth graders Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math for 8 hours! Literacy-focused professional development sessions were held at Glenview Elementary, Cypress Springs, and Dubach. Professional development sessions for physical education educators was held at Memorial Gym. UTeachTech STEM Day was held at AE Phillips Laboratory School. Faculty and staff involved in the events included Dr. Tammy Schilling, Dr. Jordan Blazo, Dr. Jean Chen, Dr. David Szymanski, Mr. Chris Campbell, Dr. Bill Deese, Mrs. Diane Madden, Mrs. Erika Jones, Mr. Glenn Larson, Dr. Kim Kimbell-Lopez, Dr. Carrice Cummins, Dr. Libby Manning, Dr. Jordan Glenn, Dr. Braden Romer, Dean Don Schillinger and Mrs. Lindsey Keith-Vincent. We also want to send a special thanks to Mrs. Cathi Cox-Boniol for her support of the UTT iniative through purchasing lunch through Project ACHIEVE, Joanne Hood at AE Phillips for the STEM day space and SciTEC in the COE for materials and support! Pictured are students from the Kinesiology training and the UTeachTech STEM Day.

COE Faculty Submit Research Proposal Requests Totaling More than 3 Million Dollars!

The College of Education has a history of submitting and being awarded millions of dollars in grant funding from a variety of sources to pursue unique research opportunities ranging from studies in biomechanics, curriculum development, informal learning, literacy, health, STEM, psychology, to studies of students with visual impairments and more. This past quarter has been particularly successful for our College of Education as a significant amount of funding has been awarded to COE faculty on a variety of proposals. Fourteen COE faculty were awarded or proposed research funding as leads or in collaboration with campus colleagues between July 2015 and December 2015 according to the OUR Breeze, a publication of Louisiana Tech University ( http://research.latech.edu/files/documents/winter_2015-16_breeze_newsletter.pdf) .
Some of the active COE researchers and PIs noted in the most recent Breeze included the following: Dr. Eddie Bell, Dr. Bryan McCoy, Dr. Braden Romer, Mrs. Lindsey Keith-Vincent, Dr. Carolyn Talton, Dr. Frank Igou, Dr. Mitzi Apter-Desselles, Dr. Steven Toaddy, Dr. Jordan Glenn, Dr. David Szymanski, Dr. Tammy Schilling, Dr. Kimberly Kimbell - Lopez, Dr. Carrice Cummins, and Dr. Libby Manning.  The total amount of new grants awarded with COE involvement was just at $600,000.00 from July 2015- December 2015. The total amount of new funds requested or proposed by a COE principal investigator or collaborator during the same period totals just at  3,100,000.00. The 3.1 million total requested included a 1.25 million dollar proposal by Dr. Eddie Bell for scholarships for teachers of students who are blind. Plus, additional grant funds were provided to COE collaborators for existing awards from July 2015- December 2015 that totaled almost $200,000.00! Great work, and thanks for all you do. We are looking forward to hearing about the pending proposals and to see what other great ideas and explorations/experiments you devise!

Dr. Rich Mancil Selected for the 2016 Regional Accelerator Program

The COE's Dr. Rich Mancil from the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Leadership was selected through a competitive process to be part of the Louisiana Tech University Enterprise Center's Accelerator Business Program under the Direction of Dr. Kathy Wyatt. The coach selected for Dr. Mancil to work with during the six month process is Tech's own Dr. Debbie Inman. Dr. Mancil was selected for his work in establishing the Autism and Behavioral Analysis Research Institute (ABARI) located in the College of Education at Louisiana Tech University. Participation in this select series will enable him to collaborate with educators and business leaders across the region to strengthen his organization and continue bringing great research activities and unique educational learning opportunities to our college. To learn more about the Accelerator program via a story released by LATECH's Dave Guerin and to learn more about the COE's newest educational research center, check out the links below!

http://news.latech.edu/…/i-20-corridor-regional-accelerato…/

http://www.latechaba.com/

Congratulations to the COE Endowed Professors and Chairs!

