II.
3:00 PM
Present: Armstrong, Campbell, Cimitile, Coffey, Evans (recorder), Gibbs, Helder, King, P.
Lancaster, S. Lancaster, McDonell, Pettes Guikema, Pickett, Rozema, Siko, Zwart
Absent: Owens, Shinsky, Ysasi
I.
Welcome (Caryn King)
PTEAC Minutes
Thursday, October 15, 2015
1104 Kirkhof Center
A. John Shinsky will not be able to attend today’s meeting
B. Welcome back to October PTEAC
C. Brief introductions
CSAT: ZS Program Proposal (Linda Pickett)
A. Draft documents distributed
B. Seeking opportunities to streamline this program i. Continuing conversations with many graduates, employers, etc. who are seeking teachers with Elementary/Early Childhood certification ii. Population of community college students seeking Early Childhood certification is burgeoning
C. State overview i. ZS and ELL are two minors which we are legally permitted to offer under option 2, but currently do not
D. Discussion i. How many credits? a. Credits listed on the course sequence sheet ii. Current CSAT is 4.5 – 6 years a. Gen Ed., Degree requirements were combined as much as possible

b. Additional ZS minor should not add time to this program iii. Why are we opting for an undergraduate minor when the ZS endorsement at the Graduate level already exists? a. We are losing students to other institutions b. We are the only institution in the state that is not currently offering the ZS endorsement at the undergraduate level c. Seeking to increase undergraduate ZS students; work on the M.Ed. with more specialty work, increased scholarly work iv. Are you going to require a ZS minor for admission into the M.Ed. program in
Early Childhood? a. No v. How many students in the undergraduate program are currently populating the Early Childhood graduate courses? a. A small number of students b. Most have been in the job market and/or they are practicing teachers vi. Concern that there is a false connection that we’re making; this appears as though it will pile on additional credits on the undergraduate level a. These will not all be 300-400 level courses b. Some community college coursework will count toward the minor c. ZS is desired concurrent with the elementary certification, at the undergraduate level d. Careful consideration of Gen. Ed. requirements given when designing program

vii. Concern that the program would let students not take literature courses a. Predicting a lot of Elementary teachers not necessarily caring if their emphasis is language arts and that they will defect from ELA toward ZS b. That could happen
1. Community college students are not coming here because we don’t offer what they want
2. Students are showing up at Freshman Orientation and finding out that we don’t offer the Early Childhood Education program they seek c. Can we seek data to support these claims?
1. Is it anecdotal or actual data?
2. Data from Continuing Education already exists viii. Concern on parallel offerings from the Psychology offerings a. Would it make more sense to populate existing courses rather than create new courses? b. Emphasis on early literacy skills for early childhood teachers in the field; will we be teaching the phonetic approaches, early language literacy courses?
1. An Early Language Literacy course is proposed as part of the
ZS minor
2. This program offers the opportunity for more comprehensive early literacy focus for students seeking the Elementary certification with the ZS minor

c. It would be important to spend some time considering if existing courses can fill in d. What is “The World’s Children?”
1. Course in development
2. Meets several needs
3. Broad/Holistic approach
4. Continuing to work with Dr. Mack on this course proposal e. EDS 360 is a course that may also be an excellent fit within this program
1. Has a clinical component
2. Would fit nicely into this program proposal
3. Linda scheduled to meet with Sandy Miller to discuss this opportunity further ix. Concern about the growth of this and that it would hurt the CLAS programs a. We should be thinking about this from “what elementary schools need” b. Defection to CSAT major was an unintended consequence for CLAS majors
1. Maybe we need to think about the way we approach CSAT major advising
2. What were the numbers prior to the CSAT major; numbers are down in every program, but not only due to CSAT x. Changes at the state level that dictated the development of the CSAT major a. State revised the code for elementary and secondary education

b. Reduced the number of allowable teachable majors c. Option two – comprehensive major – with a restriction on the number of minors that can be attached to the comprehensive major d. CSAT was developed for Special Education so they could get better preparation and because the State dropped Psychology as a teachable major xi. Our sister institutions already offer ZS as an undergraduate minor xii. Are the projections on the worksheet a need for new faculty lines? a. Projection of one cohort b. It may be likely that we will need more than one cohort based on the numbers of xiii. Feedback for Linda’s committee a. What does the hiring perspective look like?
1. The state has determined Early Childhood as an area of need and there is money to hire b. First matter at hand is to address the number of courses/faculty needed to teach the courses in this program
1. A need for new faculty lines will be met with our limited resources c. Projection of potential shifting of majors is a concern
1. Survey of current students – would this appeal to them
2. How can we creatively address this?
- Summary of data from last year’s Governor’s conference will be shared

III.
d. Survey of employers would be helpful e. Investigating where existing courses can be used within this program f. Salient considerations are what is happening within the State and what is happening at our sister institutions g. Concern about a program that lacks a content rich background f. Concern that this will draw students for the wrong reasons – more marketable xiv. Please send questions and concerns to Linda as she will bring these to the next committee meeting
CEEDAR Project Surveys (Paula Lancaster)
A. Collaborative project
B. GVSU, four other institutions, and MDE i. Requires representation from General Education, Special Education, and
Administration
C. Hosted a research presentation on reading development and reading instruction i. College of Education team agreed that the components presented should serve as minimum competencies within our programs ii. There are other things that should be included as a comprehensive approach to literacy instruction iii. Reviewing syllabi to investigate where these components are being taught iv. This information will be shared with CLAS faculty
D. Seeking to give surveys to our current student teachers to gain a baseline sense of knowledge and skills in these areas i. Can develop an assessment of our students needs in these areas

