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Act of kindness from UF president’s wife—a half-century ago—spurs couple’s scholarship gift

It was a simple act of kindness by the University of Florida president’s wife in 1956 that helped persuade Jess and Sharon Elliott of Amelia Island to “pay it back” more than a half-century later with a donation creating a student scholarship at UF’s College of Education.
 
Jess was a freshman living in the Talbot Hall dormitory when Frances Huston Millikan Reitz, the wife of then-President J. Wayne Reitz, visited while he was sick in bed in the UF student infirmary.
 
“Mrs. Reitz sent my mother a note letting her know I was all right and not to worry,” Jess Elliott said. “That really pleased my parents, and Sharon and I both appreciate the interest that the University of Florida showed in us and the opportunities the university provided for us.”
 
The couple has expressed their gratitude with a $30,000 gift, creating an scholarship in their name to help undergraduate or graduate students cover the cost of working toward their education degrees.
 
Jess Elliott, born and raised in Pahokee, Fla., received three degrees from the College of Education—a B.A.E. degree in 1962, his M.Ed. a year later (concentrating in modern European history), and a doctorate (Ed.D.) in 1970 specializing in educational psychology with a research focus.  He says he was the first graduate of the research program in that specialty.
 
Elliott singles out two College of Education professors—Wilson Guertin and Douglas Scates—“who were instrumental in building my coherent approach to evaluating school effectiveness.”
 
Sharon Elliott was born in Tampa, spent two years living in UF’s Flavet (Florida Veterans) Villages while her father pursued his second UF degree), and spent the rest of her childhood in Thomasville, Ga. She attended UF for two years and later received her bachelor’s degree in from Agnes Scott College. She managed a travel agency in Atlanta for many years before she retired.
 
The Elliotts have one grandson son, Micah Mathis, who is a senior in electrical engineering at UF. Jess and Sharon both have many relatives who also graduated from UF.
 
The Elliotts moved to Amelia Island in 2013 after spending most of their adult years in Atlanta, where Jess worked as an administrator  for the Georgia Department of Education, using his statistics expertise to help evaluate the state’s student-testing and school and teacher accountability programs. He retired in 1995 and worked as an education research consultant until closing the books on his business last fall.
 
“Jess and Sharon Elliott may describe their gift as payback to the University of Florida, but they are really paying it forward by helping future students of our college realize their dreams of becoming educators,” said UF education dean Glenn Good. “New scholarship donations like the Elliotts’ are gifts that keeps on giving, year after year.”

MEDIA CONTACT / WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education;
352-273-4137llansford@coe.ufl.edu 

 

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Diverse practitioners headline Education Career Night Feb. 20

Four College of Education alumni – three of whom earned their doctorates at UF — will offer career advice that extends well beyond teaching during the college’s annual Education Career Night scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 20 in Norman Hall.

 The event is set for 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in room 250 at Norman Hall and is open to all.

Clockwise, from top left: Drexler, Hite, Mullin and Kicklighter

Clockwise, from top left: Drexler, Hite, Mullin and Kicklighter

This year’s four-member panel will share wisdom they each have gathered along four distinctly different career paths. Panel members include Wendy Drexler, chief innovation officer for the International Society for Technology in Education; Carl Hite, who recently retired as president of Cleveland State Community College; Melissa Kicklighter, vice president of the Florida PTA; and Christopher Mullin, assistant vice chancellor for policy and research for the Board of Governors of the State University System of Florida. 

Drexler, who received her doctorate in curriculum and instruction in 2010, is a former director of online development at Brown University who led the design and production of Brown’s first online courses. She has been a champion for effective integration of technology in K-12, higher education and corporate settings. 

Drexler also managed the research portion of the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) federal Title II grant across 23 Florida school districts, as well as eLearning design teams at IBM and AT&T. She has taught at the elementary, middle and high school levels, as well as undergraduate and graduate students at the collegiate level.

Hite received his Ph.D. in educational leadership in 1975, and served as the campus vice president and provost of Hillsborough Community College’s Tampa and Brandon campuses. He served as chairman of the National Alliance of Community and Technical Colleges, and currently serves as vice chair on the executive council of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. He recently was awarded UF’s Institute of Higher Education Outstanding Graduate award in recognition for his accomplishments in his profession, college and community.
 
Kicklighter earned an E.D.S. in Student Personnel in Higher Education in 1996, and is the Florida PTA vice president for regions and councils, as well as a wellness manager for Duval County (Fla.) Public Schools. She also is a civic/parent leader and advocate who serves on various committees and task forces related to child welfare, family engagement, and community advocacy. Kicklighter has worked in a variety of K-20, corporate and community education, training and advising roles and has been honored at the White House as a “Champion of Change.”

Mullin joined the Florida SUS Board of Governors staff last August as the program director for policy analysis at the American Association of Community Colleges in Washington, D.C. As a UF doctoral student, he helped launch and edit the Florida Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, published by the College of Education’s higher education administration unit. He received his bachelor’s in art education and a Ph.D. in higher education administration from UF, along with a master’s in education from Columbia University.

For more information, click here: https://education.ufl.edu/alumni/career-night/. 

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Education pundit Diane Ravitch gets topical with UF students, faculty

1618324_10151923262271194_925183701_oDiane Ravitch, a renowned education historian and pundit, research professor and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, held an informal Q&A session with 200 UF College of Education students and faculty on Jan. 22 at Norman Hall. The session was held just hours before Ravitch — author of the best-selling book, “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools” — presented a public lecture in University Auditorium.

Her 60-minute session with students included the New York University professor’s view that the decline of public education in the U.S. is “one of the most compelling issues of our time.” She said that attempts being made by political extremists to “destroy and dismantle” public education have played a significant role in the decline, and that corporate involvement – especially the establishment of charter schools that use taxpayer dollars to make a profit before going bankrupt – is setting a dangerous precedent.

Ravitch fielded a variety of questions that centered around education reform, but left her attentive audience with words of encouragement. “The tide is beginning to turn” back in favor of education funding, she said. Ravitch encouraged students to get involved and stick together. “Don’t be the nail that gets hammered,” she advised.

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7-year study aims to boost teaching of state’s English language learners

After $1 million, six years, and data from more than 24,000 elementary school teachers and 72,000 students, three University of Florida education researchers are close to completing a project that could transform the way teachers-in-training prepare to teach Florida schoolchildren whose primary language is not English. 

DSC_5323

Bilingual education professor Maria Coady (left) and UF video production specialist Emily O’Hearn edit case study videos for the new ESOL-infused curriculum that was developed as a result of Project DELTA’s findings. (Photos courtesy of UF College of Journalism and Communications)

In 2007, the U.S. Department of Education awarded almost $1.2 million to UF bilingual education professors Maria Coady, Ester de Jong and Candace Harper for Project DELTA, which stands for Developing English Language and Literacy through Teacher Achievement. Since then, the researchers have been assessing the effects that graduates from UF’s elementary teacher preparation program, called ProTeach, are having on their second language learners.

Now, they are using their findings to ensure that Florida’s future teachers are adequately prepared to teach the state’s growing population of ESOL (English to speakers of other languages) students. The study will run through June 2014.

The researchers will travel to Washington, D.C. to present their research Jan. 29 to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of English Language Acquisition, which funded the project. 

The researchers are comparing the academic performance of elementary school second-language students taught by College of Education graduates with that of ESOL students taught by non-UF teachers. By analyzing these numbers, as well as data from surveys and participating teacher-graduates, the team discovered that teachers prepared through ProTeach have a positive effect on the reading and mathematics achievement of the English language learners in their mainstream classrooms. 

The College of Education’s elementary teacher prep program lasts five years, and its graduates earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree plus an ESOL endorsement by the state of Florida. The ProTeach curriculum infuses second language learning and teaching theory into their general education classes such as reading and science instruction. 

“Florida has had the requirement for ESOL endorsement for initial teacher preparation in place since 2001, yet there is little research on what ESOL infusion is or what impact it has on learning,” said de Jong, the project’s principal investigator “Our study aims to fill this gap.” 

Project Delta 1

The Project DELTA team is composed of (from left to right) Candace Harper, Ester de Jong and Maria Coady, bilingual education professors at UF’s College of Education.

Despite the positive implications of the data, the surveys and case studies revealed that, although UF graduates feel confident about using visuals for their second-language students and ensuring that all students feel comfortable in the classroom, they are still wary of teaching language-specific instruction, which involves explicit lessons on grammar and other fundamental language principles. 

“Most of our students are monolingual and many haven’t had the experience of learning a second language beyond their high school foreign language classes, so showing them how language plays a role in the classroom can be challenging,” de Jong said. 

With this new information, the research team seeks to transform the College of Education’s ESOL curriculum so elementary teacher-candidates will have more in-class opportunities to practice second language teaching strategies. 

The revised curriculum also shows education students how teaching materials in mainstream subject areas can be modified for English learners. According to de Jong, the traditional curriculum focused more on ESOL-specific materials, but this new change will help teachers-in-training “think about taking the mainstream content they will be teaching and making adaptations accordingly.” 

“Because they are mainstream teachers, they have to contend with mainstream materials, but through this ESOL infusion model, we give them real tools to be critical of those materials and make sound decisions for second language learners,” de Jong said. 

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As part of Project Delta, the researchers produced a video featuring Kim Cook pictured on computer monitor), who was selected as a model teacher for the ESOL case study videos.

Co-researcher Maria Coady is producing two case study videos for the new curriculum. The videos feature UF alumnae Kim Cook and Sasha Abreu as model teachers, chosen for their “exemplary teaching of English language learning students,” Coady said. The videos showcase examples of grouping strategies, literacy instruction, ESOL strategies, communication with parents of English learners, and the use of multicultural literature in mainstream elementary classrooms. 

De Jong said they plan on showing the videos to UF elementary education students and also offering them online as instructional resources. 

“We hope these videos and the accompanying guide will be useful for teacher-educators across the state and nation,” Coady said. “We also believe they are useful products to guide state and national policies on teacher education and English language teaching and learning.” 

In the project’s final year, the researchers are poised to test and evaluate their ESOL infusion model within UF’s elementary education program by observing and tracking the influence of the experimental curriculum on teacher effectiveness and student achievement and acquiring feedback from the course instructors. 

“Improving teacher preparation for English language learners is important, as the number of bilingual students who are placed in mainstream classrooms continues to increase,” de Jong said. “Developments such as Common Core Standards make it even more imperative that teachers understand their ESOL students and develop the knowledge and skills to ensure equal access to a high-quality curriculum for these students.”

CONTACTS
SOURCE: Ester de Jong, associate professor of bilingual education, edejong@coe.ufl.edu, 352-273-4227
WRITER: Alexa Lopez, news and communications office, UF College of Education
MEDIA CONTACT: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications office, UF College of Education, llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

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UF partners with Chinese university on teacher ed initiative

Each year starting this fall, up to 15 undergraduate education students from a major Chinese university will spend their fourth year of teacher-preparation studies at the University of Florida College of Education, thanks to a partnership forged this week between the two schools.

Pictured at Tuesday's agreement signing ceremony in Norman Hall are: (seated) Dr. Weizhou Liu, VP, NXU, and UF COE dean Dr. Glenn Good; (standing from left) Dr. Juan "Angela" Zhao of International Exchange Office, Dr. Huying Cao, executive dean of NXU School of Teacher Education; UF COE associate dean Dr. Tom Dana, and UF International Center executive director Susanne HIll.