The College of Education is proud to announce the following Endowed Professorships and Chairs :

College of Education Endowed Professorship- Dr. Tilman Sheets
Elva Leggett Smith Endowed Professorship in Education- Dr. Walter Buboltz
Chase Bank Endowed Professorship in Education- Dr. Don Schillinger
Chester Ellis Professorship in Education-Dr. Mitzi Apter Desselles
James R. Mays Professorship- Dr. Amy Massey Vessel
Melvin McCann Professorship in Education- Dr. Tammy Schilling
Morelle Emmons Professorship in Education- Dr. Ida Chauvin
Herbert H. McElveen Professorship in Education-  Dr. Dawn Basinger
Eva Cunningham Professorship in Education- Dr. David Szymanski
Hubberd H. Velma Horton Boucher Professorship in Education- Dr. Kimberly Kimbell-Lopez
Mary Robin Dorsett Endowed Professorship in Education-Dr. Jeffrey Walczyk
Gerald and Shirley Cobb Endowed Professorship in the College of Education- Dr. Carrice Cummins
Roger Thomas Luffey Endowed Professorship in Education - Dr. Lanie Dornier
George and Jean Baldwin Endowed Professorship in Education-Dr. Donna Thomas

Congratulations to the awardees, and thanks to our generous donors who have made this possible! We appreciate all you do!

Quality Career Option - Guaranteed Employment

A few years ago Geneva Ellingson came to Ruston thanks to a job transfer from Starbucks. One day—while serving up lattes, mistos, and mochas—she got to talking with a customer about how she also came to Ruston in the hopes of a stable job. One thing led to another, and Geneva learned she was talking with Ruby Ryles, an instructor at La Tech’s Institute on Blindness.Geneva said she was fascinated by the idea of teaching blind people. For one, blind people who are out there living their lives are just interesting. Second, the job market for educators is pretty stable.

And, like most of you, she cared about one other thing......She wanted to impact individual students’ lives.

Like other students, blind kids need to learn to read; so, substitute braille dots for squiggly lines, and you’re teaching a blind kid to read. When learning to walk sighted children stumble all over themselves and bump into things; blind kids, too, learn to walk on their own safely by using a long white cane to find a clear path.

The most important thing to anyone pursuing a degree is a job.

Geneva’s story is not uncommon. Every month I receive at least two opportunities from employers who are desperate to hire qualified professionals to work with their students or adults. We at the [Institute on Blindness](www.pdrib.com) housed right here at LaTech, strive to provide our students with the most cutting-edge, thorough, and professional training programs to ensure that our students succeed after graduation. When you enroll or even just take a class with the Institute on Blindness, you will be learning from people who in many ways pioneered the field of teaching blind students. Many of us literally “wrote the book” and developed the certification exams that you’ll take. Life-changing, high-quality instruction is the norm in our classes. Your class next semester could lead you to a rewarding career where you aren’t stuck behind a desk all day.

We train three types of professionals who work either with students in school settings or adults who have recently lost their sight:

1. Teachers of blind students teach the skills of braille, assistive technology and problem solving.

2. Orientation and mobility instructors equip their students to travel safely, confidently and independently using a long white cane in familiar and unfamiliar environments.

3. Rehabilitation teachers are cross-trained individuals who are skilled in all aspects of blindness techniques, and they often work in folks’ homes, teaching them to manage their households independently.

 We believe that some of the best teachers for blind kids are blind adults. We have made it a point from the ground up that our programs are inclusive and built to be appropriate for blind or sighted teachers. If you are sighted, know that we would love to have you as well, and we will teach you what you need to know to supply your future students with the skills they need to succeed. If your current living situation makes it difficult for you to be on campus, you’ll be happy to know that our Master of Arts in Teaching program is almost entirely online. We have a number of classes—like our Braille 1 class, Braille 2 class and Assistive Technology class—conducted weekly via a video conferencing platform so that instructors can give students real-time feedback. We also schedule times for hands-on, long-weekend training sessions in Ruston for assistive technology and advanced braille training. Speaking of needing to work in less familiar environments, consider one of our graduates who graduated just a year ago. He’s already had more than a half-dozen job offers.There is a nationwide shortage of special education teachers trained specifically to work with blind children and adults.If you’re looking to apply your education degree with a master’s outside the field, consider our Master of Arts in Orientation and Mobility program. Instructors don’t only teach travel skills, they also build confidence and help people accept their blindness. This new program touches on some of the strategies and techniques that allow us to guide students toward this way of thinking. Regardless of the program that you choose, you will have the opportunity to go through what we call “immersion training.” You’ll spend six weeks as a student at the Louisiana Center for the Blind (www.louisianacenter.org) where you will take classes in braille, cane travel, home management, and assistive technology…and then you’ll tie all those skills together in the woodshop class.

