Kimberly Rombach’s Reflective Statement

October 29, 2010

 

I have just completed 6 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 promotion to associate professor; the contents highlight my accomplishments since my initial appointment and correspond to the necessary promotion criteria outlined in the Childhood/Early Childhood Education Department Bylaws and in SUNY Cortland’s Handbook and are referenced in the information that follows.

 

Teaching

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”. In Spring 2010, I was a recipient of 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. 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 from the Spring 2010 semester have an overall mean of 4.93. 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 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, was part of my current teaching schedule last year also. Samples of my syllabi and a sample collection of teaching artifacts for all courses that I have taught have been included in 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 in that capacity is to write 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.

 

Scholarly, Intellectual and Creative Achievements

Throughout the time that I have been at SUNY Cortland, I have worked to create a specific and cohesive scholarly agenda, which involves researching, studying and disseminating information about effective elementary inclusive education practices. For Fall 2007 through Summer 2010, I served as a co-PI for a grant that supports the Mid-state Regional Taskforce on Quality Inclusive Schooling. In that role, I worked 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. When I announced that I would no longer continue in that role, I was awarded with an award of Outstanding Service from New York’s Higher Education Center for System’s Change project co-director and assistant director.

 

I am currently in my third year of 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. Serving on the Taskforce and working on the UTLI Project has 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 was a recipient of a SUNY Cortland Excellence in Research, Scholarship and Outreach award.

 

My internal and external grant activity has contributed to me understanding how to identify, write and obtain grant awards. Last month, I was notified that I, along with colleagues Dr. John Cottone and Dr. David Smukler, have obtained a United States Department of Education Office of Special Education Program (OSEP) Special Education Preservice Teacher Improvement Grant. Our project is titled, Inclusion Matters: Partnering for Authentic Change in Teaching (IM:PACT Project) and is a five-year, non-renewable curriculum enhancement grant. I am co-PI and will work with colleagues to develop pathways for our undergraduate childhood education teacher candidates to become certified to teach students with disabilities. The grant budget is nearly $1,500,000, which is the second largest external grant award in the history of SUNY Cortland. This grant activity will provide the opportunity for me and my colleagues to contribute greatly to institutional change regarding educating our teacher candidates to be better prepared to teach the wide heterogeneity of students found in today’s classrooms.

 

            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 I’m revising 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. (revising). Learning from Parents of Students with Disabilities.

 

Rombach, K. (in prep). Touchstones for Success: Using Research on Inclusion to Inform Evidence Based Practices. Targeted publisher: Brookes Publishing.

 

Throughout my years leading up to this promotion application, I have presented my work at sixteen 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. (planned attendance in 03/11). Collaborative Challenges: Lessons Learned from a Co-teaching PDS Model. The National Professional Development School (NAPDS) Annual Meeting: New Orleans, LA.

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, one external grant that was renewed for three years and one external grant in its very early stages of implementation. Grants specific to my scholarly agenda are included in the following list. Other grant awards are listed in the grants section of my portfolio.

United States Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs Special Education Preservice Teacher Improvement Grant: Inclusion Matters: Partnering for Authentic Change in Teaching (IM:PACT Project). This external grant was awarded in September 2010 [$1,435,380/five years].

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 activity was from September 2007 through Summer 2010 [~$75,000/three years].

 

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/five yrs.]

 

Nuala McGann Drescher Award, titled: IMPACT2: Inclusive Models: Promoting Aligned Collaboration through Technology. This internal grant was awarded in March 2009.

Service to the Department, College, and Community
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 included serving as a co-liaison for the Mid-state Regional Taskforce on Quality Inclusive Schooling, co-facilitating a semester-long series of five professional development workshops on inclusive education offered through the Cortland County Teaching Center, being an active participant in SUNY Cortland and Cortland Enlarge City School District’s Professional Development School (PDS) 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
Teacher Education Council, Fall 2010 - present
Title II: Teaching Students with Disabilities Committee, Fall 2010 - present
MST in Childhood Education Program coordinator, Spring 2006 – present
College Scholarship Committee, Spring 2005 – Spring 2010
Faculty Development Committee, Summer 2005 – Spring 2009
Long Range Planning Committee, Spring 2007 – Spring 2009

Service to my professional, scholarly community
Annual Summer Symposim on Inclusive Schooling co-planner, 2008 – 2010
Manuscript reviewer, Allyn & Bacon, Pearson, and various professional organizations, Fall 2006 – present
Cortland County Teacher Center Professional Development  Series co-presenter, 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 promotion to an associate professor in the Department of Childhood/Early Childhood Education.

Thank you in advance for your careful review of my work.

Sincerely,
Kimberly Rombach