Get support from our SJSU Lurie College Career Center Counselor, Christine Bautista, during the Fall 2021 semester!
To schedule an in-person appointment – Mondays, 1-2:30pm – or virtual appointment – Wednesdays 1:30-2:30pm – login to Spartan Connect, select Career as service unit or email christine.bautista@sjsu.edu.
SJSU faculty interact with a small child in the Lurie College’s Child Development Laboratory Preschool in Feb. 2020. Photo by Bob Bain.
This story was originally published by Julia Halprin Jackson on the SJSU Newsroom blog.
Whether you’re a K-12 educator, caregiver or parent, this fall promises more than the usual back-to-school excitement and anxiety. Nearly 18 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, caregivers and educators must, once again, evaluate how to safely interact with learners while feeling the pressure to make up for lost time.
As the spouse of a high school teacher and mother to a kindergartner and a 1-year-old, I’m all too familiar with these concerns. While I’ll feel better once my kids can access a vaccine, I am still eager to usher them both into classrooms of some kind next week. Like many of my peers, I have way more questions than answers.
This summer, she offered a webinar on considering community and trauma as part of Lurie College’s K-12 Teaching Academy. She was kind enough to answer my questions — and yes, lower my blood pressure — about preparing for school in a COVID world.
How can schools, educators and parents prepare students for returning to a classroom environment?
Lara Ervin-Kassab (LEK): Everyone has experienced some level of trauma during the pandemic, and we need to acknowledge that in others and in ourselves.
First, this is an opportunity for us to step back and ask, what is really worthwhile in education? What is the actual purpose of this whole process? What do we really want it to do?
Then, we can reprioritize and open up dialogues around how we make schools a place where everyone feels supported coming out of this traumatic experience. How can we make schools a place where everyone’s humanity is acknowledged and engaged and their interests are being heard?
How have districts addressed some of these concerns?
LEK: Several of our local districts and parent-teacher associations have started these conversations about what we want schools to look and feel like. At least one district has moved toward offering an in-house online school for parents and students who may have concerns about going back to face-to-face. That, again, is an opportunity to look at making sure our educational system is thinking about everyone’s needs and how those can best be supported.
How has COVID-19 affected how teachers design and implement curriculum?
LEK: I teach a course in classroom management for pre-K and K-12 teachers. I’ve also been researching how teachers should continue to use technology.
I think there has been resistance to changing some of the ways we teach in order to better utilize technology, and COVID either reinforced resistance to the tech or helped teachers overcome their fears. A lot of us used tools we never used before, and the ways we used those tools caused us to reflect on how we’ll continue to use them moving forward.
For instance, I feel strongly that all student voices need to be heard. In a face-to-face classroom, you have students who may never speak, who may not raise their hands or who may feel really uncomfortable engaging that way. Since teaching online, a lot of the students who usually don’t want to raise their hands or speak out loud were very engaged through the virtual chat feature.
So, going forward, how can I still provide my students with that ability to be a part of the conversation through chat once we’re back in a face-to-face environment?
Many of my teaching colleagues have provided their students with options to do videos or podcasts in lieu of more traditional assignments. This semester will be a test case for what sticks and what doesn’t, not only in K-12, but in education writ large and even in the corporate world.
As COVID protocols continue to shift and the Delta variant poses a threat this fall, how can teachers manage their own stress, mental health and well-being as well as that of their students?
LEK: I recommend teachers and parents look into the Center for Reaching and Teaching the Whole Child, which was founded by Emerita Professor of Elementary Education Nancy Markowitz. It is grounded in the idea of helping the whole person learn. It’s very integrated with social emotional learning — helping our students learn to engage socially to understand and regulate their own emotions.
This is especially important after more than a year of being isolated from other people. With every class I teach, whether in person or online, I start with a short mindfulness activity that helps reinforce how to breathe and sit in the present.
The center has a great teacher competency anchor framework that reminds teachers to do the work alongside their students. So, for teachers and parents alike, if you take a few minutes to practice mindfulness with your kids, remember to practice it yourself. These activities are very helpful when you or your kids are feeling overwhelmed.
