Education Department Newsletter, March 3, 2017 – Education Department

■ History Day Judges Needed at Seward Montessori School: History Day at Seward School is Tuesday, March 7th. Any amount of time would be appreciated—no experience necessary. Training will be provided. Judging will be from 4-7pm. Please email <mary.delander@mpls.k12.mn.us> or <jessica.grabe@mpls.k12.mn.us> with questions or to sign up.

■ MTLE Test Preparation Webinars: The Evaluation Systems group of Pearson is inviting Minnesota teacher candidates to participate in a webinar on how to prepare for the Minnesota Teacher Licensure Examinations (MTLE). Sessions will be held on:

Monday, March 27, 2017; 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., and

Thursday, March 30, 2017; 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. CST

Topics will include:

How to create your MTLE Account and register for the test
How to read your MTLE score report
What test preparation resources are available
How to prepare to retake a test

Information about how to access the webinar session of your choice is available on the MTLE program website at <https://www.mtle.nesinc.com>.

■ Free NES Essential Skills Prep: The EAST Program along with the Education Department will be providing FREE overview sessions to prepare for the essential skills exam in math, reading, and writing. There is no fee for the sessions, but registration is required. The sessions are open to all teacher candidates. Teacher candidates of color and Native American teacher candidates are strongly encouraged to attend.

Math Test Sessions, dates, times and location (attend all):


Saturday, March 4	9 a.m. to noon	Old Main Building 104
Saturday, March 11	9 a.m. to noon	Old Main Building 104
Saturday, March 25	9 a.m. to noon	Old Main Building 104

Reading and Writing Test Sessions, dates, times and location (attend all):

Intensive Reading

Saturday, April 1

9 a.m. to noon

Old Main Building 104

Intensive Writing

Saturday, April 8

9 a.m. to noon

Old Main Building 104

■ 2017 Urban Scholars Internships: Urban Scholars is a twelve-week paid internship in leadership and professional development providing students from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds with distinctive professional experience. This program is open to currently enrolled undergrad and grad students. The 2017 Urban Scholars application is available now until Saturday, February 18, 2017. For more information: <http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/civilrights/urbanscholars/>.

■ Several Updates Regarding Minnesota BOT Testing:

• The Minnesota Board of Teaching (BOT) no longer requires the ACT/SAT/GRE/Praxis I scores be taken within the past 10 years. There is currently no time limit. Keep in mind that the ACT scores must be the ACT Plus Writing which started around February 2005.

SAT recently changed the way they score their tests. The new scores (and old) can be found on the link to the MN Board of Teaching website: <http://mn.gov/board-of-teaching/beaneducator/licensureexams/>.

•Minnesota Version of NES Now Available: As of August 30th, candidates are now able to sign up for the MN NES exam directly through the MTLE website by using this link:

<http://www.mtle.nesinc.com/PageView.aspx?f=HTML_FRAG/GENRB_AnnounceBasicSkills.html>

• The passing score for the MN NES is 520 for all three tests (Reading, Writing and Math):

MN NES EAS Subtest Passing Score (on a 400–600 point scale)

Reading=520

Writing=520

Mathematics=520

The test is exactly the same as the National NES exam, it’s just that MN candidates are given 15 extra minutes of time. Because of the extra time, the score rating had to be adjusted. The same number of correct raw scores needed to pass is exactly the same on both tests. The National NES exam is based on a 100-300 point scale and the MN NES is based on a 400-600 point scale. The MN NES scores will be available to view in Results Analyzer starting with the October 7th reporting date.

NOTE: If candidates sign up and take the National NES exam after August 30th, they will accept the scores if they met the minimum passing score:

NES EAS Subtest Passing Score (on a 100–300 point scale)

Reading=205

Writing=214

Mathematics=213

Also, if a candidate has taken and passed a portion of the MTLE basic skills, they need to register and complete ONLY the portion they have not passed of that basic skills test through NES. They do not need to complete the whole series of Reading, Writing and Math over unless they did not pass all portions.

A listing of all licensure exam minimum passing scores can be found on the Board of Teaching website at:

<http://mn.gov/board-of-teaching/beaneducator/licensureexams/>

• Free study materials will be available for all MTLE test. There are also expanded test preparation products available for cost. Additional information can be found on their website using this link:

<http://www.mtle.nesinc.com/PageView.aspx?f=GEN_PreparationMaterials.html>

Pearson has also expanded their customer service hours to M-F 7AM-7PM and Sat from 8AM-4PM.

For questions and more information, please contact: Debby Odell, Educator Licensing, Supervisor <Debby.Odell@state.mn.us> or (651) 582-8522.

Submitting news to Augsburg:

To the Education Department News: Send your news to Joseph Erickson at C.B. 312 or erickson-AT-augsburg.edu.
To the Augsburg Now published by the Augsburg College Office of Public Relations and Communication: Send your news to C.B. 145 or now@augsburg.edu.
To the daily A-Mail electronic newsletter: Go to AugNet Home Page and login. Then click on “Submit News and Announcements” link.

Connecting with Alumni and Friends:

Augsburg College provides several ways to stay connected with Alumni and friends. Here are some links to get you started:

Alumni Information Update: Submit news and contact information changes to the college’s Alumni Office.
TC2 New Teachers’ Blog

Other Sources of News for K-12 Teachers:

Here are links to some of the very best online news sources for K-12 teachers:

Education Week
Teacher Magazine
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (also, subscribe to ASCD SmartBrief, a daily email news resource delivered right to your inbox).