TPTE Year in Review

by Susan Benner, department head

The following highlights represent a small sampling of the many exciting things that took place in the Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education during the 2004–2005 year.

In July the academic programs and faculty in education administration and supervision merged into the department, bringing their students, staff, and other resources. This unification of teacher education programs and educational administration programs has already proven to create exciting new opportunities as we explore new leadership concepts in educational settings. We also welcomed two new assistant professors into the department: Dr. Jo Ann Cady in mathematics education and Dr. Susan Groenke in English education. Both have already found their way into metropolitan area schools and formed collaborative partnerships in their professional work. Both were recipients of university-funded professional development awards to support their research interests.

In January, Dr. Richard Allington and Dr. Ann McGill-Franzen joined the department as professors in reading education. Dr. McGill-Franzen is serving as the director of the Reading Center and has already made many changes to its appearance and activity level. The Reading Center library, partially supported by an endowment and technology grant, offers professional journals to teachers and parents, tradebooks and instructional materials for tutors, and the latest technology to assist struggling readers. Drs. Allington and McGill-Franzen brought with them three doctoral students—Katie Solic, Danielle Mathson, and Rebecca Payne. They have become involved in the Project IMPACT technology grant to integrate technology into reading courses and a THEC-funded Teacher Quality Kindergarten Literacy Project that incorporates professional development for kindergarten teachers in Knox County with intervention for struggling students. Solic accompanied Dr. McGill-Franzen to Ghana in January as part of the UNESCO and International Reading Association African Project. In May, Mathson accompanied Dr. McGill-Franzen to Kenya.

The International Reading Association’s annual conference was held in May in San Antonio, Texas. Professors and graduate students attended the meeting along with 24,150 other reading professionals from across the country. Drs. Richard Allington, Amy Broemmel, Colleen Gilrane, Anne McGill-Franzen, and Debbie Wooten, along with graduate students Elizabeth Anderson, Susan Bishofberger, Danielle Mathson, and Rebecca Payne, experienced a week of presenting and learning about research on reading. At the conference, Dr. Allington assumed the presidency of this 90,000-member professional group.

With great sadness, we said good-bye to Dr. Ted Hipple, professor of English education, who died on Thanksgiving Day after a battle with cancer. Along with the myriad legacies he leaves us is the newly created book club that he proposed for the department last spring. To date, departmental faculty members have had the opportunity to participate in discussions of shared book readings of Literacy with an Attitude and A Different Mirror.

In teacher education, we supervised 223 interns, most of whom completed their teaching internships in schools throughout the East Tennessee region. A select few had the unique opportunity to complete a portion of their internship in Wrexham, Wales. One intern in special education found that the experience allowed her to become immersed in another culture. Audra Phillips taught at Hafod Y Wern School in a resource provision classroom with students described as having multiple learning and behavior difficulties. Phillips observed, “Their teaching styles incorporate a great deal of multiple intelligences and active learning. Every educator teaches art, physical education, math, English, Welsh, science, music, and religious education. This experience, combined with theory from the University of Tennessee, has truly shown me how to be an effective teacher.”

Faculty in educational administration celebrated the accomplishments of eight graduates in their Leadership 21 Program. These students, all of whom held full-time education-related positions while completing their studies, spent time with nine mentors from seven schools in their pursuit of the school administrator license.

Faculty often collaborated with students and graduates in the dissemination of scholarly work, including both presentations and written materials. For example, Amos Hatch, along with three former students who are now K-3

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