School of Education faculty members to be featured in nationwide satellite conference

School of Education faculty members to be featured in nationwide satellite conferenceSeptember 19, 2005Patrick Farrellpmfarrel@syr.edu

Syracuse University School of Education Professors Gerald Mager and Melissa Price will be featured presenters in the 2005-06 NASDSE Satellite Conference Series. Mager and Price have been invited to address the conference, “Getting the Most Out of Your Partnerships: Using Knowledge Management and Communities of Practice,” with a presentation on the IDEA Partnership and Learning Communities. The conference will be broadcast to a professional audience via satellite, this Wednesday, Sept. 21, at 1 p.m.

The satellite conference, which is sponsored by the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE), will be available through education networks across the United States. This year’s conference series will begin with an in-depth look at building and using partnerships within the field of education to achieve goals in support of the learning of all children and youth.

Highlighted in this conference will be work that has been under way in the School of Education: the Higher Education Support Center for Systems Change (HESC). This New York State-funded project has been building partnerships between teacher educators at colleges and universities and practicing professionals in high-need schools and districts for several years, and more recently with organizations and community agencies that are also invested in the success of children and youth.

Price, HESC project coordinator, will describe the way partnerships have been built in support of the 2005 Inclusion Conference, and how the “learning communities” formed at that time are developing into sustained collaborations. Matthew Giugno, associate in the State Education Department and co-director ofthe HESC Project, will share the relationship between this project and New York State’s larger plans for advancing partnerships; Mager, co-director and professor in teaching and leadership programs, will describe how building such partnerships between institutions of higher education and high-need schools holds the promise of addressing the persistent challenges of student achievement and success. Max Donatelli, representing the Parent Network of Western New York, and Larry Waite, representing New York State United Teachers, will share how their organizations view partnerships and the benefits that come from such associations.

The HESC at SU is seen nationally as a model for building partnerships across traditional boundaries as a means of better achieving the common goals of schooling and the potentials of community development. The HESC’s purposes and activities will serve as the spur to thinking of conference participants from across the country.

SU’s School of Education, a national leader in improving and informing educational practice for diverse communities, is committed to the principle that diverse learning communities create the conditions that both enrich the educational experience and provide opportunities for all to realize their full potential. The School of Education pioneered the inclusion movement in the United States, making way for all learners to participate fully in mainstream classrooms and other inclusive learning environments.