What main message do you have about returning to school, whatever it looks like, in 2021?
LEK: Be patient. Be kind to yourself and to all the people around you.
Take this uncertainty and find ways to embrace your creativity. This year is an opportunity for us to acknowledge the discomfort, and with that, we can either push back and close down, or we can say, “This is uncomfortable. What do I need to do to make it better? How creative can I be right now? How can I think of how these possibilities could recognize our diversity?”
What’s one tip you’d give every parent and teacher?
LEK: When you’re not sure about something, ask the children and listen to their answers. Because even children as young as 2 or 3 years old have a really good sense of what they need. They may not have the vocabulary for it, and they may not be able to distinguish between what they want and what they need, but if you have a conversation with them, you can begin to understand what they need.
Watch Ervin-Kassab’s 2021 K-12 Teaching Academy webinar, “Considering Community and Trauma,”for more resources for teachers, caregivers and parents.
Stay connected to helpful online resources as we head into the Fall 2021 semester! Here are some initial Lurie College of Education and SJSU resources:
Congratulations to Teacher Education alumni Erin Enguero, who was one of four CSU alumni featured on the CSU website as part of their ‘Cheers to the Class of 4 Million’ series!
Advice for graduates: “There are a lot of people … [who] pursued one thing, and it turned out not actually being where they end up. That’s something important to tell students, because you’re stressing so much about, ‘What am I going to major in? What school am I going to go to?’ And really, I think it’s a matter of keeping your mind open and being OK with where you end up.”
When Erin Enguero started her kinesiology degree at San José State, she was on track to graduate and head into physical therapy school. And she did just that in 2016—though after one semester of PT school, she realized it wasn’t what she wanted to do and left the program.
“That was really hard for me because I was so used to having this to-do list, and suddenly I didn’t know what was next,” she says. “There’s a part of me that looks back that wonders what would have happened if I spent a gap year trying to gather things up and reflect where I am in my life instead of rushing ahead. And now that I’ve gone through everything, I think it’s a good thing to give oneself time to think about what they’re doing.”
During a year and half of figuring out her next step, Enguero applied to a job as a gymnastics coach for children with special needs and later an assistant children’s librarian. Through these experiences, she realized her desire to work with children and began taking early childhood classes at a local community college. In 2019, she returned to SJSU to earn her master’s in education and a teaching credential.
“I knew SJSU had a focus on social justice and equity, which is really important to me,” she says. “Having grown up with hearing loss and learning to be an advocate for myself and others, returning back to my alma mater was like finding that missing piece in the puzzle.”
While the program included two semesters of student teaching, Enguero extended her time student teaching to work with her supervisors and mentors on solutions to help her adapt to the classroom environment. Following her December 2020 graduation, she’s been applying to positions in elementary and middle schools.
“I decided to go into teaching hoping I could help kids think more about what it means to be an empathetic citizen, someone who can be successful, who could use their talents and abilities in a way that best reflects who they are and what they could do for themselves and, one day, their community,” Enguero says.
Shoutout to Teacher Education faculty Brent Duckor and Carrie Holmberg, who co-published “Understanding Pre-Service Teachers’ Formative Feedback Practices in Elementary, Middle & High School Classrooms in High Needs Contexts.” Access the brief on the California Teacher Education Research & Improvement Network (CTERIN)FOCUS website.
Our innovative SAGE in Teacher Education programs create opportunities for SJSU undergraduate students to enroll in Credential and Masters programs while simultaneously completing their final three semesters of their undergraduate degrees. These programs offer SAGE scholars a combined pathway of theory, practice, and K-12 subject matter. The programs integrate these three legs of teaching early and often, and give scholars ample time to assimilate the linkages prior to when they are required to demonstrate understanding and skills through student teaching.