Pictured at Tuesday’s agreement signing ceremony in Norman Hall are: (seated) Dr. Weizhou Liu, VP, NXU, and UF COE dean Dr. Glenn Good; (standing from left) Dr. Juan “Angela” Zhao of International Exchange Office, Dr. Huying Cao, executive dean of NXU School of Teacher Education; UF COE associate dean Dr. Tom Dana, and UF International Center executive director Susanne HIll.

Upon completing their yearlong studies at UF, the Chinese teachers-in-training will return to Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, or NXU, in the East China region to complete their coursework and receive their undergraduate degree. Graduates who qualify may then apply for admission into a master’s degree program at UF’s College of Education.  

Officials with UF and NXU signed the five-year agreement at UF’s Norman Hall to seal the international education outreach pact. They will review the agreement in 2019 for possible renewal for another five years.

NXU is located in one of China’s most important cities: Nanjing is the capital city and the second largest commercial center in Jiangsu Province and has been the capital of at least six dynasties in ancient Chinese history. The university was founded in 1927 and has more than 15,000 full-time students.

 “This partnership provides an excellent opportunity for students and faculty from both UF and Nanjing to interact and learn from one another. It will provide valuable opportunities for our students and faculty to expand their multicultural skills and competences,” said Glenn Good, dean of UF’s College of Education.

Good said the College of Education will provide a faculty program director and an academic adviser for the visiting Chinese students, and the UF International Center will also extend a helping hand.

Good said the Nanjing student enrollees must meet all UF admission standards. As part of the student selection process, College of Education representatives and advisers will interview prospective students from Nanjing using Skype or similar video-conferencing technology provided by NXU.

UF education professor Danling Fu, left, served as interpreter at the agreement signing ceremony.

UF education professor Danling Fu, left, facilitated the UF-Nanjing relationship and served as interpreter at the agreement signing ceremony.

UF and NXU have carried on an informal relationship since 2011. UF education professor Danling Fu played matchmaker and facilitated the connection. Fu grew up in the People’s Republic of China and attended Nanjing University before immigrating as an adult to the United State in the mid-1980s.

The education colleges at the two universities—and their respective kindergarten-through-high school laboratory schools (including P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School at UF)—have each sent visiting contingents of faculty and students to the other’s campus for academic and cultural exchanges and sharing.

Fu served as interpreter in this week’s agreement signing that sealed the formal alliance.

“ I am very excited to see this partnership established between our two universities. I can serve as a bridge or an ambassador for the two countries, both of which I see as my home countries.” Fu said.

CONTACTS
   SOURCE: Dean Glenn Good, UF College of Education; ggood@coe.ufl.edu, 352-273-4135
   WRITER: Larry Lansford, communications director, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

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Harry and Diane Daniels: a marriage of true minds

Harry & Diane Daniels

Harry Daniels is a longtime professor of counselor education and has have been actively involved in the training and supervision of school and mental health counselors and marriage and family counselors for over 30 years. Daniels and his wife, Diane, have had the opportunity to expand their professional horizons since their move to Gainesville in 1996. The couple’s story took them from tiny towns in rural Iowa to communities throughout the nation. Both were recently profiled in a local magazine for community residents. We thought you might enjoy the article. 

Click HERE to view the publication in its entirety.

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Education pundit Diane Ravitch to hold Norman Hall ‘chat’ during UF appearance Jan. 22

Education historian Diane Ravitch, a best-selling author, scholar and outspoken thought leader of  American education trends and policies, will stop by Norman Hall on Jan. 22 for an informal, hour-long conversation with UF College of Education students, faculty and staff. 

Diane Ravitch

Diane Ravitch

The “Conversation and Q&A with Diane Ravitch” will start at 3 p.m. in Room 250. Limited seating (along with complimentary pizza) is available on a first-come-first-served basis. Sevan Terzian, associate professor of social foundations of education, will moderate the chat. 

Ravitch, a research professor at New York University and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush, will give a public lecture on campus that evening, from 7-9 p.m., in University Auditorium. Admission is free but tickets are required (by State Fire Marshal) and available at the door and at Ravitch’s afternoon appearance at Norman Hall.

The College of Education and the UF Honors Program are primary sponsors of Ravitch’s evening lecture and the university’s Bob Graham Center for Public Service is a co-sponsor.

Ravitch is the author of more than a dozen books about education, including the recent bestseller “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools.” She also wrote “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education” (2010).  Her lectures on democracy and civic education have been translated into many languages.

As Assistant Education Secretary, she led the federal effort to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards. She previously served on the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the national Assessment of Education Progress, the federal testing program. The National Education Association in 2010 selected Ravitch as its “Friend of Education.”

Ravitch, a Houston native, has a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University. She blogs at www.dianeravitch.net.  

Her complete biography is available on her website at: http://dianeravitch.com/.

CONTACTS
   SOURCE: Jodi Mount, UF College of Education, jmount@coe.ufl.edu, 352-273-4142
   WRITER/MEDIA CONTACT: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

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Study reveals ‘digital divide’ among state’s middle schoolers

 GAINESVILLE, Fla.—A new achievement gap is developing among Florida middle-school students based on their access to technology and whether they understand how to use it, according to University of Florida education researchers. 

They say this “digital divide” is rooted in how students’ socioeconomic status, gender and ethnic background affect their computer savvy. 

Albert Ritzhaupt

Albert Ritzhaupt

UF education technology researchers Albert Ritzhaupt and Kara Dawson, and colleagues from the American Institutes for Research and the University of South Florida, investigated the growing digital divide among almost 6,000 middle school students from 13 school districts in the state. Their findings were reported recently in the Journal of Research on Technology in Education. 

The researchers evaluated the students’ computer skills and also found that their interaction with technology “wasn’t all that equitable.” 

“Students and professionals have to increasingly operate in a digital world,” said Ritzhaupt, co-principal investigator and lead author of the research report. “This body of knowledge and skill has touched virtually every sector of the economy, and we have a responsibility in public education to prepare students to enter this workforce.” 

Kara Dawson

Kara Dawson

To identify potential discrepancies among the students, the researchers determined three characteristics that could form a digital divide: access to technology and the Internet in their schools, how and how often they used the technology in the classroom, and their computer skill levels.

The researchers then administered a performance-based exam in a simulated software environment. Some questions asked students to search the Internet for relevant information, requiring knowledge of what search terms to use, how to discriminate between credible and relevant findings, and how to apply this information to their assignments. The skills tested are based on the 2008 National Educational Technology Standards for Students. 

The study revealed that students with lower socioeconomic backgrounds performed poorer than the more affluent students. Non-white students also scored lower. However, females outperformed males, which Ritzhaupt said is inconsistent with previous findings. 

“The problem is that one of the things the state is pushing is digital learning and computer-based state testing, and our schools aren’t ready for this,” Ritzhaupt said. “Students need more technical support, more training and more resources.” 

Ritzhaupt said it will take more than money to narrow this technology divide. He said schools can build relationships with community partners to get resources, provide professional development to teachers, and support students in raising their technology acumen. 

Schools can transform into community centers to share knowledge and access to others in the community, he said, and district administrators can provide incentives to teachers who integrate meaningful digital lessons into their classrooms and schools. 

“There are many things that can be done, but we have to first acknowledge that a serious problem exists,” Ritzhaupt said.

CONTACT
SOURCE: Albert Ritzhaupt, associate professor, education technology, UF College of Education, 352-273-4180
WRITER: Alexa Lopez, news and communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4449
MEDIA CONTACT: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137

 

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Algebra Nation 2.0 launched to meet statewide demand of teachers, students

GAINESVILLE, Fla.—Responding to widespread demand among teachers across the state, the University of Florida is launching Algebra Nation 2.0, an even more powerful way to help students succeed on the high-stakes algebra end-of-course exam.

Algebra Nation flagFor Florida’s high school students, the Algebra 1 end-of-course exam is as high stakes as it gets – it determines their future. They must pass the test to graduate. About 48 percent of ninth-graders failed the exam in the spring. Created by the UF Lastinger Center for Learning in partnership with the Florida Legislature, Governor’s Office and Department of Education, as well as Gainesville-based Study Edge, Algebra Nation offers students, teachers and parents a free, highly effective, interactive, 24/7 online resource aligned with the latest state standards.

“When we launched Algebra Nation 1.0 in January,” said UF Lastinger Center Director Don Pemberton, “we knew we were addressing a tremendous need with the right resource but we had no idea it would take off so fast and go so far.”

More than 3,800 teachers in 1,000 schools in all 67 Florida schools districts are using Algebra Nation. To keep up with the increasing demand, UF is launching Algebra Nation 2.0, which is fully accessible on the web, iPhones, Android phones and Facebook.

“Now Algebra Nation is truly everywhere – in and out of the classrooms, around the clock,” said Boaz Dvir, Algebra Nation’s UF project manager.

UF has been working with school districts around the state to integrate Algebra Nation 2.0 and make it as user-friendly as possible. Students and teachers sign on easily with their school credentials. Teachers find their rosters already loaded. No matter where they are, students can readily access videos, study guides, an online Practice Tool that mimics the end-of-course exam and an interactive Algebra Wall where they can receive help day and night. 

To assure a smooth transition, the Algebra Nation also offers free professional development sessions to teachers, math coaches and math supervisors throughout the state.

UF is also printing and delivering free Algebra Nation Workbooks, which supplement the Content Review Videos, to Florida Algebra 1 teachers and students. UF initially offered 25,000 free Workbooks on a first-come-first-served basis. But after receiving orders from 1,000 teachers for 165,000 workbooks, the Algebra Nation team decided to fill them all – at no printing or shipping charge to the teachers.

“The workbooks, as well as the four new apps, allow teachers and students to fully maximize Algebra Nation’s effectiveness,” said Study Edge President Ethan Fieldman.

The Lastinger Center, part of the College of Education, is an educational innovation incubator. It harnesses the university’s intellectual resources to design, build, field-test and scale models that advance teaching, learning and healthy child development. The center continuously evaluates and refines its work, widely disseminates its findings and roots its initiatives in a growing network of partner sites around the state and country.

Study Edge is a Gainesville-based enterprise that helps high school and college students improve their learning outcomes through technology. Its founder, Fieldman, was the first winner of the Cade Museum Prize for Innovation, created to inspire creative thinking and support future inventors and promising entrepreneurs in the local community. 

SOURCE: Boaz Dvir, UF Lastinger Center, bdvir@coe.ufl.edu, 352-273-0289

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Gratitude inspires $2.2M gift to UF supporting teachers’ graduate studies

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Gratitude to his high school teachers has inspired a Wisconsin attorney and winter resident of Gainesville to establish a scholarship fund at the University of Florida to help practicing schoolteachers earn graduate degrees.

Michael Gengler’s $2.2 million donation, made through a provision in his will, will support Alachua County schoolteachers who enroll in graduate school at UF’s College of Education to improve their teaching skills and advance their careers. Interest earned on the investment will cover the full tuition costs of graduate studies at UF for at least three teachers each year, according to a college spokesman.

GENGLER, Mike (donor)Gengler, 69, credits his public schoolteachers, especially those who taught him at Gainesville High School, for his success in college and his law career.

“We all support our colleges and professional schools financially, but what about our public schools? They have to serve entire communities, not just a tiny fraction of the population,” said Gengler. “In my own experience, my public schoolteachers didn’t just get us through our classwork, they challenged us and inspired us.”

Gengler graduated from Gainesville High in 1962. He then earned degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School and practiced law in Boston and Chicago. He now lives most of the year near Madison, Wis., and spends winters in Gainesville.

 “I could not have had my career in corporate law in Gainesville, but at least I can give something back,” Gengler said. 

