From blocks to rocks, center stocks it all

As a student teacher in early childhood education, Deidra Ramsey made almost as many visits to the Education Resource Center on the University campus as to the school where she was working.

"I used it every day," Ramsey, CHEP '04, says of the center, which is part of the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy. "I borrowed CDs of children's music to take to school, puzzles and other curriculum materials for my students to use, books to help me make my lesson plans, a video camera to record myself teaching--just so many things that helped me."

Ramsey, who had worked part time in the center since her freshman year, was especially familiar with its offerings, but the facility is well-known and well-used by prospective teachers throughout the University and by practicing teachers statewide, according to its director, Peggy Dillner. And, she says, the number of people using the center is higher than ever before, thanks to a recent expansion.

The center originally was created to serve the needs of elementary education majors in what now is CHEP's School of Education, providing them with a place to borrow materials to use in their teaching-methods classes, internships and student teaching. Today, it is part of the College's Delaware Center for Teacher Education and recently has received two Unidel grants of $100,000 each to broaden the types of curriculum materials it makes available, particularly targeting preschool and secondary education.

"We want to make sure that all students across campus who are involved in education are served well," Dillner says. "Although elementary education students from the School of Education still are our biggest group of users, we have added a great deal of material for early childhood education majors in the [CHEP] Department of Individual and Family Studies and for secondary education students in the College of Arts and Sciences."

Other on-campus users of the center include students preparing to teach health and physical education and those studying school psychology, who can borrow from the center's extensive test collection.

"We're a curriculum materials center, not an academic library," Dillner says. "We have anything that educators could use in planning their lessons or in their classrooms."

The main part of the center, on the ground floor of the Willard Hall Education Building, is divided into two large rooms. The first is set up like a school library, with shelves full of colorful books arranged according to the Dewey decimal system and bright posters that promote reading decorating the walls. The second room is devoted to curriculum materials, its shelves packed with an orderly but highly diverse assortment of objects.

As Dillner conducts a tour of the center, she points out such curriculum materials as a see-through plastic model of the human brain sitting on a shelf in the science section, directly across the aisle from a stuffed green turtle that will recite the alphabet when a child presses the letters printed on its soft fur. Science kits contain such items as rock samples for analysis, and the math shelves hold blocks to demonstrate basic concepts.

"We have textbooks, we have models, we have videotapes and software and anything else that can be used in a classroom," Dillner says, gesturing toward various objects around the room, including a small pile of smooth boards of various lengths. "That's not lumber stacked on the floor over there; it's part of a science unit on simple machines."

Seated at one of the student tables that day is Arleysha Morris, CHEP '06, an early childhood education major who is reviewing books for a literacy course. With such titles as A Sock Is a Pocket for Your Toes and Peas, Potatoes, 1, 2, 3 spread out in front of her, Morris takes notes in preparation for a paper she will write explaining how she would incorporate different books into her classroom lessons.

"It's great to have a center like this," Morris says. "I've also used it to borrow books and worksheets for a math education class and for some tutoring I did in math."

Dillner and her staff say they try to reach all UD education students as early as possible, to ensure that they are aware of what the center has to offer them. Faculty members who teach secondary education methods courses now regularly bring their students to the center for a tour, Dillner says.

"We used to do a general orientation for elementary education majors, but now we integrate it into the requirements of their education courses," Allison Kaplan, one of the center's assistant directors, says. "We want them to rely on us throughout their years as students, and after they graduate and begin teaching, we hope that experience carries over so that they develop a partnership between their classroom and their school library."

The center's staff also reaches out to teachers throughout Delaware, reminding them that they can come to the center or use an interlibrary loan system to borrow what they need. For teachers of children with special needs, the center has a specialized collection of appropriate materials and a newsletter listing new acquisitions.

Fran O'Malley, director of the Delaware Social Studies Education Project in the Delaware Center for Teacher Education, says he promotes the resource center whenever he can in his work with both prospective and practicing teachers. Dillner credits O'Malley with enhancing the center's social studies collection by reviewing its books and materials and suggesting additions. One highlight of that part of the collection, supported cooperatively by several campus groups as well as the center, is a set of nearly 400 (and counting) videotapes of Public Broadcasting Service documentaries.

"I do workshops for teachers around the state, and I've built some of them around this collection," O'Malley says. "When I teach undergraduates, I tell them the same thing: You have access to all these great resources that you can use now and later, when you're teaching."

Dillner also has set up a book examination room in the center, where she stocks new books that publishers send her for review. Visitors to the center can get an early look at these volumes, and critiques of many of them are posted on the web site [www.udel.edu/erc/booksite.htm] as a guide for teachers and librarians.

--Ann Manser, AS '73, CHEP '73