Kimberly Rombach’s Reflective Statement
February 12, 2010
I have just completed 5 ˝ years as an assistant professor in the Department of Childhood/Early Childhood Education at SUNY Cortland and continue to find this job to be one of the most intellectually rewarding and yet challenging endeavors of my lifetime. This reflective statement and accompanying portfolio are intended to serve as my application for continuing appointment; the contents correspond to the necessary continuing appointment criteria outlined in the Childhood/Early Childhood Education Department Bylaws and in SUNY Cortland’s Handbook and are referenced in the information that follows.
Throughout my past years at Cortland, I have taught seven different courses in three different programs in our department. The courses have varied widely in topics and because of that, it has taken a considerable amount of planning time because resources can’t always be used for multiple course preparations and assignments needed to be created specific to course objectives and goals. As the semesters have passed, I have continued to strive to find new ways to increase my courses’ rigorous design; Students regularly report that my courses are difficult to complete but well worth the effort. For example, some recent students commented saying that, “I have never been so encouraged to work so hard for another professor” and “I feel that Kim wants all of her students to succeed and does everything in her power to ensure that this happens. She also expects the best from all, which truly prepared us to become great educators”. I am a current 2009-2010 nominee for SUNY Cortland’s Excellence in Teaching award.
Evidence of growth over time
I have been a teacher for over twenty years. That’s more than half of my lifetime! One of the greatest joys about teaching is that it is a job that’s never complete. Our students are always changing, growing and improving and so it should be with exemplary teachers. I love studying the art of being an exemplary teacher and strive to have continual integrity with my teaching philosophy and practice. I always strive to maximize all students’ learning and continually reflect during and after my teaching to consider ways to improve my instruction. One of the ways that I have grown most over time is with the clarity of my course preparations. When I started my college teaching career, I don’t recall focusing on course goals and objectives as intently and deliberately as I do now. I find that am now able to quickly develop meaningful course activities, assignments and assessments that well correspond to the course goals so I can efficiently work toward planning meaningful in-class experiences for all students.
I have participated in professional development activities that have included thinking about ways that social justice education, inclusive education practices, brain-friendly learning, and cooperative learning experiences can be implemented into college courses and have redesigned course assignments to reflect those understandings. I have worked to create innovative course activities including experiences with school-aged children, outdoor activities, technology infusion, and cross-curricular experiences to maximize students’ outcomes. As I strive to continue to plan for continuing to improve my teaching in the future, my focus for improvement has now moved to online instruction. I have occasionally taught online courses and find that they are the most challenging for me to plan and teach. Last year I participated in a pilot study which served as a professional development opportunity to learn about multi-media technology that can enhance online instruction. I created video stream files of myself teaching content to my online students. I also taught students how to create their own multimedia video stream files in my on-campus courses; all students repeatedly emphasized its ease of use and effectiveness for teaching in online environments. I recently presented information about this innovative teaching application at New York State’s Association for Teacher Educators. Studying effective online teaching tools will help me to continue to strive toward excellence in online instruction.
Course teaching evaluations
My course teaching evaluations have consistently been high throughout my time as a professor at SUNY Cortland. My ratings have been in the 4.5 – 5.0 range on Course Teaching Evaluation (CTE) items. My most recent CTEs have an overall mean of 4.81. Quantitative results of all of my CTEs are in the evaluation section of my portfolio for further reference.
Student Comments
Each semester, I am eager to learn what students think about my teaching and course design. I am continually pleased with their comments. Some students’ comments from my most recent evaluations included: “Kim has been the most effective professor I ever had at SUNY Cortland.” “You are my role model.” “One of my favorite professors.” “Best class I had.” “Great class and great content.” “The workload was intense at times, but worthwhile.” “Loved this class to death.” All of my students’ comments are referenced in the evaluation section of my portfolio under the qualitative comments links.
Syllabi and other artifacts
I have had so many varied teaching assignments during the time that I have been at SUNY Cortland and because of that, I have created many different course syllabi and related course materials. Courses that I typically teach have included: EDU 510: Inquiry into Teaching, Technology and Research, EDU 379: Inquiry into Curriculum, Technology and Teaching and EDU 514 Teaching Elementary Social Studies. A relatively new course, EDU 378: The Academic and Social Curriculum I, is part of my current teaching schedule. Samples of my syllabi and a collection of teaching artifacts for all courses that I have taught have been included in the courses section of my portfolio for reference.
Advising duties
I am an advisor for nearly seventy-five MST students who are currently enrolled in our MST Program in Childhood Education. In the past, I have served as an advisor for undergraduate students as well. I invite my advisees to meet with me throughout the semester and enjoy assisting them with their future plans and help to clear the path for employment as a teacher. I find that one of the most important roles that I have with advisement is to know my advisees well enough to write detailed letters of recommendation. I often have unsolicited feedback from students thanking me for the contributions that I’ve made to help them begin their careers.