“What a wonderful legacy from one of Alachua County’s own,” said Alachua County Public School’s interim superintendent Hershel Lyons. “Mr. Gengler’s teachers would be very proud of both his success and his generosity. His gift is the perfect tribute to them and to all public school teachers.”

Teachers who receive a scholarship from the Michael T. Gengler Endowment Fund must have three or more years of classroom teaching experience and agree to teach for three more years in Alachua County after earning their advanced degrees.

“I hope this program helps attract excellent teachers to the county, and then will encourage them to pursue advanced degrees and leverage that talent and education in their classroom teaching careers,” Gengler said. “If the program works, the real beneficiaries will be their students.”

Glenn Good, dean of UF’s College of Education, described Gengler’s gift as “thoughtful and magnificent.”

“For Michael Gengler to honor his former teachers by helping other teachers speaks well of his character. His scholarships will have a ripple effect that will touch teachers and schoolchildren for generations,” Good said.

CONTACTS:
MEDIA CONTACT (UF): Larry Lansford, news and communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137, llansford@coe.ufl.edu
MEDIA CONTACT (SCHOOL DISTRICT): Jackie Johnson, Alachua County Public Schools, 352-955-7880; jackie.johnson@gm.sbac.edu
WRITER: Alexa Lopez, news and communications, UF College of Education, aklopez@coe.ufl.edu

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P.K. Yonge-China connection continues to blossom

P.K. Yonge host students Dannette Aguirre and Sebastian Galindo, both traveling to Nanjing over Spring Break 2014, take time to show visiting students Yuan Susu and Wu Yushan some of Gainesville’s natural sites during the NJEIS exchange visit in September. (Photo by Paula Hamsho.)

P.K. Yonge host students Dannette Aguirre and Sebastian Galindo, both traveling to Nanjing over Spring Break 2014, take time to show visiting students Yuan Susu and Wu Yushan some of Gainesville’s natural sites during the NJEIS exchange visit in September. (Photo by Paula Hamsho.)

Months of planning became bustling activity when a tour bus of 15 Chinese students, two administrators, and one faculty member arrived at UF’s P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School. from the Nanjing Experimental International School (NJEIS) on Sept. 24.

The five-day visit from NJEIS is the second major step in the blossoming partnership between the two school communities. The relationship, characterized by enthusiasm, warmth, and commitment to intercultural communication and global competence, only seems to grow and touch more people more deeply with each new activity in which the two schools engage. 

The P.K. Yonge High School officially welcomed the Chinese delegation with speeches,  student performances and words of welcome in Chinese by high school students Savannah Branch, Stephen Tucker, Robert Powell and Megan Marks. Speeches by representatives from the two schools underscored the sense of gratitude experienced by both hosts and guests for the opportunity to participate in the experience.

During their time in Gainesville, NJEIS students stayed with families of students who visited NJEIS during spring break of 2013 or with students who will be participating in an exchange visit next year. Families welcomed their NJEIS guests into their homes like they were their own children. Student Bai Xiaoyu (Tiffany), while munching on a snack prepared by her host father, said, “ He is just like my own dad!”

“We believe that participating in daily life experiences and making meaningful connections with students and families are two key ways in which people develop global competence,” said Julie Henderson, P.K. Yonge’s Coordinator of International Relations. “Opportunities like those provided to both P.K. Yonge and NJEIS students don’t just promote awareness of another culture, but provide an inside experience and understanding that would not be possible on a tourist visit.”

Visiting administrators and faculty were able to observe classes and participate in official observation activities on the PKY campus. Plans are being developed for the P.K. Yonge faculty delegate, Amanda Adimoolah, to teach classes in the NJEIS elementary school during her time in Nanjing.

Besides their in-home experiences, Chinese students accompanied their American partners to academic classes, took classes taught by P.K. Yonge faculty, visited the UF campus and the Florida Museum of Natural History, and took a day trip to the historic sites and beaches in St. Augustine. The school week ended with a traditional tailgate barbecue before the Blue Wave’s Friday night home football game. The team was welcomed onto the field by the P.K. Yonge cheerleaders and their new Chinese friends.

After the visit, the P.K. Yonge group of students traveling to China in 2014 expanded from 11 to 19.  Interest in the partnership has grown campuswide; with many students expressing interest in future years exchange activities. The P.K. Yonge Elementary school has now begun weekly Chinese classes for second through fifth grade and a middle-high school Chinese language club will begin to support the student delegation traveling to China in the spring.

Response to the visit on both sides of the world has been similar. Yang Xiaolin, assistant principal at NJEIS perhaps described the sentiment best: “Our students entered the U.S. students’ families and felt like family members of their U.S. partners–living together, learning and really feeling American sincerity and enthusiasm. They felt the warmth of this connection extend to their families at home.” 

Planning and fundraising activities are underway for the P.K. Yonge spring break visit to NJEIS. To learn more, donate or keep up with P.K. Yonge’s global activities, visit http://pkyglobal.pkyonge.ufl.edu.

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Study promotes early learning in everyday activities for infants, toddlers with disabilities

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — In a multi-center study, Florida and Illinois researchers are testing a promising approach to help parents and caregivers of infants and toddlers with disabilities advance their child’s learning through everyday activities and routines.

Patricia Snyder portrait

Patricia Snyder

The researchers, from Florida State University, the University of Florida College of Education and the University of Illinois at Chicago, have received a highly competitive grant worth $1.5 million from the federal Institute of Education Sciences to develop and test an early intervention strategy for the people most important in these young children’s lives—the parents, grandparents or others entrusted with their daily care and well-being.

The project’s co-principal investigators are Patricia Snyder, professor and holder of the David J. Lawrence Jr. endowed chair in early childhood studies at UF; Juliann Woods, a professor of communication sciences and disorders at FSU; and Christine Salisbury, a special education professor at UIC.

“Learning begins at birth,” Snyder said. “Infants and toddlers—especially those with disabilities—benefit from responsive interactions and early-learning experiences in everyday activities.” 

The new approach, known as EPIC (short for embedded practices and intervention with caregivers), teaches therapists, teachers and other early-learning practitioners how to help parents and caregivers recognize and capitalize on the countless learning opportunities that occur in a child’s daily routine—in common activities like playing peek-a-boo, drinking from a cup, rolling a ball or getting into a car seat.

“Early intervention for young children with disabilities traditionally has involved practitioners working directly with the child. Very little time is spent supporting regular interactions and learning opportunities between the parents and child,” said Woods of FSU.

The EPIC team is developing a “curriculum” for early-intervention providers with guidelines for coaching parents to incorporate responsive learning experiences into their children’s everyday activities. Feedback from the practitioners will aid the researchers in field-testing and finalizing the coaching and intervention processes.

“With this intervention approach, caregivers of young children with significant disabilities will learn how to enhance their interactions in meaningful and useful activities to support learning,” said Salisbury of UIC.

The two-state EPIC project is one of only 13 projects funded this year by the Institute of Education Sciences out of more than 900 applications, due to federal budget cuts.

Researchers say the new approach could benefit tens of thousands of America’s youngest children. According to U.S. Department of Education figures, nearly 350,000 infants and toddlers under age 3 who have disabilities are enrolled annually in federal programs providing early intervention services. About one in every five, or 70,000 children, has a diagnosed physical or mental condition likely to impede normal development. Among the conditions are Down’s syndrome, impaired vision or hearing, neurological impairments, social and emotional delays, and other genetic conditions.

Recent studies identify the use of “embedded instruction” in everyday activities as a recommended practice for young preschoolers with disabilities, but researchers say additional studies are needed to identify the best methods for showing parents how to engage their children in these natural learning opportunities.

A core element of the EPIC intervention is a set of five questions—the “5Q process”—with accompanying visual cues that help parents recognize an opportune time, place, or activity to teach their child, how and what to teach, what their goals and expectations are, and how to know if it’s working.

“Visual cues might be a video clip or a cell phone app, or simply an eraser board message on the refrigerator reminding parents about mealtime teaching opportunities,” Snyder said. “The five questions quickly become second nature in daily interactions with their child.”

The three-year study started in June at each university site in Florida and Chicago with focus groups and a review panel of practitioners and parents evaluating the EPIC intervention and resource materials. A small tryout trial involving eight children and their families, and their intervention providers, will follow to confirm the method’s feasibility and acceptance by participating providers and families and to adjust the intervention as needed.

In the second year, researchers will further test the intervention with three individual children with disabilities and their families; the final phase in Year 3 culminates with a pilot comparative study of two groups—an EPIC test group and another receiving traditional intervention—involving 20 families in Florida and 20 in Illinois.

“We anticipate our study results will support the need for larger-scale studies to demonstrate that EPIC is an effective, recommended approach in early intervention,” Snyder said.

CONTACTS

SOURCE: Patricia Snyder, the Lawrence Endowed Professor in Early Childhood Studies, UF College of Education, 352-273-4291; patriciasnyder@coe.ufl.edu
WRITER/NEWS DESK: Larry Lansford, director, news & communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137;llansford@coe.ufl.edu

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UF College of Education film screening Sept. 26 shines light on innovative inner-city teacher

Discovering Gloria Title CardDirected and produced by award-winning University of Florida documentary filmmaker Boaz Dvir, “Discovering Gloria” tells the story of former Gainesville Duval Elementary School teacher Gloria Jean Merriex’s transformation into a trailblazing innovator and a national model. 

“Discovering Gloria” screens Sept. 26 at 6:30 pm at Lincoln Middle School in Gainesville. The 90-minute program, which is sponsored by the UF College of Education’s Lastinger Center for Learning, includes opening remarks by Alachua County Public Schools Superintendent Dan Boyd and a post-screening panel discussion with UF leaders, professors and researchers. The event is free and open to the public. 

“Gloria’s instinctive innovations have greatly informed our work,” said UF Lastinger Center Director Don Pemberton, who worked closely with Merriex. “She showed what an incredible difference a master teacher can make in the lives of vulnerable children.” 

In 2008, Merriex received a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to create a national curriculum using her innovations. The next day, she suffered a fatal diabetic stroke. 

The Sept. 26 documentary post-screening panel features Pemberton; Prof. Thomasenia Adams, associate dean for research at the UF College of Education; Prof. Elizabeth Bondy, director of the UF College of Education’s School of Teaching and Learning; Alachua County School Board Member Leanetta McNealy; Alachua County Public Schools Fine Arts Facilitator Angela Terrell; and University of Texas Assistant Prof. Emily Bonner, who’s flying in to participate in the event. 

The panel also features two of the 35 former Merriex students expected to attend: Charlie Brown, a UF premed junior, and Jasmine Patterson, a Santa Fe College freshman.

An inspiring 40-minute documentary, “Discovering Gloria” shows Merriex engaging her math and reading students at the most effective levels through her innovations, which included hip-hop and dance routines. 

In the film, Pemberton, Bondy and others who examined Merriex’s methods describe how she broke vital new ground.

“She didn’t move to using music because she studied Howard Gardner’s work about multiple intelligences,” Bondy says in the film. “She moved to using music and movement and the other strategies that she used because she studied her students.” 

“Discovering Gloria” also shows how Merriex helped Duval leap from an F on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) in 2002 to an A the following year. 

“Gloria’s innovative approach of teaching her students using rhythm, rhyme and movement is legendary in the Duval Elementary School community,” Superintendent Boyd said. “Through this documentary, people outside that community will also have an opportunity to learn about Gloria’s methods and her many contributions to education.”

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UF gift from novelist James Patterson creates 8 scholarships in elementary education

PattersonIt should come as no surprise that James Patterson, one of America’s current top bestselling authors, has a passion for books and reading, and he supports those who do the same.