Scholarships are available for incoming students in the orientation and mobility as well as rehab teaching tracks. We hope that this will help encourage you to consider joining us. We need blind and sighted mobility instructors who really believe in blind people and possess the skills to take their students on a journey from dependency to independence.I am eager to meet you. With a degree from us, I can virtually guarantee you that there will be a job opening in your area of expertise in the field of blindness. Give me a call or shoot me an e-mail, and together, let’s plan your master’s degree here at Louisiana Tech!

Dr. Edward Bell

Director PDRIB

ebell@latech.edu

3182572259

Kinesiology Professor Partners with Local School for Body Walk Event

Dr. Tammy Schilling, Melvin McCann Endowed Associate Professor in Education in the COE's Department of Kinesiology,  and undergraduate Kinesiology students will bring information about nutrition, biology, and healthy living to more than 550 3rd through 5th grade students in Lincoln Parish. More than 50 of the Louisiana Tech COE Kinesiology students from four classes will be running 11 stations from 8 am to 2pm on January 14. Cypress Springs teachers and students will participate not only in the activities on the 14th, but also have opportunities to use complimentary resources and activities before and after the special event. Students will also leave with a free activity book to share with their parents, explaining many of the concepts learned during the exciting event. As noted by Dr. Schilling, " There's no better way to start off a new year than with a collaborative project focused on health and nutrition that highlights the strong partnerships involving Louisiana Tech, Lincoln Parish, and community organizations!" Coach Jay Seal at Cypress Springs Elementary and partners at the LSU Ag Center have been instrumental in making this educational experience a reality. It will no doubt be an engaging, exciting, and informative experience. To learn more about The Body Walk, you can check out the following link: http://smartbodies.org/smart-bodies/louisiana-bodywalk .

AEP Bullpups Win Awards at the 2016 Teacher and Student of the Year Banquet!

Congratulations, AEP teachers and students honored January 7, 2016, by Lincoln Parish School Board and Project ACHIEVE! We in the COE are so proud of your hard work and outstanding accomplishments!

Casey Blalock-AEP Elementary Teacher of the Year
Mia Rabb-AEP Elementary Student of the Year and Runner Up for District Elementary Student of the Year
Alma Moegle-AEP and Lincoln Parish Middle/Junior High Student of the Year...
Haley Hay-AEP Early Grades Teacher of the Year and Lincoln Parish Early Grades Teacher of the Year Runner Up
Suzanne Tyler-AEP Middle/Junior High Teacher of the Year

COE Scholarship Deadline Extended

Don't forget that the COE deadline for scholarship application submission has been extended this year from December 31 to January 15 at 5 pm central.  We are very fortunate in our College of Education to have a large group of donors and supporters that want to help our students be successful! You have approximately one week left to complete and submit your applications. If you have questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Below are just a few of the many scholarships and endowments from our generous donors and friends in the COE that make these opportunities possible. A link to the webpage outlining the requirements for each scholarships follows: http://education.latech.edu/students/scholarships/list.php . Best of luck on your submissions!


Alex Laney Endowment
Ann Marilyn Melton Memorial Endowed Scholarship
Bessie Purdy Scholarship
Betty Edwards Owens Endowed Scholarship
Causey-Tanner Scholarship
Erma Flesher Memorial Scholarship
Elizabeth Morris Odom Endowed Scholarship
Emmons, Morelle and Trissielee Endowed Scholarship
Estelle Harris Memorial Scholarship
Evelyn Swihart Endowed Scholarship
F. Elizabeth Bethea Endowment
George Madden Lomax Scholarship
Gertie M. H.  & Eldrice H. Green Scholarship
Enid Gladden Butler Graduate Scholarship
James and Janis Pierce Endowed Scholarship
John Cawthon Scholarship
Knotts Memorial Scholarship
Lanette Southall Fisher Memorial Scholarship
Lu Iman Allen and Ann McCraw Stokes Scholarship in Education
Lucille Pierce Folk Endowed Scholarship
Mary Ann Smalling Scholarship (Kalil Scholarship)
Mary Ross Higginbotham Scholarship
Mary Wilson Scholarship
Miriam Davis Hogan Endowment
Pipes Memorial Scholarship
Ruston Sunrise Kiwanis Scholarship
Thomas Gaston and Hessie Gaston Watson Endowed Scholarship
Wilbur Bergeron Memorial Scholarship

 

Happy New Year !

 

Happy New Year to you from our LATECH College of Education!