TEAC 889 is a seminar designed to support your preparation for the
Masters Comprehensive Examination. All masters students at UNL are required to take a comprehensive examination, even those whose degrees are geared toward
certification. TEAC 889 will have 3 weeks of preparation and 2 weeks for the 3
written responses that comprise the examination.
The seminar will be organized around reviewing and extending
knowledge in 3 major topics in elementary education. These topics will be decided by the graduate faculty in TLTE. These will be named by the end of the month in the TEAC 889 Blackboard area.
Each of these topics has been covered extensively through
the coursework in your program of study and each is important in teaching
practice. None should come as a surprise to you. These are the topics for which you will receive 3 questions for your comprehensive
examination. In the seminar, you will
review the theoretical and applied issues of each topic by revisiting the
scholarship from your courses and enhancing your knowledge with new
scholarship. This will help you prepare
for the time-limited comprehensive exam.
Seminar Ground
Rules
The seminar sessions are for the benefit of students who are
motivated to prepare for the comprehensive exam and come ready to participate
fully. Attending the seminar meeting sessions is optional. However, if you do
choose to attend, then you must commit to the assignments below. For each week,
there are 2 meeting sessions, Monday (or Tuesday in week 1) and Thursday. You should not attend the seminar sessions
if you have not done the assigned work.
Assignments
I. Reviewing knowledge. Sessions 1, 3 and 5: Bring all materials to each session from your
coursework related to the topic. Bring an annotated bibliography that
includes each item from the materials that address the topic: all research
articles, books, and book chapters. These materials are limited to scholarly,
written materials. These are works you have encountered as readings in your
coursework. Upload this annotated bibliography in Bb before coming to class and bring a hard copy to class.
These should not
include: commercial textbooks or text book chapters (methods or otherwise),
district curriculum materials, trade or practitioner periodicals (such as The Reading Teacher or Phi Delta Kappan), self-published
books, or videos.
An annotation is a bibliographic summary, paragraph length
(1-3 sentences). You did these in TEAC 800 last summer and you can easily do a Google search
for examples of an annotated bibliography (see: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/03).
If you have not
completed the assignment, please do not attend the sessions.
II. Extending knowledge. Sessions 2, 4 and 6: Locate
and summarize AT LEAST ONE NEW scholarly work for each main elementary
curriculum (article or book chapters) that inform and support your
understanding of the topic.
For instance, for Thursday, June 9 of Week 1, you will
locate 4 new articles/book chapters that address the topic. These
are works that are not found in your
course materials (this would be redundant from I). For each of these works you
should similarly create an annotated bibliography. Upload this annotated bibliography in Bb
before coming to class and bring a hard copy to class.
Like with your assignments for reviewing knowledge, these may
not be: textbooks or textbook
chapters (methods or otherwise), district curriculum materials, trade or practitioner
periodicals self-published books, or videos.
If you have not
completed the assignment, please do not attend the sessions.
Evaluation
The seminar is graded on a Pass/No Pass basis. Passing the seminar is contingent upon your
passing the ALL 3 of the comprehensive exam questions. If you fail any one question,
your grade will be an Incomplete and will remain Incomplete until you successfully
re-do the portions of the exam you have failed. You cannot re-take any portion
of the comprehensive exam in the same semester (the Summer Sessions are
considered together a single semester). You must wait until a subsequent
semester to complete re-taking of the failed exam portions. You can only
re-take the comprehensive exam once (if you fail twice, you cannot be awarded
the degree).
Examination
Process
The examination process takes place June 27-July 7. On
Monday, June 27, 8:00 AM you will receive the questions. There will be 3
questions, one for each of the topics of the seminar. Each requires three
separate, written responses of approximately 3000 words. Each response will be
graded on a Pass/No Pass basis. A mark of “High Pass” will be reserved
for students who produce exceptional work. Faculty enjoy reading and
recognizing distinguished work.
The separate responses are due at the scheduled times (see
the cohort calendar). All of your exam responses will be blinded and any identifying information
will be removed. Your response will be read by 3 faculty members. They will
evaluate your examination for (1) the appropriateness and substance of your
responses and (2) the quality and clarity of your writing.
A Note on Writing in Comps
Poorly composed, overly conversational, moralizing or otherwise abstruse writing
inevitably detracts from communication of intellectual content and will be
graded as stringently as writing that does not answer the question directly and substantively.
You should not count on the readers having knowledge of you or your personal or
program experiences to offer you “benefit of the doubt” in any of your exam
responses. While you will be encouraged to reflect and draw upon your professional education experiences, these cannot be construed as sufficient evidence unless properly analyzed and connected to scholarship. Readers will not know, nor will they care, whether you have successfully completed
student teaching or if you have a job offer. All they will have to go by, and the only
thing they will judge, is your written response.
The best way to prepare for the questions is to be knowledgeable
and confident in the grasp of the topic. The hallmarks of well-crafted prose
about teaching and curriculum, in any subject, around any topic, are thoughtful,
reflective, informed, and well organized analytical and interpretive statements
that transcend your personal experience and are grounded with evidence.
I'll hopefully see you June 7!
I do NOT consider the "Curriculum Studies Reader" a traditional textbook. Think of this as the difference between an edited "reader" and a conventional "textbook". Readers contain original material. It is a edited collection of scholarship considered important to the field or by a scholar. Textbooks in educational studies are, by definition, unoriginal. However, textbooks are not useless! Here is how you should use a textbook: look to the bibliographies in it as a way to identify scholarship you can find and use for your purposes.
ReplyDeleteQ: Why can I not attend the seminar sessions if I have not done the assignments?
ReplyDeleteA: The seminar is a structured format for studying for comps. You may not benefit from the work of others in the seminar without making a full contribution yourself. You make the contribution by completing the scheduled assignments. You are free to study for comps in any other way if the seminar does not meet your needs.