TEAC 889 and Comprehensive Exam Process

Here is an outline of TEAC 889 and how the masters comprehensive examination process will work this summer, if you choose to enroll and complete this summer.

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!

TEAC 889 Enrollment Info

Please enroll for: 

TEAC 889 Section 502 

Class #3893

Enroll for 3 credit hours.

TEAC 889 Syllabus

You will be able to access the syllabus for TEAC 889 by May 30 in Blackboard. When you see the syllabus, you will see that I am asking that you come prepared Monday, June 6.

TEAC 889

You will be receiving info on enrolling in TEAC 889 from Jess shortly. This will be for the First Five Week Session of the UNL Summer Semester.

I thought I would take the opportunity to clarify some technical aspects of completing a masters degree at UNL in general and in your program of study in particular and that is represented in your Memorandum of Courses.

The design of the MAet is that you can become eligible for a NE teaching license AND earn a masters degree in 14 months. These are, however, 2 separate things.

1) At the conclusion of successful student teaching, at the end of the public school year in a few weeks, you will have completed all certification and endorsement requirements for the State of Nebraska for elementary education. We will be sending over to NDE UNL's "recommendation" that you be certified (meaning, we attest to your having completed all requirements). Yeah! Happy moment!

2) However, this is not sufficient to automatically award you a masters degree. University standards for completion of a graduate degree are not the same as the minimal requirements for a state teaching license. The state awards you a teaching license; UNL awards you a graduate degree.

What you have remaining after this semester is TEAC 889, the Masters Seminar. This is a required course for all M.A. students in TLTE. Please refer to p. 7 in the TLTE Masters Handbook. As it says in the handbook, this is a capstone that culminates in an exam or defense. This is not an optional course or one that can be waived for automatic credit. Passing the class means passing the exam/defense and the seminar is designed to prepare and support you to successfully pass the exam/defense (this is determined by the faculty, not me alone).

Some students in past cohorts have expressed that they feel that this is unnecessary and that TEAC 889 is a "hoop" they have to jump through after successfully completing students teaching. They say that they would like to prioritize their summer for something other than a course. But passing student teaching is passing TEAC 897, not TEAC 889.

I can see how they arrive at this conclusion and ask Why do I have to do this?   The answer is simply that there is the MA in MAet and they will not be able to say they have an earned masters degree without successful completion of TEAC 889.

What this means is that you do not have to do TEAC 889 this summer. Really. You can earn your license and, therefore, start your first job in the fall (unless your job offer is contingent upon your finishing the M.A.). You simply will not have your masters degree in hand this fall and will not graduate in August, 2016. You can enroll in a later semester and take the exam/defense and graduate then. Or you do not have to do it at all and move on without a masters :(

If you do forgo taking TEAC 889 this summer, it is highly inadvisable to enroll, for example, in the Fall 2016 or Spring 2017.  These are semesters where you will be teaching full-time and consumed with your first year of your professional career. TEAC 889 will require time, energy and focused study that will prove to be difficult even for the most organized student. It will inevitably detract from your performance in your crucial first year of teaching. It is better to wait until summer 2017.

Please make and appointment to come talk with me about this if you have any questions! I'd love to talk with you more about it.

Turns Out You Really Do Think Brilliant Thoughts in the Shower

Scientific American says: 

Because such processing occurs largely outside a person’s awareness, it is all or nothing—a fully formed answer either comes to mind or it doesn’t. This hypothesis is supported by EEG and functional MRI scans, which revealed in previous studies that just before insight takes place, the occipital cortex, which is responsible for visual processing, momentarily shuts down, or “blinks,” so that ideas can “bubble into consciousness”. As a result, insights are less likely to be incorrect. Analytical thinking, in contrast, happens consciously and is therefore more subject to rushing and lapses in reasoning.

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