Lateral Entry Programs To Be Offered With UNC-Asheville
A-B Tech, in collaboration with UNC-Asheville, will offer education classes for lateral entry middle and high school teachers starting in the fall semester.
The first class will meet one evening a week at three locations, including A-B Tech and McDowell Technical Community College. A third location for the westernmost part of the state will be named later. The classrooms will be linked by videoconferencing.
Kate Lozier, adjunct instructor at A-B Tech, will team-teach the classes with Dr. Nancy Ruppert, Lateral Entry Coordinator, from UNCA.
"Currently, colleges and universities are training less than 50 percent of the teachers that are needed in the state of North Carolina. To fill the void of teachers, the State is hiring teachers with degrees in fields other than education and placing these lateral entry teachers in classes," said Ruppert. "Thus, teachers seeking alternative licenses are increasing in North Carolina. So from a need to serve more teachers quicker, community colleges and universities are beginning to work together to meet the needs of our state teacher shortage. "
"This makes it simple for lateral entry teachers. It's exactly what they need for licensure," said Lozier. "We can provide non-threatening support focusing on their needs as beginning teachers."
A series of four courses will offer consistency with regards to requirements, grading policies and attendance policies. Each course will include technology components, presentations, chapter outlines/tests, textbook assignments and assessments. The first course, Learning Theory, is offered at A-B Tech. All four courses will be offered to enable lateral entry teachers to be certified within one year.
Each class will last eight weeks, and each semester will offer one theory class and one application class.
"The idea is that teachers have the opportunity to take all four courses in a year, or they can go in and out of the program and we'll still be there," said Ruppert. "Sometimes it's hard to take all four courses in the first year of teaching."
"There are two things I really love about this," said Lozier. "One is that we're collaborating with UNCA. The other is this will provide new lateral entry teachers with immediate resources that have success in the classroom."
Welding Class Completes Mars Hill Arch
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Resource 25 Implemented at A-B Tech
Resource 25, a large integrated college-scheduling program, has been implemented on the A-B Tech campus. It is a web component that the whole campus can use to see what is happening at the Asheville, Madison and Enka locations.
"We are one of the first community colleges in North Carolina to have R25 fully operational," said Annie Dowdell, Instructional Services technician and R25 implementation team member.
Currently, the program is being used internally for scheduling. "With a few mouse clicks, you can see what's going on in our classrooms, what meetings are being held, where and what times," Dowdell said. "This has already been an extremely useful tool for the switchboard, evening deans, and others because they can answer any questions that come through about locations, times, dates, curriculum, con ed, or anything happening on our campus."
All the classes are imported from Colleague, as well as extra-curricular activities, and put into the scheduler. "We are in the process of adding the A-B Tech fleet of cars, the LRC, and the Learning Center so that anyone on campus can see what's available and request through the web site," said Dowdell. "Those that schedule our classrooms will use it as a tool to see what's available so they can build their schedules."
Administration will be able to get a "real time" picture of the utilization of campus spaces, according to Dowdell. "I know for sure that in the near future, all of A-B Tech will be operating on it as if it was always there and the massive amounts of phone calls and emails to check on availabilities will disappear."
The project leaders for R25 are Dr. Sharon Morrissey, vice president of Instructional Services; Max Queen, vice president of Continuing Education; and David McKinney, Information Systems Technology director. Members of the A-B Tech implementation team are Dowdell, Inez Alexander, Computer Center specialist; and Robin Wiggins, facilities coordinator, Enka campus.
Compensatory Education Student Tony Dearman Wins Silver At Olympics
A-B Tech Compensatory Education Student Tony Dearman received the silver medal in golf during the 2006 USA Special Olympics National Games held July 2-7 at Iowa State University.