Agenda Fall Retreat
Department of Special Education
August 29, 2012
Attendees: Casey, Katy; Collet-Klingenberg, Lana; Gordon, David: Gwalla-Ogisi, Nomsa;
Jewell, Kelly; Kolb, Sharon; Lindahl, Lynn; Murphy, Monica; Robinson, Rowand; Schultz,
Tia; Stevens Griffith, Amy; Stuart, Shannon; Toms, Ozalle; Troemel, Eileen
8:30 – 9:00 Coffee Hour
9:00 – 9:15 Introductions & announcements
 Program for comparing classes from other schools
 First department meeting will be new faculty orientation
o 2nd & 4th Wednesday for department meetings
o 2 purple books – Katy and Shannon
o New faculty will have consultation in January
o Search will be this year – will have replacement. We are still waiting to hear on
the second position
 Enrollment caps
o Larger classes than C&I
o 35 is too many for some classes (486 & 487)
o Rowand will allow 1 more than cap but then talk to the instructor
o Get checklist of spring classes and see where we need to have class caps
o Have to balance between quality of education vs meeting needs of students for the
classes
 Committee work & Search Committee
o Shannon is the chair; Ozalle Toms, Lana Collet-Klingenberg, Amy Stevens
Griffith. The committee can decide whether to pull in from the outside. We
might want to include a grad student. It might be a good idea to add a student.
o Admin Council – Rowand
o International – Sharon
o Universal Design committee – has an opening; meets 1 Friday a month; covers
physical accessibility – first Friday at 10:00
o Assessment committee –
o Constituents Standards – Lana
o Curriculum – Brooke
o Dean’s advisory board – Amy Hatch
o Dean’s Advisory Council –
o Email the choices to me and I’ll compile a list
 704 – Shannon
o 2nd Independent study (702 is 1st) – students work with advisor to create an action
paper
o Heather Marten – Kelly Jewell will mentor
o Shannon Byrnes – Shannon Stuart will email the faculty with her project to get an
advisor
 Syllabi – must supply these to the group that asked for them.
o Need syllabi for all classes SP12 & F12
o Send to Eileen in Word and identify class name, number, section, semester
9:15 – 10:30 HLC – Higher Learning Commissions
 Looking at everything from Division 1 down to tech schools
 Our university tapped 4 and it had to have a grad program
 Lana, Shannon, Katy, and Rowand are on the committee
 Over the summer looked at 8 syllabi to see how it matched specialized knowledge and
applied knowledge skills – associate’s level, 2 levels of bachelors (90+ credits), grad
students
 Interview and survey faculty and survey
o Lana took the lead on developing the survey
o Problem – language is really vague but trying to stick to their language for
translation later
o Have one for students at each level
o Katy piloted with undergrad and a grad
o Feel free to give feedback on questions in the survey
o Will dedicate a department meeting to this somewhat early in the semester
o Different levels have different questions with the bachelor’s level being more in
depth (more intense as the survey goes to the higher levels)
o Email for students concerning the evaluations
o There are incentives for each of the levels of evaluations
o Faculty may have to ask students to participate
o Would like to use one class for Monica’s class
o Taking written assignments from classes and turn in those assignments for
evaluation
o This will make audit and review and accreditation easier
o Writing assignment
 458 Student Accommodation Plan
 700
 324 Philosophy
10:30 – 10:45 Break
10:45 – 11:45 Advising – Rowand, Eileen
 Procedures and checklists were handed out
 Using Course Recommendations – offers a place for the student to access the information
 Amy uses the notes section on the plan
11:45 – 12:00 Administrative –
 TER forms, - Eileen
 copier/printer, - Eileen
 Web Site - Eileen
 FP&M – Eileen
 Contact information for all faculty - Eileen
12:00 – 12:45 lunch
12:45 – 1:15 Undergrad – renumbering of sophomore level courses
 426, 466, 325
 May have a problem with going to 200 level but could put them at 300 level courses
rather than 400 level

Change 426 to 326 and 466 to 327 (if those numbers are available)
o Shannon will do the change
 We would have to look at what courses numbers would be available
 458 might be possible to change to 488
 205 general elective course – all we need to do is change the name Intro to Spec Ed
o Lana will do this one
o Put through to change name
o Then put through to make a general
1:15 – 1:30 ABA Certificate discussion
 Lana, Tia, and Shannon get calls for ABA and BCBA
o Get a committee started for this
o We can figure out what 15 credits would fit into this certificate
o Need to meet with John Stone about this
o Could pull in Autism credits to crossover
o Might need a grant
o People want to start immediately rather than wait till summer
o This should be online as there would be people all over the country interested in
the certificate
o 15 credits count towards the BCBA
o BCBA is 15 applied credit with hours of experience which could be a practicum
o BCBA could be online and could get practicum where they are
o They take their exam online
o Create an advisory committee with outside people to assist and helps us set up for
a grant
o ABA is easier to get where the BCBA is more difficult to get started. We could
potentially start this summer for ABA.