Benefits of Enrolling in a SAGE Program
Reduced economic barriers to entering into a graduate program
No application fee for graduate program
Fewer total units in combined SAGE program than completing each program separately
Shorter timeline to earning credential and master’s degree
Enhanced professional development
SAGE Programs Accepting Applications in Fall 2021 for a Spring 2022 Start
Our Credential Services Office is now located in Sweeney Hall (SH) 445! Stop by during their normal office hours for support with applying for your credentials and learn more about their resources and services at sjsu.edu/education/academics/credentials
Abby Almerido | Coordinator, Workforce Development and Organizational Culture | Santa Clara County Office of Education | Twitter: @abbyinprogress
Description
Culture eats strategies for breakfast! Hold an SEL-compass toward stronger working relationships and collaboration by weaving in opportunities for your learners to learn and share about who they are. Leave with a toolkit of activities to try Monday and a deeper understanding of the power of seeing and being seen by others.
Emma Pass | Middle School Language Arts Teacher, PSD Global | Consultant, Empowered Edu | Twitter: @emmabpass
Description
As teachers prepare to return back to the classroom, we will return, not as the teachers who began remote learning last year, but as teachers fully changed. We have adopted new tools and technologies, rethought assessment and instructional strategies, and had a glimpse into student home lives and gained insight in the importance of social and emotional learning. In this session we will reflect on a year of teaching and learning through the COVID pandemic, and determine what to take back with us to the classroom to be better educators than before.
Julia Duggs | Ethnic Studies teaching candidate | SJSU Lurie College of Education
Victoria Durán, PhD | Social Science teacher | Overfelt High School
Marcos Pizarro, PhD | Associate Dean | SJSU Lurie College of Education | Twitter: @sjsulurie
Luis Poza, PhD | Assistant Professor, Teacher Education | SJSU Lurie College of Education | Twitter: @luisepoza
Description
This presentation brings together SJSU faculty and practicing Ethnic Studies teachers to deepen participants’ understandings of the purposes and core principles of Ethnic Studies teaching alongside examples from classroom practice. Webinar participants will have the opportunity to learn about the documented benefits of Ethnic Studies for students (regardless of racial and ethnic background) as well as specific culturally responsive curriculum activities that afford student agency, community engagement, and meaningful social analysis as part of students’ academic and personal development. Such activities include Youth Participatory Action Research, student counterstories and testimonios, and an in-depth look at a multi-faceted unit of instruction implemented in the 2020-21 academic year that fostered healing, home and community connections, and students’ “freedom dreaming” — collective envisioning of a more just society.
Robert Marx, PhD | Assistant Professor | SJSU Lurie College of Education | Twitter: @RbrtMrx
Frank J. Peña | Outreach and Speakers Bureau Coordinator | The LGBTQ Youth Space
Description
For some trans and genderqueer students, returning to in-person school may bring anxiety, fear, and expectations of victimization. For others, though, school may be the sole safe haven from an unsupportive home environment. This webinar, therefore, will provide the knowledge and skills needed to establish or enhance affirming and supportive classroom and extracurricular spaces, with a specific focus on practical steps to foster gender equity and inclusion. The presenters bring their experience teaching high school English, serving as a GSA advisor, providing direct community support to teachers and LGBTQ+ youth in the Bay Area, and conducting research with trans and genderqueer adolescents about their families, schools, and communities.
Wanda Watson, EdD | Associate Professor | SJSU Lurie College of Education | Twitter: @wawatty
Description
This session explores how TK-5th grade teachers launch the school year with three main interrelated goals at the forefront: Building a classroom community that humanizes students and values their intersectional racialized identities, particularly those from Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian backgrounds; Learning about students’ strengths, interests, experiences, and barriers to learning; Integrating students’ funds of knowledge and community cultural wealth into Ethnic Studies and Anti-racist curricular and pedagogical practices to facilitate liberatory student learning.
Eric Cross | 7th Grade Science Teacher | Albert Einstein Academies | Twitter: @sdteaching
Description
In The Next Normal we will reflect on lessons learned from the prepandemic era of teaching and provide practical strategies to restore an equitable classroom community while supporting teacher wellness.