But the plot thickens. Patterson believes one way to champion books and reading for children is by supporting our future teachers, which explains why his Patterson Family Foundation has donated $48,000 for scholarships benefiting eight elementary education students at the University of Florida.

“I was especially impressed by the teaching program at UF’s College of Education,” said Patterson, who lives in Palm Beach. “As a Floridian myself, I know UF is committed to quality in education, and I want to help these students who are eager to become great teachers.”

Patterson has sold more than 275 million copies of his books worldwide and has received and been nominated for numerous awards. He also holds the Guinness world record for most hardcover fiction bestselling titles by a single author. 

His foundation’s gift to the college will award eight incoming elementary education students with a $6,000 scholarship for the 2013-2014 school year. The scholarship recipients will be obligated to submit a written essay by the end of the academic year in which they describe how they plan to apply what they have learned in their teacher education program within their future classrooms.

“Great teachers are at the core of our democracy,” said Elizabeth Bondy, the director of the college’s School of Teaching and Learning. “This gift will enable dedicated college freshmen to become practitioner scholars who will educate our youth and lead ongoing efforts to strengthen schools and society.”

The Patterson Family Foundation has provided scholarships to undergraduate and graduate education students at more than 15 colleges across the United States. The author and his wife also support scholarships at their alma mater universities, Manhattan College, Vanderbilt University and the University of Wisconsin. 

Patterson, author of best-selling suspense-thriller series like Alex Cross, Women’s Murder Club and Michael Bennett, is also the current bestselling author in the young adult and middle grade categories.

CONTACT
SOURCE: Sabrina Benun, Hachette Book Group, 212-364-1487, sabrina.benun@hbgusa.com
SOURCE: Elizabeth Bondy, School of Teaching and Learning, UF College of Education, 352-273-4242, bondy@coe.ufl.edu
MEDIA CONTACT: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137, llansford@coe.ufl.edu
WRITER: Alexa Lopez, news and communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4449, aklopez@coe.ufl.edu

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Counselor ed study links life stressors to students’ reading scores

Counselor-Ed-researchers-H-Daniels-et-al-3-22-crppd

From left: Harry Daniels, a professor of counselor education, Dia Harden, a 2010 doctoral graduate (who participated in UF’s original “geo-demographic” study), and Eric Thompson, who received his doctorate this summer. (File photo)

As researchers across the country continue the search for early indicators of academic failure and dropouts, University of Florida education researchers are paying particularly close attention to warning signs predicting reading test scores.

Eric Thompson, a summer doctoral graduate in counselor education at UF’s College of Education, recently completed his dissertation research in which he dissected the causes of a reading achievement gap found among Alachua County students in third through 10th grades.

According to Thompson, the cause of low reading achievement may be rooted in how vulnerable a student has been to stressful circumstances in life, including a low socioeconomic level, minority status, and even low birth weight, which affect academic performance.

One of Thompson’s most significant findings is a striking difference in students’ achievement based on their socioeconomic status.

“Students living in low socioeconomic environments are more likely to encounter more risk factors and experience fewer supports,” Thompson said.

Although this research finding may not surprise some, Thompson said, he and his co-primary investigator Harry Daniels, a professor of counselor education, were able to uncover and describe exactly why such performance gaps occur. 

Their studies showed that the least affluent students scored about 300 points less than their more affluent peers on the FCAT reading exam. Thompson also discovered that most affluent groups started with very high scores in the third grade, while the least affluent students started very low and stayed low throughout their schooling. 

Low socioeconomic level was primarily determined by looking at each student’s family and community lifestyles based on spending patterns, credit card data and other related information. 

However, Thompson’s research showed that students with a low socioeconomic level have also experienced other stressful life circumstances. Compared to students with a middle- to a high-socioeconomic level, the least affluent students were born at a lower birth weight; had parents who were younger and “potentially less mature” when the students were born; had parents with a lower level of education and a higher rate of unemployment; and are currently enrolled in schools with a higher percentage of students with free-and-reduced lunch and a larger population of minority students.

“It would appear from the onset that these students are at more risk for poor academic performance than those in the more affluent group,” Thompson said.

For his doctoral research, Thompson studied students’ reading scores between 2004 and 2011 and tracked trends based on four variables: each student’s biological qualities like gestational age and ethnicity, characteristics about each student’s family including parents’ education, the student’s school demographics, and the lifestyles of those in the student’s community. Thompson calls this the “individual-family-school-community model.”

“You have growth and maturation in the biological domain, including genetics and personality, and the social domain, which includes family, school, community,” Thompson said. “Within this intersection, you have risk and protective factors that relate to stress. The cumulative effect of stressors like poverty, family life and peer stress accumulates through time and can inhibit learning.”

The study also showed that not only did these individual, family, school and community characteristics differ among socioeconomic groups, but their influence on academic risk also differed. For example, minority status and the presence of minority students in their school did not affect affluent students’ performance. Thompson said that students living in a low-socioeconomic environment may receive fewer social and academic supports.

Thompson’s recent research is a follow-up of a 2010 “geo-demographics” study by a UF team that documented a profound correlation between home location, family lifestyles and students’ achievement on state standardized tests.

“While school improvement and teaching quality are vital, we are demonstrating that the most important factor in student learning may be the children’s lifestyle and the early learning opportunities they receive at home,” Daniels said.

Thompson and Daniels hope their findings shed light on the increasing need to tailor classroom and counseling activities so each student’s individual needs are being met.

“It would be irresponsible to treat every child the exact same way because every student comes from a different background and experience,” Thompson said. “We need to ask ourselves, ‘How do we help students develop a lifestyle conducive to academic success? How can we adjust the delivery of education to meet the needs of students from diverse backgrounds?’”

 CONTACTS
SOURCE: Eric Thompson, doctoral graduate in counselor education from the UF College of Education, 352-328-9571, erict56@ufl.edu
SOURCE: Harry Daniels, professor of counselor education at the UF College of Education, 352-273-4321, harryd@coe.ufl.edu
WRITER: Alexa Lopez, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137, aklopez@coe.ufl.edu

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UF, Palm Beach County schools launch bold STEM ed reform effort

The School District of Palm Beach County, together with the University of Florida, has announced the launch of a three-year reform effort to build a “best-in-class” educational program in the vital STEM subject areas of science, technology, engineering and math.

Officials say the ambitious effort could become a national model for transforming teacher practice and student learning in the STEM subjects. The resulting professional development and educational advances will directly benefit thousands of teachers and students in the Palm Beach County district.

Palm Beach County science teachers construct an atom model at a UF Summer Institute on chemistry instruction recently at UF's P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School.

Palm Beach County science teachers construct an atom model at a UF Summer Institute on chemistry instruction recently at UF’s P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School.

Major funding support for the STEM initiative’s rollout comes from $1 million in combined grants from three charitable foundations—the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, the Mary and Robert Pew Public Education Fund and Quantum Foundation. Additional funding is projected with amounts to be considered before the effort’s second and third years.

UF has worked with the school district and its community and philanthropic partners in planning the initiative, and will provide “in-kind” professional development and educational programs valued at more than $1 million—funded primarily by additional state and national foundation grants held by UF’s College of Education 

UF and school district officials expect the Palm Beach County STEM Initiative to yield measurable improvement in four key areas: school culture, teacher quality, student learning, and higher performance and assessment evaluations in the STEM subjects for teachers and students. Certain programs are designed especially for schools in high-poverty communities where recruiting and retaining teachers is more challenging 

 “This bold initiative will position the Palm Beach County school system as a national leader in recruiting, retaining and developing highly effective teachers and boosting students’ achievement,” said Dean Glenn Good of UF’s College of Education. 

Palm Beach County School Superintendent E. Wayne Gent said, “With the ever increasing importance of STEM-related jobs in Florida, the (school district) is dedicated to equipping our teachers with the resources they need to educate the future STEM leaders of tomorrow. We are grateful to our partners at the University of Florida, along with the generosity of our key foundation partners, who made this program a reality.”

UF’s College of Education brings several existing STEM education innovations to the partnership. The college’s Lastinger Center for Learning will provide job-embedded professional learning opportunities to district science and math teachers, and the center’s free, online Algebra Nation tutoring program (launched last year in numerous Florida school districts) supports students and their teachers preparing for a required algebra end-of-course exam.

Through an outreach program called U-FUTuRES — or UF Unites Teachers to Reform Education in Science — university professors will train middle-school Science Teacher Leaders to lead districtwide implementation of research-proven teaching practices and subject content. The education college also will provide tuition-free courses to 15 Palm Beach County teachers for a certification program in math or science education that they can take without leaving their classrooms. UF launched U-FUTuRES last year in 20 mostly rural Florida school districts under a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

Another new UF program is Florida STEM-TIPS (Teacher Induction and Professional Support), which will have education faculty developing coaching, mentoring and networking programs for new science and math teachers in Palm Beach County.

Other components of the UF-Palm Beach Schools STEM initiative include:

  • Math and science clinics emphasizing special “inquiry-based” teaching and learning practices;
  • Weeklong summer institutes at UF for teachers led by UF science and math professors;
  • Regular meetings of principals and school leaders to support improved STEM teaching and learning in the district;
  • An annual learning showcase where teachers can share the results of their new learning experiences. 
    CONTACT:
    Source: Tom Dana, associate dean, UF College of Education, 352-273-4134
    Writer: Larry Lansford, News & Communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137, llansford@coe.ufl.edu

 

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UFTeach summer scholars get hands-on training in STEM education

WATCH NOW on the COE YouTube channel. CLICK HERE: http://goo.gl/J6JCje

A college student’s typical summer often includes lounging by a pool, spending hours glued to technology and social media, and sleeping until noon.

For recipients of the University of Florida’s Noyce summer scholarships, however, vacation days this summer were spent soaked in science teaching and learning.

Noyce summer scholars are enrolled in the university’s UFTeach program, a collaborative effort between the colleges of Education and Liberal Arts and Sciences that provides math and science majors with an education minor to prepare them for teaching the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and math. During the summer, each scholar serves as an intern at an informal science education setting, such as a museum, zoo, botanical park, fossil dig or nature center.

Summer scholar Barry Congressi prepares a rhinoceros vertebrae fossil for display at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

UFTeach Summer Scholar Barry Congressi prepares a rhinoceros vertebrae fossil for display at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.

“Today’s students need a much stronger foundation in STEM subject areas beginning in middle and high school, and teachers have one of the most significant impacts on student learning,” said UFTeach associate director Dimple Flesner. “It is critical that mathematics and science teachers have a strong academic background in the subjects they teach. UFTeach answers this call.”

As part of a five-year, $1.2 million grant, the National Science Foundation’s Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program will fund 18 UFTeach scholars every summer with a $5,000 stipend, as well as 10 additional students each school year with $10,000. The Noyce program funds higher-education institutions across the country to support scholarships, stipends and academic programs for STEM majors who pursue a teaching credential and commit to teaching at least two years in high-needs public school districts.

“We hope our Noyce interns will discover the value and importance of informal education settings and begin to see the world as their classroom,” said Flesner, a co-principal investigator of UF’s Noyce internship project along with UFTeach co-director Tom Dana, an associate dean at the College of Education.

UF senior math major Barry Congressi, one of this year’s 18 summer scholars, mathematics major has been working at the Florida Museum of Natural History on UF’s Gainesville campus. He is stationed at the museum’s vertebrae paleontology unit, where he cleans and prepares fossils for display.

STILL, Brooke_9132

Summer scholar Brooke Still helps a camper on his art project at Miami’s Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.

Although Congressi is studying mathematics, he said his Noyce internship has been both a personal and professional learning experience.

