Jennifer Bleidistel works at the Infant Toddler Center at California State University, Dominguez Hills as a teacher assistant. Like the other staff members, she takes care of the children there, many of whom have disabilities like autism or Down syndrome. For the last ten years, she has read to them, fed them breakfast and lunch, and tended to their basic needs during the day. But unlike most the other teachers and assistants, she shares something in common with many of her young charges - she too has a disability. Bleidistel, who was born with Down syndrome, found the job at the Infant Toddler Center through Easter Seals Southern California's Supported Employment Program. On Oct. 9, ... Read More
Teacher Education
CSU Dominguez Hills Students to Work with Local Preschoolers through New Jumpstart Partnership
California State University, Dominguez Hills has become the newest Jumpstart early childhood education location in Southern California. Jumpstart Los Angeles County at CSU Dominguez Hills will pair college students with preschoolers at Rainbow Child Development Center and Immanuel Children Development Center in Compton for twice-weekly sessions that will include helping the children with basic language and math skills, reading, and assisting teachers. The corps will also be working with children in the university's Child Development Center. Among the first activities the new location will participate in is Jumpstart's nationwide “Read for the Record” read-a-thon campaign on October 7. ... Read More
Jumpstart: CSU Dominguez Hills Launches Partnership with National Mentoring Program for Preschoolers
In the early weeks of the fall semester at California State University, Dominguez Hills students are not just buying textbooks and reading syllabuses for their new classes. Students from a wide variety of majors are preparing to serve 300 hours over the course of the 2010-11 academic year as Jumpstart Corps members. The students will be working to ensure that preschoolers in Carson and Compton receive mentoring and encouragement that will propel them to do well in school and to begin to think of themselves as college-bound. Jumpstart, a nonprofit focused on early childhood education, addresses school readiness among preschool children in low-income communities. The 30 members of the ... Read More
Dr. Kimberly Trimble Named Fulbright Scholar for 2009-10
Dr. Kimberly Trimble, professor in the Division of Teacher Education, was named a Fulbright Scholar for 2009-2010 and spent the academic year at the Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, teaching and directing student research in the Graduate School of Education's Master's in Teaching English as a Foreign Language program, and developing a language program for new diplomats through the Turkish Foreign Ministry. His English language curriculum development course at Bilkent was broadcast via satellite to a class of TEFL students at the University of Mosul in Iraq. ... Read More
Fighting Youth Violence Before It Starts: Students and Professor of Teacher Education Deliver Messages of Mentoring, Collaboration
Every year since Richard Gordon's 17-year-old son, Kwame, was fatally shot at a party in 2006, the California State University, Dominguez Hills professor of teacher education has honored his memory with an annual dinner to raise funds for a scholarship at the Waldorf School in Altadena. The school, which Kwame Gordon attended from kindergarten through the eighth grade, provides its students with an education that helps them grasp academics through imaginative and interdisciplinary methods. In a similar way, Richard Gordon seeks to help his neighbors understand that violence is not unique to low-income communities and underserved youth. A major component of Kwame's memorial are guest ... Read More