Throughout the time that I have been at SUNY Cortland, I have worked to create and narrow my ideas about research to a specific and cohesive scholarly agenda, which involves researching, studying and disseminating information about effective inclusive childhood education practices. I am currently a co-PI for a grant that supports the Mid-state Regional Taskforce on Quality Inclusive Schooling. In that role, I work to bring together professors, researchers, teachers, support staff and others interested from institutions, schools, NYSED staff, and other regional support office staff in the Mid-New York State region to discuss and plan ways to (1) enhance preservice teacher preparation programs to have teachers be better prepared to teach in inclusive classrooms and (2) to facilitate inclusive education knowledge acquisition for inservice teachers and support personnel. I am also currently serving as a co-director of a SUNY Cortland Professional Development School project titled, The Unified Teaching and Learning Initiative (UTLI) with a goal of facilitating preservice and inservice teachers’ knowledge, understanding and use of collaborative, elementary inclusive practices. Both of these roles have helped me to develop a professional network of others who share goals similar to my own; our collegial conversations and projects have helped solidify my scholarly agenda. As a result of my scholarly work, I am a recipient of a SUNY Cortland Excellence in Research, Scholarship and Outreach award.
Recognized contributions to the field
I
have had three peer reviewed papers published with an additional paper currently
in review. I am currently completing a book proposal for Brookes Publishing and
have recently been invited to be a co-author of a book chapter. The following
list includes one published manuscript, one in review and one in preparation
specific to my scholarly agenda. Other manuscripts (published, in review and in
prep) are listed in the
publications
section of my portfolio.
Rombach, K. (2009). Clarifying Research Synthesis on Inclusion. Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education.
Rombach, K. (in review). Learning from Parents of Students with Disabilities. Teaching Exceptional Children.
Rombach, K. (in prep - please use the following linked title to view my writing in progress). Touchstones for Success: Using Research on Inclusion to Inform Evidence Based Practices. Targeted publisher: Brookes Publishing.
Throughout my years leading up to this tenure application, I have presented my work at fifteen International, National and Regional conferences. The following list includes a sample of presentations specific to my scholarly agenda. Other presentations are highlighted in the presentations section of my portfolio.
Rombach, K., Smukler, D., & Swanson, K. (03/10). Implementing the Unified Teaching and Learning Initiative (UTLI): Initial Findings, Inherent Strengths and Potential Challenges. The National Professional Development School (NAPDS) Annual Meeting: Orlando, FL.
Rombach, K., Smukler, D. (10/08). The Unified Teaching and
Learning Initiative (UTLI): A Professional Development School (PDS) Model.
New York State Association of Teacher Educators (ATE), Albany, NY.
Rombach, K. (04/08). Preparing Teachers for Inclusive Settings: Parents
Suggest Teacher Preparation Gap. New York State Association for Teacher
Educators, Saratoga Springs, NY.
Rombach, K. (04/07). Investigating Preservice Teachers’ Dispositions about
Elementary Students’ Diversity to Inform Teacher Preparation Programs.
Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Chicago, IL.
I
have been awarded ten internal grants and one external grant currently in its
third year of renewal. Grants specific to my scholarly agenda are included in
the following list. Other grant awards are listed in the
grants section
of my portfolio.
New York State Higher Education Support Center for Systems Change grant: New York Higher Education Support Center for Systems Change Research Grant. This external grant proposal was initially awarded in September 2007 and is in its third year of renewal [$24,000].
SUNY Cortland Professional Development School (PDS) grant: The Unified Teaching and Learning Initiative (UTLI). This internal grant awarded in April 2008 and continues for five years [$30,000/5 yrs.]
Nuala McGann Drescher Award, titled: IMPACT2: Inclusive Models: Promoting Aligned Collaboration through Technology. This internal grant was awarded in March 2009.
Service
Volunteering
is extremely important to me because I've come to realize that it is through
service work that I can help to form collaborative, cooperative communities. I
have found that I enjoy taking leadership roles when serving on committees and
have assumed on-campus leadership roles including chairing our department's
social studies search committee, co-facilitating
campus-wide workshops on electronic professional portfolio development, being a
presenter for our Office of Research and Sponsored Programs to talk about my
scholarly agenda and internal grant writing success, and serving as the
coordinator of my department’s Master of Science in Teaching (MST) in Childhood
Education program.
Off campus leadership roles include serving as a co-liaison for the Mid-state Regional Taskforce on Quality Inclusive Schooling, co-planning an annual symposium about inclusive education, co-facilitating a semester-long series of five professional development workshops on inclusive education offered through the Cortland County Teaching Center and serving as an external manuscript and small grants reviewer for numerous professional organizations and publishers.
The following information provides a sample of my service activity with different levels of involvement. Other service information is listed in the service section of my portfolio.
Local, on-campus service
MST in
Childhood Education Program coordinator, Spring 2006 – present
College Scholarship Committee, Spring 2005 - present
Faculty Development Committee, Summer 2005 – Spring 2009
Long Range Planning Committee, Spring 2007 – Spring 2009
Service to my professional, scholarly community
Conference co-planner, Annual Summer Symposim on Inclusive Schooling, 2008 –
present
Manuscript reviewer, Allyn & Bacon, Pearson, and various professional
organizations, Fall 2006 – present
Professional Development co-presenter, Cortland County Teacher Center, fall 2009
My work as a professor at
SUNY Cortland continues to be a very professionally rewarding time of my life. I
continue to be very proud to be part of the SUNY Cortland faculty and am hopeful
that my portfolio will provide the reviewers with evidence of my teaching,
scholarship and service that supports a decision for continuing appointment as
an assistant professor in the Department of Childhood/Early Childhood Education.
Thank you in advance for your careful review of my work.
Sincerely,
Kimberly Rombach