“Not only have I really learned a lot about paleontology in the last couple of months, but I have discovered that I can find inspiration for mathematics lessons anywhere and almost anything can be used to help teach others,” he said.

Junior Brooke Still is also a math major working within a science environment. She is an intern at Miami’s Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and its butterfly conservatory. Each day, Still either works with children participating in Fairchild’s summer camp, or she interacts with and educates guests at the butterfly conservatory.

Her experience, she said, has taught her practical skills that are necessary in the classroom. One of these is patience.

“Without patience, you can’t successfully motivate your students or guide their learning,” she said.

Caguetzia Soulouque

Caguetzia Soulouque at Miami’s Jungle Island

Also in Miami is sophomore Caguetzia Soulouque, who has spent her summer afternoons coordinating field trips and planning fun, informative and memorable lessons for young visitors at the Jungle Island zoo. She also was working to develop an educational curriculum for the zoo’s field trip visitors and its potential future summer camp.

“Through this experience I’ve learned a lot about what learning opportunities children are receiving and aren’t receiving in schools, as well as how I can use Jungle Island and similar places as a teaching resource,” Soulouque said. “It’s summer and kids don’t want anything to do with school, so I’ve had to learn how to make lessons that are entertaining yet educational.”

Senior Shivee Gupta, a zoology major interning at the Florida Museum of Natural History, is also finding ways to make science fun but still challenging. Her workdays involve creating videos and exhibits for visitors and educators about subjects like invasive species, animal attacks and beach bird nests.

Zoology major Shivee Gupta prepares a beach bird nest display at the Flurida Museum of Natural History.

UFTeach zoology major Shivee Gupta prepares a beach bird nest display at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

“The main challenge we have as educators is how we get a message across to our students and to the public that is understandable,” Gupta said. “Through my internship and the class that goes with it, I’ve learned how to take scientific knowledge and present it in a way so everyone can understand it without ‘losing’ the science. 

The NSF’s Noyce scholarship program is just one of several recent initiatives by the College of Education to bolster teaching and learning in the STEM subjects. Each of the selected Noyce scholars recognizes the need for more STEM majors and teachers in this global knowledge economy.

For intern Brooke Still, it all begins with “better informed and more passionate STEM teachers who motivate their students to learn, resulting in students who are genuinely more interested in STEM subjects,” she said.

“Our world revolves around STEM subjects,” Gupta added. “Everything you do and see has some science or math incorporated. Students need to begin to see a holistic view of the world and STEM education really brings that together.”

CONTACT

WRITER: Alexa Lopez, news and communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4449
MEDIA CONTACT: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137

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School discipline researcher suggests alternatives to out-of-school suspensions

(In a recent guest column in the Gainesville Sun, titled “Curbing the need to suspend,” retired teacher Greg Marshall applauded local efforts to curb the use of suspension as punishment in public schools. Instead of suspensions, Marshall asserted that by understanding students’ impoverished backgrounds, educators can help students meet the school’s “hidden” middle class expectations. Below, in an open letter responding to Marshall’s column, Brianna Kennedy-Lewis, an assistant professor in UF’s School of Teaching and Learning and a school discipline researcher, counters that educators must change how we think about student behavior and learning so “our focus is on students’ strengths and schools’ failures, rather than on schools’ strengths and students’ failures.”)

Brianna Kennedy-Lewis

Brianna Kennedy-Lewis

Here is her letter:

Greg Marshall’s recent article in the Gainesville Sun applauded the Alachua County School Board’s plan to host a workshop to address the overuse of out-of-school suspensions. As a former middle school teacher and current school discipline researcher, I echo his applause. However, I disagree with Mr. Marshall’s belief that using author Ruby Payne’s “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” will solve the problem. Payne’s framework asserts that all students living in poverty have negative backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences that cause them to misbehave and fail in school. Payne believes that by understanding students’ impoverished backgrounds, educators can help students meet the school’s middle class expectations. Although Payne’s work has no scientific basis, it is appealing because it gives educators a non-threatening way to diagnose difficulties without challenging our assumptions.

Scientific research and the experiences of many educators tell a story much different than Payne’s. There is a national discipline gap between White students and students of color. Research has shown that whether or not they are poor, students of color are punished three-and-a-half times more frequently than Whites for similar offenses and the punishments are harsher. We know that out-of-school suspensions do not result only from the misbehavior of students living in poverty. Instead, educators’ beliefs, judgments, and responses to students play a critical role in the school discipline landscape.

As educators, our views of student behavior, instructional decisions, classroom management practices, and even the curriculum we teach, reflect our cultural backgrounds, which often differ from those of our students. As students become increasingly diverse across the nation, educators face the challenge of providing responsive school environments. Twenty-first century educators must understand and build upon the values and interactional styles of their students rather than following Payne’s recommendation to hold students accountable for middle class expectations. As educators, we must change how we think about student behavior and learning so that our focus is on students’ strengths and schools’ failures rather than on schools’ strengths and students’ failures. We educators have the power and responsibility to impart radical respect for students and families, invest tirelessly in building relationships with all students, and work creatively and collaboratively to provide relevant instruction for all. Focusing on these areas of educational practice will help us avoid many of the interactions that currently lead to out-of-school suspensions.

When disciplinary consequences are necessary, educators should replace out-of-school suspensions with developmentally appropriate, research-based, and effective alternatives. The National School Boards Association has recently released a policy guide (available online) outlining practical steps that school districts around the country are taking to reduce out-of-school suspensions.

(Editor’s Note: The Alachua County School Board hosted a public workshop July 11 on this issue. ACSB Chairwoman Eileen Roy said the next step is to create a committee to help school administrators get the right resources for providing alternatives to suspension.)

CONTACT:
Brianna L. Kennedy-Lewis, Ph.D., UF College of Education; bkennedy@coe.ufl.edu

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Technology Teaching Lab for future teachers takes interactive learning to higher level

STL Associate Director Suzanne Colvin is shown with ProTeach students in the tech-enhanced classroom.

STL Associate Director Suzanne Colvin is shown with ProTeach students in the tech-enhanced classroom.

After a few months of training sessions and moderate class scheduling, the UF College of Education’s new “technology teaching laboratory” will open in full swing this fall to hundreds of computer-savvy students—not only in education but from several colleges across campus.  

Aiming to bring teacher education into the 21st century, the college has converted a vintage 1979 reading clinic—Room 2309 in UF’s Norman Hall—into a digital-age, tech-smart classroom, where professors are incorporating the latest technology into their teaching to transform student learning and increase teacher-student engagement.

The college last year received $141,000 for the room makeover project from UF’s Office of Academic Technology through a campuswide grant program supported by yearly student technology fees.

The reinvented classroom features the latest educational technology. New touch-screen SMART boards complement the traditional dry-erase boards, and students sit in groups for collaboration at seven movable media pods. Up to four iPads or laptops can be connected at each station, and all four screens can be shown at once on a shared large monitor.

“The greatest innovation isn’t the SMART boards or the iPads—it’s the use of technology to redesign the classroom into collaborative thinking stations,” said Suzanne Colvin, associate director of teacher education in the college’s School of Teaching and Learning. She was instrumental in orchestrating the classroom makeover and its funding.

The teaching lab’s seven media pods each face a large screen for the students to share their computer-monitor views with the group. Each station can connect to one of two 40-inch monitors at each end of the classroom. With the screens at each station and the capability to connect to the larger monitors, the instructor can see what each group is working on from a distance, even with large classes.

“The students are literally in awe when they first walk into class,” Colvin said. “They are digital natives, though, so it’s easy for them to adapt to the room and to utilize the equipment.” 

Colvin said the classroom technology can improve the interaction between students and the instructor or among themselves in group projects and problem-solving exercises. “Students can get a group-thinking experience in the new classroom that isn’t possible with distance learning or a traditional lecture-style class,” she said.

Clinical assistant professor Caitlin Gallingane likes holding sessions of her literacy methods courses in the tech-smart classroom because “it makes students active participants” in the lessons.

“Instead of showing a video of a teaching practice on the screen at the front of the room, students are each responsible for finding an online example of a teaching practice and then watching them together on the shared screens at the media pod and evaluating the practices as a group,” Gallingane said.

The lab’s collaborative technology lets students take more responsibility for their own learning and become critical thinkers—a necessary skill for success in today’s interconnected knowledge economy.

Barbara Pace, associate professor in English education, teaches technology and media literacy, a required course for future English teachers, and holds some of her classes in the lab so her students can learn to use a variety of digital tools in their reading instruction. 

The tech-enhanced teaching lab “offers greater opportunities for students to engage in interactive group work and gather information from a variety of sources,” Pace said. “Synthesizing information (using the lab’s digital tools) seems more focused on ‘why’ than on ‘how’.”

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UF, historically black colleges and universities launching statewide mentoring for at-risk minority youth

Cheryl Williams and Michael Bowie, the prime drivers behind the recent launch of a statewide mentoring program for at-risk minority youth.

Cheryl Williams and Michael Bowie, the prime drivers behind the recent launch of a statewide mentoring program for at-risk minority youth.

Research has shown that minority youth in Florida are less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to encounter law enforcement officials compared to their white peers.

University of Florida education researchers want to reverse that trend through a new program that will provide 150 at-risk minority students, particularly young black males, with role model mentors and other supportive services as a way to increase the students’ chances of academic and social success.

Collaborating in the effort are the UF College of Education, historically black colleges and universities in Florida, state legislators including senators Christopher Smith and Dwight Bullard and Representatives Perry Thurston and Dwayne Taylor, and community organizations including Partnership for Strong Families and 21st Century Research & Evaluations, Inc. 

“We need to provide children with viable options that will lead them towards a successful life,” said Cheryl Williams, the College of Education’s community and government liaison, who worked with Florida legislators to secure funding for the mentoring project. “Education is a key component of that success.”

With $619,000 funded by the Florida Legislature, the Situational Environmental Circumstances Mentoring Program (SEC) will match student mentors at the historically black colleges and universities in Florida with minority male elementary school students. The mentor-mentee pairs will share similar challenging backgrounds such as low socioeconomic home environments, delinquency records and poor academic achievement.

“It makes good sense to start at the elementary level because we have the opportunity to intervene in a trajectory that often leads to the prison pipeline,” Williams said. “From an early age, we can change their outlook and impact on our global society.”

The high school graduation rate for black males in Florida is about 47 percent, according to the Schott Foundation for Public Education’s 2012 “Urgency of Now” report. Government data also shows that black males constitute 47 percent of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice and 46 percent of the Department of Corrections’ incarcerated populations.

To reverse this trend, the SEC model is rooted in the idea that “high-risk youth have various situational and environmental circumstances that impact their life choices and opportunities for success,” said Randy Nelson, the founder of 21st Century Research & Evaluations, Inc., a Tallahassee-based human services firm, and the lead developer of the SEC model.

“The traditional model of attempting to correct anti-social behavior by adjusting these kids’ attitudes and sending them back into an environment that breeds negative behaviors has not worked,” Nelson said. “We need to teach them skills that will allow them to navigate and negotiate within these environments by showing them how to make good decisions, like choosing a solid education and recognizing what kind of people can lead them down the wrong path.”

This is why the mentoring initiative pairs these underserved children with relatable mentors whose positive behavior they can emulate. 

The mentors for the UF-led project will be chosen from the University of Florida, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) in Tallahassee, Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, and Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens. Each institution will select and train between eight and 10 mentors, who will receive monthly stipends. After training, each mentor will be matched with three or four at-risk children—or 30 total – from local low-performing elementary schools.