On Friday, July 30, join Teacher Education faculty Brent Duckor and Counselor Education faculty Lorri Capizzi at the online CCOG Educator Summit, where we will feature Dr. Erika Zepeda, Educational Psychologist and CCREE consultant, in our breakout session “Using Trauma Informed Approaches in a Post-Pandemic Classroom for Students in Foster Care and Youth Experiencing Homelessness.” Dr. Zepeda will provide educators with “on-the-ground” tools to assess and support students transitioning back into the classroom in a post-pandemic world. Dr. Zepeda will include her experience in working with culturally diverse communities and in identifying student protective and risk factors through a trauma informed approach for all students and in particular for students in foster care and youth experiencing homelessness. Register to attend the summit by Thursday, July 15, by completing this Google form.
Lara Ervin-Kassab, EdD | Assistant Professor | SJSU Lurie College of Education | Twitter: @drlarakassab
Description
As we return to both face to face and blended classrooms, we need to explore how we are (re)building learning communities, relationships, and safety in our classrooms. This presentation will be an interactive exploration of digital and analog approaches and tools for building relationships with and between students. We will explore the need to critically analyze our own practices and schooling norms so that school becomes a place of healing, rather than perpetuating and compounding the traumas all of us have experienced over the past year and a half.
Chassidy Olainu-Alade | Coordinator of Community and Civic Engagement | Fort Bend Independent School District | Twitter: @ChasAlade
Description
Parent engagement has always been a top ranking tenant of successful K-12 education systems. Effective parent engagement practices benefit students as school-to-home connections promote positive reinforcement of knowledge and skills, allow for extension of learning, and develop mutual support around discipline and expectations. Additionally, the broader community provides schools and teachers with the resources, expertise, and volunteerism to achieve their goals. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, common methods of parent and community engagement included a variety of face-to-face events, in-person opportunities, and one-way communications. Since the pandemic, the ways in which teachers engage parents, families, and the community has shifted to practices that are more inclusive, flexible, and creative in nature. This session will allow participants to walk away with a deep understanding of the role that parent, family, and community engagement plays on the classroom environment and school culture. Participants will understand methods of engaging parents in a post-pandemic school setting and be provided with some best practices for developing two-way communications and collaborations with parents, all the while navigating new modes of 21st century learning, anti-racist curriculum implementation, and meeting the needs of diverse learners.
Betina Hsieh, PhD | Associate Professor of Teacher Education | California State University Long Beach | Twitter: @ProfHsieh
Description
How can we stay connected with our own humanity and that of our students after a year of distance learning? In this interactive presentation, educators will gain a sense of how humanizing pedagogies can be at the core of disciplinary learning and how we can invite students to share their identities, cultures, and experiences using digital tools and multiple modalities to support inclusive, community-grounded instruction in classrooms.
Tammie Visintainer, PhD | Assistant Professor Science/Teacher Education | SJSU Lurie College of Education | Twitter: @tavisint
Description
The intersecting COVID-19 and racial injustice crises have re-exposed the interwoven social, racial, political, and economic dimensions of educational opportunity and the injustices laid bare are many. This workshop will empower educators across disciplines from kindergarten to college as designers and leaders, who have the opportunity to transform inequitably designed education systems by radically reimagining and building learning environments from a foundation of human dignity and respect.
This workshop focuses on the design of equitable, inclusive, and justice-centered learning environments through the creation of design principles. Design principles serve as tenets for pedagogy and practice and as guidelines for the design of future learning experiences. To support this, I will draw from my experience as a science teacher educator and learning scientist exploring race, identity, and learning in science education; a professional pathway built from Black brilliance, generous mentorship, and the wisdom of scholars of color. As such, the workshop will engage in reimagining efforts that center the transformative and sustaining practices of Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other scholars of color who inspire the education community to approach teaching and learning from new ethical and pedagogical imaginations.
Workshop attendees will be introduced to design principles and guided through the construction process through an example from my secondary science methods course where teacher candidate’s construct Design Principles for Teaching (Science) for Equity and Inclusion. While science is the focal example, educators from any discipline are encouraged and welcome as this practice is widely applicable. Educators will leave the workshop with an expanded understanding of how to design learning environments that affirm and sustain the identities of minoritized students in/outside of science. This workshop offers hope and possibility for learning communities during the present crises and a reimagining of what they can become moving forward.
