Dr. Thomas Gannon
Department: Education
What type of interesting features do you incorporate into your classes?
I use what has come to be known as performance-based teacher education. What this means is that, as much as possible, my students do “real” teacher work, things that an in-service teacher would do. Some of these include unit plans, lesson plans, performance tasks, projects, rubrics, tests, reflection statements, teacher study group activities, action research, simulations, etc. With the exception of the freshman course, Foundations of Education, where a traditional text is used, I use trade books. Once again, these are books that in-service teachers might read. I have even given the freshman experience with a trade book. They are reading Qualities of Effective Teachers by James Strong, which is published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).
In your opinion, how is Mount Union College unique from other small liberal arts colleges?
We have a very friendly and caring student body. Our Department of Education is different because of the magnitude of the program, with over 600 students majoring or minoring in education. Once again the “performance-based” aspect is probably more developed here than in other institutions. In those areas preparing students to teach 7-12 or K-12, there are a significant number of adult study students. Many of these students come from professions such as engineering, or are already teaching. We have had a world famous opera singer, flight attendants, an airline pilot, lawyers, chiropractors, etc. go through the program and interact with our undergraduates. This causes the undergraduate students to mature faster as teachers and they can learn invaluable things from them.
We have been able to bring some of the biggest names in education to the campus such as Tom Sergiovanni, Nel Noddings, Grant Wiggins and Martin Haberman. Every year we offer an in-depth workshop for our juniors and seniors on classroom management or brain compatible teaching. Internationally renowned presenters Rich Allen and Rick Smith have been here to conduct three of these workshops. Eric Jensen is planned for the fall. Our student teaching opportunities are very special.
We place students in international settings such as Ireland, Australia, Costa Rica and Spain, in urban centers such as Chicago and Trenton (NJ) and Native American reservation schools, and we also have partnerships with eight United Methodist pre-collegiate schools (N-12, 5-12 or 9-12).
How do Mount Union students benefit from attending a small school as opposed to a larger school?
The classes in education are between 12 and 28 students, with most in the 16-20 student range. This means that our students get more individualized attention. In the small methods courses, students have the opportunity to do more presentations and simulated teaching. When a student misses a class, the smaller numbers make it feasible to e-mail them and find out where he or she was. Students usually know most of their classmates.
Have you done any interesting research or developed any interesting courses at Mount Union? If so, please explain.
I developed the current adolescence to young adult minor in 1997, and while we have modified it, the program structure is pretty much unchanged. The courses have few prerequisites, so transfer students and adult students do not have to spend extra time to complete their teaching license. In the summer, I modify the Introduction to Early Childhood course for the non-traditional students, who typically take it then. Students not only study the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) standards, which is the philosophical foundation of early childhood education, but also do research on four models of early childhood education: Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emilia and Bank Street. This has expanded my horizon as a professor, enabling me to use this research in the introductory freshman course and this past November, I was able to present a workshop on the topic at the Biennial Convocation of Kappa Delta Pi, the international honorary society in education.
Teacher leadership has been an ongoing interest of mine. I will be presenting a session on it at the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development’s 61st Annual Conference and Exhibit Show. The work I am currently doing looks at the relationship between recruiting, interviewing, hiring, induction, mentoring and ultimately supervising teachers. James Strong of the College of William and Mary has developed a model that also introduces the concept of analyzing student work in the last stage of the process. The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers from Harvard University is particularly helpful with the first parts of Strong’s model. I have accepted to present a session on this topic to the National Staff Development Conference this coming December in Nashville.
What kinds of opportunities do Mount Union students have after graduating from College?
Jobs are still not as plentiful in Ohio as I would like. In many other states the picture is much brighter. Some districts are even offering signing bonuses. Jobs are very plentiful in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland and Nevada, among others. I expect the Ohio picture to brighten in the next three years. Some students elect to go to graduate school, directly from Mount Union to become school psychologists, or to pursue a doctoral degree to teach in college. Others elect to go to law school, do college student personnel services or admissions work.
In what activities do you participate in your spare time?
I love to travel. I was in Peru last May, Hilton Head in the summer and the Baja peninsula of Mexico this March. I enjoy raising herbs, light gardening, cooking, reading including books on education, and going to the movies. We belong to a couple of euchre clubs and play on average twice a month.