The mentors will meet with each of their mentees four times a month, with two of those being one-on-one. Every other month, SEC leaders will host a workshop on important motivation-building topics, including self-esteem, parent and family issues, anger management, peer pressure, conflict resolution, understanding diversity and goal-setting. After each workshop, the elementary students will have discussions with their college mentors about what they learned.

“What makes this so difficult is that these are elementary school kids and we’re going to have to be much more interactive and simplistic in the way that we present this information to them,” said Michael Bowie, the director and principal Investigator of the state-funded project. Bowie also directs the Office for Recruitment, Retention and Multicultural Affairs at UF’s College of Education.

UF’s aim to help underserved elementary school students is a first for the SEC model, which has been implemented in the past within Florida middle and high schools.

Samuel Johnson, a fourth-year student at FAMU, was a mentor for one of the first SEC programs last year. He mentored four high school students in Tallahassee, and he will be a mentor for the UF-led program as well.

“These kids have had hard lives, but somebody has to tell them things like that they don’t have to own a handgun or they don’t have to start drinking when they’re 12 years old,” Johnson said. “If they want to be a doctor or something, they can. They just need to put effort into it.”

Research tracking the SEC program’s past effectiveness, at the middle and high school grade levels, shows an overall improvement in the youths’ academic performance and attendance and marked reductions in disruptive behavior at school.   

When the UF-led project begins in September, the research team will also evaluate the program’s impact on the elementary school mentees. Bowie said if the mentoring project succeeds with the elementary students, the SEC team will seek funding to continue tracking the mentored youth through the K-12 system and college.

CONTACTS:

Writer: Alexa Lopez, news and communications, UF College of Education; aklopez@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4449
Media Relations: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137
Source: Michael Bowie

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Faculty pair awarded annual research grant from College of Education

UF faculty co-researchers, Jacqueline Swank and Joseph Gagnon.

UF faculty co-researchers, Jacqueline Swank and Joseph Gagnon.

UF faculty co-researchers Jacqueline Swank and Joseph Gagnon will share the College of Education’s 2013-2014 College Research Incentive Fund Award. The annual CRIF grants are awarded to faculty with promising research projects that are likely to attract additional funding in the future. 

Swank is an assistant professor in counselor education and Gagnon is an associate professor in special education. 

The one-time $40,000 award will finance Swank and Gagnon’s survey of mental health policies and procedures within American juvenile correctional facilities. Swank is the principal investigator of the grant and Gagnon is the co-PI.

The project blends Swank’s research interests related to mental health issues among at-risk adolescents and Gagnon’s educational study of juveniles in correctional facilities.

 The pair’s goal is to obtain data they could use in seeking further funding for their research, particularly from the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention, the Institute of Education Sciences, and the National Institute of Mental Health.

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Florida DOE alerting recent teacher prep students of personal info exposed

Dear College of Education Students and Alumni:

We want to alert any current or former students enrolled in Florida teacher prep programs–including the University of Florida’s–during the 2009–10, 2010–11, and 2011–12 academic years of the possibility that personal information was exposed on the Internet during a data transfer at Florida State University. FSU was housing the data under contract with the Florida Department of Education.

In late May, FSU’s Florida Center for Interactive Media moved the data to a new server, but failed to enact security measures to restrict access to only authorized individuals.The DOE learned about the security breach on June 11 and worked with FSU officials to close the access, clear all cached data files and run security checks. The DOE has been contacting affected individuals whose information could have been misused.

Although UF was not involved in the information security breach, we are assisting the DOE in notifying any individuals whose information may have been exposed. We also want to reinforce the DOE’s efforts in pointing affected or concerned UF students and alumni to appropriate resources for additional information . . .

Florida Department of Education Press Release: http://www.fldoe.org/news/2013/2013_06_21.asp

 

Dedicated hotline within the Florida Department of Education with staff available to answer questions: 1-866-507-1109.

If you suspect that your Social Security number or other personal information may have been misused or that you may be the victim of identity theft, please also contact the Federal Trade Commission at www.ftc.gov/idtheft or call 1-877-ID-THEFT (1-877-438-4338).

Feel free to contact UF’s College of Education Student Services Office with questions or concerns: 1-352-273-4376. 

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COE researchers out in force at AERA’s massive annual meeting

(Click here for PDF listing of UFCOE presentations)

For years, the massive annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association has been a hotbed of the latest research and new ideas about teaching-and-learning practices and policies. This year, some 65 UF College of Education faculty and students participated in the 2013 meeting April 27-May 1 in San Francisco, joining 14,000 other education scholars from 75 nations. 

This year’s meeting theme focused on the relationships of education and poverty—how education theory, research, policy and praxis contribute to alleviating economic, intellectual and moral poverty.

Mirka Koro-Ljungberg...4 AERA presentations

Mirka Koro-Ljungberg              …4 AERA presentations

More UF education scholars, from multiple disciplines, attend AERA’s annual meeting than any other professional gathering. The EduGator contingent in San Francisco included 34 college faculty and 31 graduate students participating in presentations, panel discussions and association-related business meetings.

The UF presentations included hot education topics such as:

  • The effect of charter schools on student achievement
  • How neighborhoods contribute to children’s language and literacy development
  • Games and simulation courses in education technology
  • Analyzing the urban middle school transition and persistently disciplined students
  • Does teacher preparation for English Language Learners matter?
  • Leadership standards and accountability in Florida: Do they address poverty and social justice issues?
  • Supply and demand context for special-education teacher preparation reform
  • Writing instruction: What do preservice teachers know?

The busiest COE faculty attendees were Walter Leite and Mirka Koro-Ljungberg (both from research and evaluation methods), with four presentations each. Mary Brownell (special education), Ester de Jong (ESOL/bilingual education), Bernie Oliver (education leadership) and Albert Ritzhaupt (education technology) each made three presentations.

The complete AERA annual meeting program is available online at www.aera.net. 

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WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

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Professor receives international honor for impact in special education

GAINESVILLE, Fla.—University of Florida education professor Mary Brownell, a leading scholar and policy expert in special education and teacher preparation, has received a top honor from the world’s largest advocacy organization for students with special needs.

Mary BrownellThe Teacher Education Division (TED) of the Council for Exceptional Children presented Brownell with the 2013 TED/Pearson Excellence in Teacher Education Award at the council’s annual meeting in San Antonio, April 3-6. The council is the largest international professional organization in special education with more than 30,000 members.

The annual award goes to an individual who has demonstrated an exemplary commitment to teacher preparation in special education, the cultivation of future leaders in the field, or leadership in scholarly work and legislative advocacy.

Brownell, who joined UF’s College of Education in 1991, has made a significant impact in all three areas. She has received numerous university and college honors for teaching and student mentoring, has held an endowed professorship, has co-directed three national centers addressing special education personnel policies and practices, and has advised national law and policy makers on improving the standards and practices of teacher preparation in special education.

She is the college’s top-funded researcher, with phenomenal success in attracting major federal grants on some of the most vital issues in education. She has generated more than $36 million in federal funding from the Education Department’s Office of Special Education Programs and its Institute of Education Sciences. Last fall, OSEP awarded $25 million—its largest grant ever—to Brownell and her UF co-researchers Paul Sindelar and Erica McCray. The funding supports their effort to create a national CEEDAR Center (Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability and Reform) at UF, charged with restructuring and improving teacher preparation in special education in 20 states.

Brownell is just as prolific in disseminating her researching findings, to the benefit of her peers, as evidenced by her authorship of three books and dozens of book chapters and articles in refereed journals, and countless conference presentations and invited addresses. She recently collaborated on editing a handbook of research on special education teacher preparation.

“Mary is the most important contemporary scholar of special education and teacher education,” Sindelar said. “She is a brilliant scholar, an accomplished researcher, a demanding teacher and a gifted and committed mentor. The full measure of her impact on classroom and special education teachers, students with disabilities and other struggling learners will not be known for years to come.”

After more than two decades at UF, Brownell’s scholarly productivity and international reputation have helped the University of Florida join the top-tier of American special-education teacher preparation programs. Special education perennially leads all College of Education program areas in research funding and currently rates sixth nationally in its specialty in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of America’s Best Graduate Schools.

Brownell’s sterling research record may be her most measurable accounting, but her students, past and present, might argue that her teaching and mentorship deserve equal billing. At UF, Brownell has directed multiple research and training projects that provided funding for more than 40 doctoral students not only in special education, but also in curriculum and instruction, school psychology and educational psychology. In 2010, she received a university-wide, doctoral-student mentoring award.

“Developing a serious research agenda focused on teacher quality issues and engaging other scholars in that agenda is of great importance to me,” Brownell said after the CEC award ceremony. “I hope others see me not only as an individual researcher but as a scholar who encourages and helps others to become engaged in this work.“

It’s obvious how her students see her: In award nomination letters, Brownell’s first doctoral student, now a teacher educator, refers to Brownell’s “ability to inspire with deep-rooted passion for her career.” Another recent graduate credits Brownell’s support for her success in winning two nationally recognized dissertation awards and helping her land a highly competitive, tenure-track teaching position.

Sean Smith, associate professor in special education at the University of Kansas, writes in his letter: “As a scholar, I recognize (Dr. Brownell’s) critical work, and as a parent of a school-aged child with a disability I rely on her work when I engage educators working with my son.”

Brownell is the fourth UF special education faculty member to receive the Excellence in Teacher Education Award. Previous recipients were current faculty James McLeskey in 2010 and Paul Sindelar in 2001, and former faculty member Vivian Correa in 2006. Last’s year’s recipient, Fred Spooner of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, also has UF ties: he worked and studied at the College of Education for three years in the late 1970s as a doctoral research fellow and research assistant.

CONTACT
   SOURCE: Mary Brownell, professor, special education, UF College of Education, mbrownell@coe.ufl.edu, 352-273-4261
   WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

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UF COE Career Night

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Professor’s book ties origin of science fairs to call for more STEM education

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A new book by a University of Florida education professor about science fairs and other extracurricular school science programs hits the shelves just as education in science, technology, engineering and math – the STEM disciplines – continues making headlines.

Sevan Terzian’s newly published book, Science Education and Citizenship, gives insight into the growing effort to improve science education by uncovering the history of science fairs, clubs and talent searches, such as Florida’s 58th annual State Science and Engineering Fair, set for March 26-28 in Lakeland.

TERZIAN-Sevan_11-05-025-GIF

Terzian, shown teaching in his Norman Hall classroom at the University of Florida.

“Science fairs, clubs and talent searches are familiar fixtures in American education, yet little has been known or written about why they began and grew in popularity,” said Terzian, an associate professor in social foundations of education at the University of Florida’s College of Education. He’s also associate director of graduate studies for the college’s School of Teaching and Learning.

His book, published in January by Palgrave Macmillan of New York City, traces the origins and civic purposes of American extracurricular programs dedicated to science between the 1920s and ‘50s.

“I think science fairs, clubs and talent searches are part of the rituals of school life,” Terzian said. “But it occurred to me that I did not know where they came from and why. When I began looking into that, that’s when it got exciting.”

Terzian said he found that the earliest programs between the 1920s and ‘30s were dedicated to encouraging students to understand the processes of scientific investigation so they would become more knowledgeable and involved American citizens

World War II, however, changed the landscape of extracurricular science activities. Terzian discovered that, as the United States mobilized for war, these science programs modified their activities to achieve a new overarching purpose: “to find the best and the brightest kids who could apply their expertise so the U.S. could win the war,” he said.

“The message these kids were hearing was, ‘We need you in order to win the war, to have a strong national defense, and to help the nation’s economy,’” Terzian said. “They would do all this by applying scientific knowledge to weapons or new technological innovations that would lead to material comforts for consumers.”

This goal continued well into the 1950s, and is still evident today, he said.