Maria Nichols | Author and Literacy Consultant | Twitter: @marianichols45
Description
Talk has the potential to transform classroom culture, literacy learning, and children’s identity – both individually and collectively. Building a culture of talk creates joyful, engaging space for students to think and construct together. This session will create a vision of classrooms alive with talk, and offer strategies for launching talk, and developing the kind of thoughtful, authentic facilitation that honors student’s intellect, teaches into meaning making as a process, honors unique understandings, and helps each student realize the power of their own voice.
Teachers can assign and students can submit, but the real learning comes from the discussions we have in a classroom. It’s in those talks that the mix of content and life skills come alive and not only show students’ true understanding but pushes them to consider other perspectives. Classroom discussions are the perfect foundation for the society we hope to see in our future and we’ll all need to practice how to speak to one another after a year of distance and change.
Rafael Rodriguez | Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports Specialist | Santa Clara County Office of Education | Twitter: @SCCOE
Jessica Simpson | Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports Specialist | Santa Clara County Office of Education | Twitter: @SCCOE
Description
We are at a unique point along the pathway towards rebuilding educational culture. The past year has repeatedly demonstrated that individual educators are pivotal in both the physical and the social-behavioral health and wellbeing of our students and families – what if we could intentionally design activities and strategies that each educator could adapt in order to create more inclusive environments for all students? Participants will have the opportunity to learn how (and why) to incorporate social-behavioral instruction and practice into the initial weeks of school. Participants will also explore how to incorporate identity building, precorrection (both social-behaviorally and academically) and relationship skills with the Positive Greetings at the Door intervention (Cooke, et. al).
We established our free K-12 Teaching Academy in Summer 2020 to support current teachers, teacher candidates, and community partners in transitioning to online teaching as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, our webinar recordings have been viewed nearly 25,000 times and our series has been highlighted on ABC7 News, EdSource, and the COVID-19 CA website.
Join us from Monday, June 28 – Thursday, July 8, for our free Summer 2021 K-12 Teaching Academy webinars, which will feature teachers, administrators, professors, and other practitioners and focus on relevant topics regarding returning to a “new normal” in classrooms in Fall 2021. Sessions include:
Week(s) of Welcome: Intentional, Inclusive Relationships Start Here
The Discussion-based Classroom
Talk as Transformation: Building Equity, Agency and Joy in the Elementary Classroom
Reimagining K-16 (Science) Teaching and Learning During a Time of Crisis: Transforming Learning Environments Through Justice-Centered Instructional and Pedagogical Design
Centering Humanity Through Identity-Informed Collaborative Notebook Activities
Better Together: Partnering with Families and the Community for Student Success
Considering Community and Trauma
The Next Normal: Reimagining Next Year’s Classroom
Bringing Our Humanity to the TK-5 Classroom Through an Ethnic Studies Stance
Queering the Classroom to Foster a Safe and Inclusive Environment: Lessons from Research and Practice
Freedom Dreaming: Ethnic Studies Teaching in the Secondary Grades
Bring it Back to the Classroom: What Did We Learn From a Year of COVID?
Building Culture and Community One Story at a Time
Shoutout to Teacher Education faculty Brent Duckor and Counselor Education faculty Lorri Capizzi, who co-presented the webinar “How can Teachers, School Counselors, & Administrators support educational outcomes for students in foster care during extraordinary times?” as part of their SJSU Center for Collaborative Research Excellence in Education (CCREE) and in collaboration with the CSU Center for Closing the Opportunity Gap (CCOG). Watch the recording of the webinar below.
We established our free K-12 Teaching Academy in Summer 2020 to support current teachers, teacher candidates, and community partners in transitioning to online teaching as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, our webinar recordings have been viewed nearly 25,000 times and our series has been highlighted on ABC7 News, EdSource, and the COVID-19 CA website.
We hope you’ll join us from Monday, June 28 – Friday, July 9 for our next series of free K-12 Teaching Academy webinars. Our upcoming series will focus on returning to a “new normal” in classrooms in Fall 2021. Visit sjsu.edu/education/community/k12-academy to fill out our interest form if you’d like to receive an email notification when our schedule of summer 2021 webinars becomes available.