September is National Deaf Awareness Month. The purpose of this month is to increase public awareness of deaf issues, people and culture.
Many hearing people are not aware of the depth of deaf culture and how they can make language more accessible.
Dr. Karen Engler, clinical professor and graduate program director of special education-education of the deaf and hard of hearing, provides insight on deaf awareness.
The College of Education strives to provide teachers with a well-rounded, practical and engaging teacher preparation program.
This year, the COE will host a Literacy Conference to help educators deepen their knowledge of literacy instruction and connect with other educators.
“I attended a literacy conference when I first started teaching, and it still impacts my teaching today,” said Dr. Stacie Finley, assistant professor of literacy at Missouri State University.
“Knowing how beneficial that conference was for teachers in the area, we wanted to bring a similar experience for educators to MSU.”
The conference includes events Sept. 21-22. Registration is encouraged but not required.
Check out the detailed schedule
Lester Laminack, a nationally recognized writer and educator, will speak at 6 p.m. in Plaster Student Union Theater.
Laminack is an award-winning author with over 25 books for children and teachers. He is a professor emeritus in birth-kindergarten, elementary and middle grades education at Western Carolina University.
Anyone interested in education is welcome.
Laminack will open the second day of the conference with a speech at 8:45 a.m. in Carrington Hall, Room 208.
Preservice teachers and early career educators with less than three years of teaching experience are welcome.
COE will host breakout sessions all day dedicated to literacy learning. Breakout sessions begin at 10 a.m. in Hill Hall, Room 201 and 301.
The sessions will cover topics like diverse and multicultural texts, writer’s workshop, demystifying dyslexia and more.
Preservice teachers and early career educators with less than three years of teaching experience are welcome.
All events are free for attendees, courtesy of the Missouri Path Forward Theory into Practice Grant from Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
“Having the opportunity to feature a well-known national speaker like Lester Laminack, as well as area literacy experts, is a great chance for our undergraduate students and recent graduates to get new ideas and learn more about teaching reading and writing,” said Dr. Kayla Lewis, associate professor of literacy and assistant director for the School of Teaching, Learning and Developmental Science at MSU.
For more information, contact Dr. Stacie Finley at StacieFinley@MissouriState.edu or Dr. Kayla Lewis at KaylaLewis@MissouriState.edu.
Currently, more than 16,000 children who attend school have an autism diagnosis or autism special education eligibility.
The Richard L. Simpson Conference on Autism helps educators learn more about how to teach people with autism.
For the first time, the conference is coming to Missouri State University.
This learning and networking opportunity will take place Oct. 5-6 at Plaster Student Union. Anyone interested in autism is welcome to attend.
The conference includes two keynote sessions, a workshop, three breakout sessions and two lunches.
Registration is required and is open through Sept. 29. Early bird registration is open until Sept. 22.
Regular registration costs $215, and early bird registration costs $175.
Richard L. Simpson was a beloved Kansas University (KU) faculty member. He taught many educators across the Midwest about teaching students with autism before he passed away in 2017.
He was a pioneering member of the team that established the Midwest Symposium on Leadership in Behavior Disorders (MSLBD), a multistate effort for educators trying to improve behavioral outcomes for students.
The MSLBD spawned the Richard L. Simpson Conference on Autism, which focuses more narrowly on autism. The name of the conference was a tribute to Simpson after he passed away.
The conference has been held yearly on the KU Edwards campus in Overland Park, Kansas. However, Project ACCESS teamed up with MSLBD to bring this year’s conference to Missouri State. This will allow more rural educators in southwest Missouri to attend.
“At Project ACCESS, we like to focus on the different abilities instead of disabilities of our friends in the autism community,” said Mike Garton, staff member at Project ACCESS and instructional tech support specialist at Missouri State.
“Each year at Rich Simpson, one of the keynoters is a person with autism, and we never cease to be amazed by the delightful, talented folks that we have the good fortune to meet. Please join this year’s group of educators who are striving to better serve these students.”
More than 10,000 Missouri special educators are responsible for assuring children with autism receive what federal legislation refers to as Free and Appropriate Public Education.
The College of Education at MSU serves a pivotal role in preparing educators to help students with autism to:
Attend the Richard L. Simpson Conference on Autism to expand your toolkit and help children with autism thrive.
To boost science, technology, engineering and math or STEM education in southwest Missouri. That’s the goal of Missouri State University’s Computer Science Research Opportunity for Smart Environments program, also known as ROSE.
Earlier this year, Missouri State received a three-year, $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to facilitate this program for 30 area middle and high school teachers.
The first group of seven teachers recently completed a six-week summer research workshop on campus.
Dr. Razib Iqbal, associate professor of computer science and ROSE program principal investigator, and Dr. Diana Piccolo, professor of education, talk about the program and the first cohort’s experience.
Exploring the world of computer science
The second ROSE summer research workshop will take place on campus from June 10-July 19, 2024. Applications are now open until Feb. 16, 2024.
To get more details, contact Piccolo at DPiccolo@MissouriState.edu.
About 70% of Missouri’s schools identify as rural, but there is no state-supported office or university-based center focused on rural school needs – until now.
Missouri State University will open its new Center for Rural Education June 9. Housed in the College of Education, the center will serve as a hub to organize and promote rural school outreach and partnerships.
Dr. Diana Piccolo and Dr. Rhonda Bishop will lead the center as co-directors. Piccolo and Bishop work in the department of childhood education and family studies at MSU as professor and clinical assistant professor, respectively.
“The Center for Rural Education is the first center of its kind in Missouri. It will focus on establishing partnerships and programming to identify, prepare and support quality school professionals for all rural students and school districts across the state,” Piccolo said.
The center has four goals:
For the first year, a few of the center’s possible activities include:
Open to the public, a grand opening and reception for the center will take place at 9 a.m. June 9 in Hill Hall 230. To attend, RSVP to Rose Lee, RoseLee@MissouriState.edu.