Terzian ‘s findings give perspective on the current movement to bolster science teaching and student achievement.

“Although we can all agree that high achievement in science is desirable in American education, we may not always spend enough time thinking why we think so,” Terzian said. “What exactly is it that we hope improved science education will give us?”

Terzian believes STEM education can serve many purposes, including the defense- and innovation-oriented reason that pervaded science education during World War II and the ensuing atomic age.

“STEM education should not be only for the future scientists,” Terzian said. “STEM education has the potential to cultivate rational thought, to encourage critical questioning, and even to foster empathy, which I think are essential characteristics of good citizens in a democratic society.”

To review or purchase Terzian’s new book, Science Education and Citizenship, visit the Palgrave Macmillan website.

CONTACTS
Source: Sevan Terzian, UF College of Education, sterzian@coe.ufl.edu, 352-273-4216
Writer: Alexa Lopez, news and communications, UF College of Education; akl@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4449
Media Relations: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

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US News rates COE first in state; five specialties nationally ranked

UF’s College of Education remained the top ranked education college in Florida and among public institutions in the Southeastern Conference, while its special education and counselor education programs maintained top 10 national ratings in their specialties in the latest U.S. News and World Report rankings of America’s Best Graduate Schools, which were announced Tuesday (March 12) by the magazine.

Three other UF education specialties gained top 20 ratings: in elementary teacher education (18th), curriculum and instruction (18th) and education administration and supervision (20th).

The COE ranked 30th among the nation’s public education colleges and 40th overall, with the college’s scores improving in five of six quality measures assessed in the rankings survey and matched last year’s score in another category. U.S. News ranked UF’s special education and counselor education programs sixth and eighth, respectively, in their specialty areas.

“We say every year, whether we rise or drop, that we don’t live or die by the U.S. News rankings. They are largely subjective and often there’s not much difference in schools rated within five to ten spots of each other,” said UF education Dean Glenn Good.  “But many prospective students and the general public pay attention to the rankings, so we must, as well.

“Our improved scores in almost every category show we’re heading in the right direction. Last year we climbed 18 spots in the rankings. We’re aiming for a national standing in the top 10 in the next few years, and we think we can get there by continuing to assess and improve our programs.”

The college’s special education and counselor education programs consistently rank in the top 10 and often among the top five nationally. Counselor education has previously held the top spot in the U.S. News rankings (in 1997).

The U.S. News rankings are calculated based on a weighted average of nine measures, eight of which are listed on the U.S. News website listings. Data on the remaining category—percent of faculty holding funded research awards—were not immediately available.

The College of Education matched its score from last year in peer assessment (by a poll of U.S. education school deans and graduate studies program heads), which accounted for one-fourth of the total weighted calculation, and improved over last year in five of six other categories. Those improvements occurred in:

  • Assessment by school superintendents nationwide (weighted by 15 percent)
  • Doctoral application acceptance rate (6 percent),
  • Doctoral degrees granted per faculty member (5 percent),
  • Total research expenditures (15 percent)
  • Average research expenditures per faculty member (15 percent).

The college’s doctoral student-to-faculty ratio (weighted by 4.5 percent) increased from three students to six students per faculty member; this was the only category in which the college did not improve or match. In another category gauging student selectivity (weighted 12 percent), U.S. News used a new scale for GRE scores, making comparisons with last year’s average scores invalid.

Good cited dramatic increases in external research funding as cause for optimism in improving the college’s future national standing.

“College research expenditures have tripled over the past five years, reaching nearly $18 million in 2012. That’s 20 percent more than the previous year and works out to more than a quarter-million-dollars in funding for each faculty member,” Good said. “Our faculty scholars produce vital knowledge that is improving professional education practices across the state, nation and world.”

The complete U.S. News Best Graduate Schools 2014 rankings data are available online at: http://www.usnews.com/.

SOURCE: Dean Glenn Good, UF College of Education, ggood@ufl.edu, 352-273-4135
WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

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UF launches free Algebra Nation prep tool at 2nd Florida high school

GAINESVILLE, FL—Andrew Jackson High School in Jacksonville on March 4 became Florida’s second high school to adopt a novel program called Algebra Nation, a free online preparation tool created through the University of Florida to help students prepare for a required algebra end-of-course exam.

More than 40 percent of Florida middle and high school students failed the spring 2012 Algebra 1 end-of-course exam. In many high-need schools, the failure rate topped 80 percent. Florida students must pass the test to earn a high school diploma.

To help students succeed on the exam, the UF Lastinger Center for Learning, part of the College of Education, has joined forces with Study Edge, a Gainesville education technology firm, to create Algebra Nation, a research-proven, online end-of-course exam preparation resource. The program gives students 24/7 access to help through a collection of free tools from video tutorials and live teacher support to an interactive “wall” like on Facebook, all geared toward helping students boost their algebra skills.

Gov. Rick Scott had participated Jan. 25 in UF’s first Florida launch of Algebra Nation at St. Petersburg’s Dixie Hollins High School.

On Monday, Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett and Florida State Board of Education Chairman Gary Chartrand participated in a morning ceremony marking the Duval County launch of Algebra Nation at Jackson High, the state’s lowest ranked high school in the midst of a multi-organization, multi-year effort to turn the school around.

“Algebra is a key STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subject,” Lastinger Center director Don Pemberton said. “It serves as a gatekeeper to success in high school and beyond.”

To help students succeed on the 2013 end-of-course exam, UF education professors have dissected the material tested on the exam and aligned Algebra Nation with the latest state standards.

“Algebra Nation is based on the latest research and best practices,” Study Edge director Ethan Fieldman said.

Algebra Nation is the first phase of a planned campaign to accelerate learning throughout Florida. UF and Study Edge officials say they plan to develop and roll out Geometry Nation, Biology Nation and other end-of-course exam resources next year.

Read more about Algebra Nation here. You also can view the News4Jax television news report on the Jacksonville launch.

Contact: Boaz Dvir, UF Lastinger Center for Learning, bdvir@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-0289

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PKY-COE host gathering to map out transformation of middle school science education

Bolstered by a $5 million grant last year from the National Science Foundation, a collaborating faculty research team from P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School and UF’s College of Education has been studying how to transform middle school science curricula and improve student learning. Team leaders recently hosted 40 teachers and administrators from 10 partnering, rural school districts at P.K. Yonge to discuss strategies for meeting those goals.

The gathering was the first of a quarterly series of meetings scheduled for the five-year project, named U-FUTuRES, or University of Florida Unites Teachers to Reform Education in Science. To facilitate the transformation effort, the researchers have created a Science Teacher Leadership Institute to train teacher-leaders to lead district-wide implementation of a new, research-proven, middle school science curriculum.

UF science education professor Rose Pringle works with students in a P.K. Yonge middle school science class.

The researchers’ aim is to narrow the gap in science learning between American students and their peers in higher performing nations.

At the core of this initiative is the new curriculum called IQWST, or Investigating and Questioning our World through Science and Technology. P.K. Yonge and several other institute-partnering schools are already pioneering the new middle school science curriculum design, which has students conducting daily investigations of science phenomena, learning how to use scientific reasoning to support their claims, drawing on past science learning and experiences, and developing critical thinking skills.

During last month’s institute meeting, the developers and researchers behind IQWST—P.K.  Yonge director Lynda Hayes, UF science educator Rose Pringle, and Joe Krajcik from Michigan State University—explained how to implement the new curriculum, as well as how to support existing science teachers in Palm Beach County.

Hayes is the principal investigator of the NSF grant; Pringle and Krajcik are co-PIs. Krajcik told the visiting educators that the IQWST curriculum will align with the more rigid K-12 science standards now being developed by a collaborative of more than half of the states.

“Visiting faculty left impressed by P.K. Yonge students’ use of scientific terms, their critical thinking skills, and the level of activity in the P.K. Yonge science classes,” Hayes said.

Now in the third year of using the IQWST curriculum, P.K. Yonge science instructors in the middle grades report significant improvements in student learning in their classes. According to Hayes, school faculty consider last year’s 10 percent increase in the number of students scoring at level 3 or above (on a scale of 5) on the 8th grade FCAT science test a positive trend resulting from their efforts to change the way their science curriculum works.

“Partnerships supported by this project show promise in a broad scale transformation of middle school science education to meet the needs of today’s students and to plant seeds for tomorrow’s scientists,” Hayes said.

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Odd couple? COE, health center pair up to improve health education, patient care

Sixteen years ago, Linda Behar-Horenstein, a distinguished scholar and professor in UF’s College of Education, was teaching a course on curriculum. What she didn’t know was that one of her students was going home at night and enthusiastically talking about it to her husband, who happened to be the associate dean of research for the College of Dentistry. Word soon traveled, and Behar-Horenstein received an invitation from then dean Frank Catalanotto to meet.

“The meeting wasn’t even two minutes,” she says. “He said, ‘OK, this what I would like you to do. I want you to go out to all the clinics and I want you to find out to what degree are the faculty promoting critical thinking skills among our students.’ That was my assignment.”

COE professor Linda Behar-Horenstein (left) observes a dentistry professor and student during a patient visit. (Photos by Maria Farias/UF&Shands)

Armed with only a notepad, Behar-Horenstein conducted 44 observations at six clinics. She watched dental faculty work with students as they themselves worked with patients, and she scribbled down everything she saw them say and do. When she was done, she analyzed her notes for commonalities, characteristics, recurring behavior and techniques. Then she brought her findings to the associate dean of education.

“She was just like, ‘You got this all from an observation?’”

Thus began Behar-Horenstein’s long relationship with the College of Dentistry. Over the years, she’s taught dentistry faculty alongside her graduate education students, run seminars on different teaching methodologies, written 10 papers pertaining to dentistry and worked one-on-one with dentistry faculty who want to improve their teaching evaluations.

Education and health care: It’s an odd match of disciplines, at least at first glance. The College of Education conjures up images of lesson plans, curricula and schoolteachers in training. For the six colleges in UF’s Health Science Center, people think of labs, white coats or hospital corridors.

Both disciplines are more diverse and expansive than a few clichés capture — but it may still be surprising how often the College of Education teams up with UF’s health colleges. Education students work in clinical practices. Education faculty share office space with health-focused colleagues. They partner with health care researchers on grants, contribute to health curricula and teach everyone from doctors to dentists how to be better teachers. They show health care professionals the world through the lens of a classroom.

“Any time two disciplines overlap, you have a possibility to create something completely new,” says David Norton, UF’s vice president for research. “With the Health Science Center, education is essential to their mission — educating students and their patients. In the College of Education, you have people who focus on just that. Very interesting things can emerge when those two things combine.”

Teaching teachers

So why is it worthwhile to develop the teaching skills of clinicians and researchers in the first place?

“What we do in our teaching is going to impact the kind of provider that’s going out into the world,” Behar-Horenstein says. “And that provider is going to impact the kind of patient-provider relationships they have.”

During her time with the College of Dentistry, Behar-Horenstein has gone from being a consultant to an affiliate professor, and last year she even received an office as part of a federal grant that expanded her role further. Recently, she developed a series of online courses for faculty that focus on teaching techniques.

“We as faculty are trained to be dentists, but we don’t have a special knowledge of teaching,” says Catalanotto, a professor and chair of community dentistry and behavioral science. “So having a collaborator like Dr. Behar-Horenstein brings us a new set of skills. That’s why we originally asked her to come the college in 1996, because we recognized that we needed help with teaching issues.”

Crippen

Kent Crippen is another education professor who’s helping educators expand their repertoire, but in this case, it’s high school teachers.