IV.
V.
ii. Is there a reason to offer this survey before ENG 308? a. It could be done as a pre-post to determine what we are teaching b. It could reinforce with them iii. How long will the survey take? a. 20-30 minutes iv. It would be important for the students to see the value so they understand what they gain from it v. Will the feedback be shared so faculty can also have these perceptions to inform their instruction?
E. This becomes a piece of our response to the literacy movement i. Thank you Paula for your great work in this area, and we’ll look forward to hearing more as it becomes available
Transfer Equivalencies (Sean Lancaster)
A. Transfer equivalency request process described i. Student told that a course will not transfer in by Unit Head ii. Student told that a course will not transfer in by instructor iii. Please encourage students to follow the student code
B. Advising perspective explained i. Courses from within states of Michigan have already been considered ii. These should only be happening for out of state courses
C. CLAS advising will start sending these toward the SEFT Unit Head, instead of Tom
Owens in SISC, in order to avoid duplication of work that has already been done
New State Legislative Updates (Caryn King)

A. Please provide feedback as a parent, taxpayer, etc., not as an educator (because that is perceived as self-serving)
B. Education bills in progress outlined i. Raising the cap on fees for PRE a. May help the Michigan legislators consider other alternative measures than the PRE (e.g. Praxis) b. Awaiting the Governor’s signature c. Michigan Dean’s Council is hopeful that the PRE has a shaky future ii. HB 4059 Critical Shortage to allow retirees to fill critical shortage if they have the expertise a. Bill to prevent this rehiring to impact their pension b. In House Education Committee iii. HB 4552 School Counselor a. Only for counselors employed in grades 6-12 iv. HB 4222 Early Literacy a. Requires literacy coaches b. Not requiring a credentialed Reading Specialist c. Requiring third grade retention if not proficient in reading v. SB 4823 Early Literacy a. Continued emphasis on K-3 literacy b. Requires additional reading credits for certification vi. SB 491 Permits a. Allows work experience to count in lieu of an educational preparation

b. For any subject under critical shortage area c. Allows districts to request areas to add to the shortage area vii. Pending legislation on urban endorsements viii. More carefully monitoring the PD opportunities being presented by districts a. We could suggest that they require 18 professional graduate credit hours within a planned program toward an M.Ed.
C. PRE Discussion i. PRE continues to be a problem ii. Writing portion of the PRE is keeping 61 students who have completed teacher assisting in limbo a. These students cannot move forward to student teaching iii. COE is asking to reinforce our own policy a. PRE must be passed for admission into the COE b. Policy is already in the catalog c. We will be enforcing this policy beginning in fall 2016 d. We are doing everything we can to help students meet the requirements for teacher certification in the state
1. PRE is an invalidated measure that they cannot provide validity on
2. Sister institutions are also suffering (we’re doing comparatively better) iv. Meeting planned with the State Superintendent this fall to recommend the
Praxis as an alternative measure for the PRE

D. What can we do in the meantime for those students who have completed major requirements, but cannot complete their certification requirements because they haven’t yet passed the PRE? i. This should be brought to Tom Butcher’s attention ii. Please let him know about the message to the State Superintendent iii. Can we do a teach to the test for them? a. John Golden has a Math course available iv. Students are failing the writing portion a. Can we engage some of our technical writing professors? b. Tutoring available in the Writing Center
1. We need faculty to lead this c. What can the writing faculty do for these students through CLAS advising? v. Upcoming PRE test dates a. November 9 (online) b. December 6 (online)
1. We’ll get the results on December 18 and 21
2. Students who do pass, we will need to find qualified placements for Student Teaching in the winter semester vi. How do we advise these students? a. What help things are in place b. The dates/options c. This is also something that Caryn will want to meet with Tom about d. Caryn, please schedule the meeting and Maria will also attend

VI.
vii. Is accreditation driving this at all? a. No; it’s the state legislature b. Will the accrediting body be concerned?
1. The accrediting body is concerned with the exit exam c. Can we find out how many have not passed the PRE, but have passed the MTTC?
1. What about at other institutions? c. There is some surprise that a class action lawsuit hasn’t been filed against the State of Michigan yet
E. Caryn and Maria to follow up with PTEAC following conversation with University
Counsel
Collaborative Research between CLAS and COE (John Shinsky)
A. Tabled
VII.
Announcements
A. Asking CLAS advisors to have special education students take the MTTC Elementary test during/after their SAT 495
B. Maria’s speaker
C. Teacher Assisting students this semester seem to be more wiped out/tired than normal i. Interim semester is unsuccessful; students aren’t taking it ii. Teacher Assistants seem really overwhelmed iii. Considering ways to address this
D. English Department is looking at the problem of the PRE i. Seeking to develop software that replicates the writing potion of the PRE

ii. Qualtrix Software offers an imitative test (on Math) iii. English faculty are working to develop a mimic test for the multiple choice
Reading portion iv. Last year’s complete MTTC report data will be available (3 years of data) in
November a. This is what you will want in your SPA reports
E. English Department is offering a class to help students to prepare for the PRE i. Can we track the students’ progress on the PRE ii. How is this opportunity communicated to the students? a. Advising Centers, Departments are trying to notify students directly
F. GVSU has partnered with PBS Learning Media i. Invitation to brunch/learning session on Tuesday, October 20, 2015 in DeVos
Center ii. Will share an overview of the possibilities within PBS Learning Media a. Please share with content folks b. Please RSVP with Kim Kenward
VIII. Adjourned (4:50 p.m.)