Continued Thinking about our Work Together

Hello Everyone,

I hope this note finds you all well. It is often that those of us that worked with you this past summer find ourselves thinking about and discussing the tremendous amount of work we were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. I believe this is true because of your continued commitments, both individually and collectively, to reflecting on what it means to be an effective teacher. As I reread your blog postings from your time here, I'm reminded of how this kind of purposeful thinking and reflection influences how we are constantly improving ourselves in our work with students. Thank you all for this reminder. It is part of what makes me continue to do the work that I do.

With this in mind, and now that you've had some time to return to your normal lives and process your time with us, I'd like to ask you all to take one more opportunity to reflect on the work that we did during your summer experience at Eastern Washington University. Towards the end of our program, each of you responded to prompts on this blog that asked you to specifically address the main issues that we focused on during the program. The blog prompts were titled Socio-Economic Status and Education, Disability and Education, English Language Learners and Education, Race/Ethnicity and Education, and Culture and Education. These seem like natural places to return to at this point. I'm asking that each of you revisit these prompts and your responses to them. Then, after you've reaquainted yourself with the prompt and your response, choose one that you think you might answer differently now. In the "comment" section of the prompt that you've decided to focus on, please provide some detail about how your thinking has changed or progressed since you first wrote your original response to the prompt. What would be different about your response now? What has influenced this change? Why is this reflection meaningful or important?

I truly believe that this type of continued reflection makes us stronger educators. I appreciate you taking the time to participate in this process with us. I look forward to reading your new comments to the prompts and hearing about all of the amazing work each of you are doing in your home countries and beyond.

With great affection,

Sean W. Agriss
2011 EWU Pathways Project Coordinator
sagriss@ewu.edu

Culture and Education Blog Prompt

Hello All.

I'm posting our last written blog prompt relating to our experiences thus far. As a reminder, these prompts are meant to provide each of you with an opportunity to further reflect on our coursework, our school visits, and our cultural visits. Please answer this prompt on your own blog site, and give it the title "Culture and Education."

Thinking about our visits to Holmes Elementary, Global Neighborhood, the Refugee Parent's Panel, Jacob's Well, the Salish Language Workshop, the Julyamsh Powwow, the American Indian Education Center, Riverfront Farms, Great Northern School District, and what we've been discussing in our academic classes, what did you discover about how cultural background affects students' success in school? In what ways is this similar to your home country? In what ways is this different than in your home country? As an educator, how do you understand your role in assisting students from a variety of cultural backgrounds to be successful in school?

As always, please feel free to view one another's posts and comment on what is written. Thanks again to you all for all of your hard work.

Sean Agriss

Race/Ethnicity and Education Blog Prompt

Hello Once Again.

It has been a joy spending time with you these past few weeks. I'm posting another blog prompt relating to our experiences thus far. As a reminder, these prompts are meant to provide each of you with an opportunity to further reflect on our coursework, our school visits, and our cultural visits. Please answer this prompt on your own blog site, and give it the title "Race/Ethnicity and Education."

Thinking about our visits to Holmes Elementary, Global Neighborhood, the Refugee Parent's Panel, Jacob's Well, the Salish Language Workshop, Riverfront Farms, and what we've been discussing in our academic classes, what did you discover about how race and ethnicity affects students' success in school? In what ways is this similar to your home country? In what ways is this different than in your home country? As an educator, how do you understand your role in assisting students from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds to be successful in school?

As always, please feel free to view one another's posts and comment on what is written. Thanks to you all for all of your hard work.

Sean Agriss

Participation Survey

Hello All.


As part of our effort to make the EWU Pathways experience as valuable as it can possibly be, we have developed a few surveys where you have the opportunity to provide us with feedback about the program. Could each of you take a few minutes to complete the participation survey by Friday, 8/12. The link below will redirect you to the survey. Thank you again for all of your hard work and for your feedback. 


http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/26JM38V


Sean Agriss

English Language Learners and Education Blog Prompt

Greetings.

I hope that everyone is doing well and is enjoying our Eastern Washington summer. I'm posting another blog prompt relating to our experiences thus far. As a reminder, these prompts are meant to provide each of you with an opportunity to further reflect on our coursework, our school visits, and our cultural visits. Please answer this prompt on your own blog site, and give it the title "English Language Learners and Education."

Thinking about our visits to Global Neighborhood, the Refugee Parent's Panel, Jack Anderson at Kennewick Public Schools, Mea Moore at the Professional Educator Standards Board, Jacob's Well, the Salish Language Workshop, and what we've been discussing in our academic classes, what did you discover about how English language learning affects students' capacity to be successful in school? In what ways is this similar to your home country? In what ways is this different than in your home country? As an educator, how do you understand your role in assisting students who are language learners to be successful in school?

Reading your responses thus far has been great. As always, please feel free to view one another's posts and comment on what is written.  Thanks to you all for all of your hard work.

Sean Agriss

Disability and Education Blog Prompt

Hello Again Everyone.

As promised, here is another blog prompt relating to our experiences thus far. As a reminder, these prompts are meant to provide each of you with an opportunity to further reflect on our coursework, our school visits, and our cultural visits. Please answer this prompt on your own blog site, and give it the title "Disability and Education."

Thinking about our visits to Domino Preschool, our Assistive Technology Workshops, our various school visits, and what we've been discussing in our academic classes, what did you discover about how disability affects students' capacity to be successful in school? In what ways is this similar to your home country? In what ways is this different than in your home country? As an educator, how do you understand your role in assisting students with a variety of special needs to be successful in school?

We all look forward to your responses. As always, please feel free to view one another's posts and comment on what is written.  Thanks to you all for all of your hard work.

Sean Agriss

Socio-Economic Status and Education Blog Prompt

Hello Pathways Participants

Now that we have a couple of weeks of content to draw from, I want to start posting questions on the main blog site and have you respond on your own blog sites. These prompts are meant to provide each of you with an opportunity to further reflect on our coursework, our school visits, and our cultural visits. I plan to add a new prompt every couple of days that addresses each of the main themes that we're focusing on. Our first prompt is below. Please answer this prompt on your own blog site, and give it the title "Socio-Economic Status and Education."

Thinking about our visits to Holmes Elementary, Riverfront Farms, Global Neighborhood and the Refugee Parents Panel and what we've been discussing in our academic classes, what did you discover about how socio-economic status and poverty affects students' ability to be successful in school? In what ways is this similar to your home country? In what ways is this different than in your home country? As an educator, how do you understand your role in assisting students from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds to be successful in school?

We all look forward to your responses. Please feel free to view one another's posts and comment on what is written.  

Sean Agriss