o Courses that could be used for ABA - Speced 640 (tweak to be BCBA ready), two
of the autism,
o ABA / BCBA would not be for just Special Education teachers
o Committee – Lana, Tia, and Shannon – they will talk to psych to see who would
be involved. Will go from planning committee to an advisory committee
 Diagnostician type certificate
 Assistive technology certificate
1:30 – 1:45 Grad Program – brief overview – set up for discussion in the fall – Shannon
 Two masters programs CC & PD and two certificates
o Very diverse student population for very different reasons
o It seems like our completers are not being counted properly especially when they
are taking a masters and certificates
o What are the next steps we need to take to get the grad program where it needs to
be?
o We’re being undercut because there are credit hours that are much less expensive
out there and still accredited.
o Financial aid only applies to a master’s program not the certificates
o Can we get grants to help grad students with finances?
o Can we get an exemption from the 9 credits being full time and have it be only 6
credits?
o In PD MSE we need to revise the coursework
 Need a committee – Katy, Sharon, Shannon, Lana, Nomsa
o Grad classes are weak in behavior management – come back to this
1:45 – 2:00 grants – Nomsa
 Opportunity to work with alternative programs (corrections particularly) to collaborate
o Create a certificate program using our EBD program and adding the corrections
program
o Incorporate transition
o Propose grants – EBD, Transition, and technology
o Technology grants would be implementation in a public school like Janesville to
implement the technology for these learners
o This would pull in the correction teachers to come to us for the certificate
o Department of Corrections may have grants available
o We are reaching out to the region to work with regional people to help them
improve
o They want us to develop the coursework – professional development
o Juvenile correctional certificate (for non-teachers and for teachers)
 This would be a grad certificate for the teachers
o Committee – Nomsa, Kelly, Lynn, Katy, Ozalle, Rowand
 Field Work Form announcement (385/485: background check form) – Eileen
o These are no longer being used
o Background check is done in pre-block
o No background check for 385 / 485
o Do we want to do this as an admission to the program
o We need to connect with admissions to professional ed to see if we can add this to
the requirements
o Talk to Tracy Arneson Baker about adding it to admission to prof ed
o Determine how frequently
o Make it the student responsibility for the student to report any events that would
affect the background check
o Can we ask a student who came from a different program why they were released
from their previous program?
 Student teaching changes – Nomsa
o We still have a lot of student teachers who haven’t taken their Praxis II. There
were ten from last semester. We need to encourage them to take it early and take
it often.
o Is there a way we can say there are X number of spots available for student
teaching. These will be filled by those that have met the ALL the requirements.
o We could require students to pass the Praxis II before admitting to the program –
on the grad level
o Could we link it to a landmark course?
o The rule is we have to pass it 18 months prior to signing up for the student
teaching.
o Janet would like to have the placements done at the end a year earlier
o What can we do to help our students pass the Praxis II test
 We need to work with the tutoring center
 Book is good
 Seminars would be useful and helpful
 Should we talk to Tracy about the Praxis II? Yes
 We could make the seminars required if the Praxis II is failed once.
 Set up a meeting with Janet, Tracy, and Nomsa
 Table for a different meeting
2:00 – 3:00 Potential 2nd Spec Ed class for elem ed – Amy
 Revamp the C&I elem ed program
o Might be coming – discussion about 2nd special ed class as a requirement
 It would be nice to have a class on Focus on speced law, RTI, PBIS,
referral process – we might need to revise 324 / 360
 edTPA (Education Teacher Performance Assessment) – Kelly
o Four key task areas that will be evaluated
o Two types of assessment books
 Students are graded on a one to five scale – three is considered passing
(need a three to pass the TPA)
 Can be used for National Boards
 In great need for evaluators for Wisconsin
 If we keep in house we can audit our students and our program
 Pearson writes this and the federal government has a skeleton guideline
 This will replace Phase 4
 We can’t do anything once they are working on this – no coaching
3:00 – 3:15 Any other topics? Questions?
 Lynn – Wilmot 205 program
o They have a longer semester so it had to be reformatted
o They are sharing a D2L
o Lynn is going to Wilmot to present D2L
o She has the old copy of the Exceptional Learner book (11th edition)
o Someone will always be assisting the teacher to ensure that it is truly a college
level class
o