Crippen is a consultant for Biomedical Explorations: Bench to Bedside, a two-week summer program for high school science teachers. The program is part of the Center for Precollegiate Education and Training, which connects educators to more than 350 UF faculty researchers to promote math and science in secondary school classrooms.

Crippen, an associate professor of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, education, uses his knowledge of the K-12 school system to help translate the projects for classroom use.

“We struggle in K-12 education to present authentic science experiences that students can engage in, enjoy and learn from at the same time,” Crippen says. “Bench to Bedside takes new and emerging science and translates it to appropriate experiences for students to learn from.”

Through the center’s programs, high school teachers can stay current with modern technology and teaching techniques. The program, now in its third year, is expanding to support small groups of teachers throughout Florida who want to continue the professional development initiated in the program. Crippen will help them develop curricula and measure results and feedback.

Small group work

When asked what his typical day looks like, Erik Black, Ph.D., pauses, then laughs.

“I have three offices.”

There’s the cubicle at Shands at UF, the pediatric outpatient clinic office, and the office at the College of Education. In other words, there aren’t a lot of typical days for this assistant professor, who’s held a primary appointment in pediatrics and a secondary appointment in the College of Education since 2009. Black teaches and has graduate education students and does his own research for pediatrics.

“While many people traditionally think about the College of Education in a K-12 format, there are a number of us who are actively involved in adult education, and that’s where I focus most of my career: how to effectively educate adults,” Black says.

He’s currently serving as the educational technology expert for the Interdisciplinary Family Health course, which brings 600 first-year students from six colleges together to visit and help local families. At the end of last year, the program was expanded to include second-year students, and Black was involved from the beginning stage, developing basic goals, through the design and delivery of the curriculum.

“There is a real desire on the part of the administration to continue more interprofessional learning experiences,” Black says. “So this is a real opportunity, since we’ve got six health science colleges within a couple blocks of each other, to get students working together.”

UF has programs in place specifically designed to encourage interdisciplinary research, Norton says. The Research Opportunity Seed Fund, for example, is an internal grant program specifically for interdisciplinary faculty research.

“We’re always interested in creating forums and venues where people can interact,” he says. “It’s one of the strengths of the University of Florida that we have 16 colleges on campus, most of them with strong research programs. New fields emerge.”

COE professor Jeanne Repetto (second from left) meets with an interdisciplinary team of “transition” health-care specialists from UF&Shands.

The Education and Health Care Transition certificate program emerged last summer under just such a collaboration. Four years ago, Jeanne Repetto, an associate professor in the College of Education, and social worker Susan Chauncey Horky, the co-director of the UF Pediatric Pulmonary Center, realized educators and health care professionals were approaching the same problem at two different angles — when instead, they should be working together.

The problem was “transition,” a term to describe how children with disabilities and/or health issues are prepared to succeed in adult life. From the educational standpoint, these children receive support and training at school to tackle transitioning into a university or job, as well as life skills. From the health care standpoint, children are likewise prepared to handle medical needs, such as ordering prescriptions and making appointments.

These two types of transition often operate independently of one another, with both sides unaware of the other, Horky says.

“I was sort of embarrassed when I realized there was a whole transition process in education,” she says. “You do get stuck in your own mindset — we tend to think in the patient mode and the school thinks in the student mode. But from the family’s perspective, it’s only one kid going from childhood to adulthood, so why are these skills not integrated?”

Horky, Repetto and a small, interdisciplinary team including a pediatric cardiologist, a medical social worker, a health policy expert and a parent of a child with a chronic illness, started working to integrate the two transitions.

Years of biweekly meetings, joint research, journal articles, grant proposals and national presentations culminated in the Education and Health Care Transition program, a fully online certificate from UF that prepares graduate students and professionals from both fields to collaborate. It’s a new field, and the first class of medicine and education students from across the country will graduate this semester.

“Many of the students in the program are practitioners, so it will have an immediate impact,” Repetto says.

From the clinic to the classroom

It’s probably not that surprising that most collaborations between the Health Science Center and the College of Education involve the department of pediatrics. After all, children with disabilities often need help from clinical professionals to succeed in school — and sometimes those professionals need help bringing their findings into the classroom.

“Collaborators with educational backgrounds, particularly those related to childhood — childhood education, how children learn, how they adapt to their environments — have real expertise that we can learn from as we develop programs in our department,” said Scott Rivkees, a professor and chair of pediatrics.

UF neuropsychologist Kristin Radonovich (left) and COE professor Maureen Conroy (right) often meet at Norman Hall to discuss their grant project.

Maureen Conroy, says that finding collaborators is like making friends; you look for similar interests. For Conroy, a College of Education professor, that interest was autism research.

It led her to seek out others on campus with the same interest, like neuropsychologist Krestin Radonovich. The two recently teamed up on an Office of Research grant to improve the social competence of children with autism spectrum disorders.

“To teach children social skills, they need to socially interact with other people,” says Conroy, co-director of UF’s campuswide Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies, headquartered at the College of Education. “Kids in the lunchroom or the playground usually play with each other, but children with autism don’t necessarily know how to do that. They stand by themselves. This will teach them how to play with the other children and will also teach the other children how to play with them.”

Their project is currently in the planning phase, but eventually Conroy and Radonovich will take strategies that promote social behavior directly into schools and work with children with autism.

Testing out strategies that were developed in clinics in schools is part of what makes this study unique, Radonovich says. It’s also where Conroy’s expertise comes in.

“For kids, their everyday life is largely at school and that’s where these interactions take place,” Radonovich says. “I want my work to be relevant, so to work with Dr. Conroy in a naturalistic school setting helps me to bridge that gap between the isolated clinic setting and real life for these kids.”

School psychology student Jill Welsh uses toys while working with children in the psychology clinic at UF&Shands.

The College of Education also makes its mark in UF and Shands clinics. Several doctoral students in the school psychology program work in the pediatric clinic to gain experience working with children.

“I realized that working with kids who have a communication deficit is what I love,” says Jill Welsh, a fourth-year doctoral student. “My passion is trying to find ways to communicate with them.”

That passion is put to use in the UF Psychology Clinic, where Welsh has worked under Radonovich for two years, working with children with autism spectrum disorders.For 15 hours a week, she performs assessments and runs therapy groups alongside clinical psychology students. The education students contribute insight into the educational side of patients’ lives, such as knowing what strategies are feasible in school and consulting with teachers, Welsh says.

“It’s their experience in the school system and their training that helps inform me and other trainees who work with them how our recommendations can better match the school setting, or what our expectations should be,” Radonovich says.

Making the grade

It’s clear that the Health Science Center benefits from collaborating with faculty and students within the College of Education.

“In general, any time our faculty have a chance to collaborate with faculty outside of the college, it broadens our faculty’s knowledge base,” says Thomasenia Adams, associate dean of educational research in the College of Education. “When our faculty collaborates with the Health Science Center, we find other ways of applying our expertise and crafts.”

It’s always a plus when they can see other perspectives, Adams says. For example, both entities view clients differently. In the College of Education, clients are primarily teachers and the children they serve; in the Health Science Center, they’re primarily patients. Seeing how each serves and responds to their clients — especially when they overlap — can improve their overall approach, she says.

“It can be challenging when we meet people who have different approaches, but challenges help us grow as scholars.”

CONTACTS
   Writer: Marilee Griffin, UF&Shands Communications, margri@ufl.edu; 352-273-7891
   COE Source: Larry Lansford, news and communications, UF College of Education, llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

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Video captures UFCOE-Thailand education connection

(WATCH THIS VIDEO) … UF-Thailand Classroom Connection

University of Florida social studies methods doctoral student JASON SCHIPPER and elementary education students in the “Social Studies for Diverse Learners” class he teaches are featured in this new flipcam video release. Schipper used a scholarship he received from the Kappa Delta Pi Educational Foundation to fund research and technology to connect his class virtually with elementary school classrooms in Thailand, where he once taught. Schipper’s preservice teacher candidates interact virtually with the Thai students as they develop lesson plans and assignments for the Thai elementary classrooms.

Schipper demonstrates to his students the proper Thai gesture for a casual greeting that they would later use on a video to the Thai elementary students. (Photos by Larry Lansford)

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Open to All Students! UF College of Education Career Night

Education Career Night

Teaching isn’t the only profession you’ll hear about at the 2013 Education Career Night.

Thurs., Feb. 21 at 5PM, Reitz Union 282

This year’s distinguished panel of College of Education alumni speakers will include a U.S. Presidential Excellence in Science Teaching honoree, a former Florida Education Commissioner, the CEO of a corporate leadership firm, the head of a domestic abuse network, and a University Mental Health Counselor. Panel members wlll offer career advice and talk about the distinctly different career paths they each have followed—quite successfully—after earning their education degrees at UF. The free event is open to all.

For more information visit Career Night

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Gov. Scott helps in statewide launch of UF’s online prep tool for required algebra exam

Gov. Rick Scott made a stop last Friday (Jan. 25) at St. Petersburg’s Dixie Hollins High School to participate in the statewide launch of a new program called Algebra Nation, a free online preparation tool created through the University of Florida to help students prepare for the required Algebra 1 end-of-course exam.

Algebra Nation is a collection of free online tools, from video tutorials to live teacher support, geared toward helping students boost their algebra skills. Florida students are required to pass an Algebra 1 end-of-course exam to earn a high school diploma. UF’s Lastinger Center for Learning, part of the College of Education, created the program in collaboration with Study Edge, a Gainesville education technology firm.

“I know it’s going to be a big positive impact on our state, on our students, and eventually job growth in our state,” Scott told Tampa Bay Online.

Algebra Nation is the first phase in an effort to accelerate learning through Florida. UF and Study Edge officials say they plan to develop Geometry Nation and Biology Nation and other end-of-course exam resources next year.

Read more about Algebra Nation here.

Contact: Boaz Dvir, UF Lastinger Center for Learning, 352-273-0289

 

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UF gets $1.2 million to prepare science, math teachers for state’s high-needs schools

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Some experts are challenging the widespread notion of an overall worker shortage in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math, but the paucity of schoolteachers in those vital subject areas is well documented.

That’s why the University of Florida has heightened emphasis on attracting more qualified STEM majors into the teaching ranks. The latest milestone is a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation announced Monday by UF officials. The five-year funding allows UF’s College of Education to start offering major scholarship support and hands-on training opportunities this semester to recruit and prepare top science and math majors for teaching careers, mainly in Florida’s neediest middle and high schools.

UF science education instructor Griffin Jones helps UFTeach student Ibn Ali in an experiment. (UFCOE file staff photos by Larry Lansford)

The NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program funds higher-education institutions to support scholarships, stipends and academic programs for STEM majors who pursue a teaching credential and commit to teaching at least two years in high-needs public school districts.

Over the next five years, UF will award Noyce scholarships worth $10,000 each to 50 undergraduate students enrolled in a program called UFTeach, which uses imaginative recruiting strategies to attract some of the university’s best students and exposes them to teaching through intensive, supervised classroom experiences in high-poverty schools. UFTeach is a joint effort of the colleges of Education and Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Enrolled students continue their science or math major while also pursuing a minor in education and most of the professional educator requirements. The scholarships will usually kick in for selected students during their senior year, when most UFTeach students serve their semester-long, full-time internship in a middle or high school science or math class.

“The senior year can be difficult for UFTeach students. The classroom-based apprentice-teaching course demands significant student time and attention. The Noyce scholarships will allow the students to focus on their apprenticeships in the classroom and ease their financial concerns,” said UF science education professor Tom Dana, the co-director of UFTeach and the principal investigator of the NSF-backed effort, which UF has dubbed the STEM EduGators program. “EduGators” is a traditional nickname for students, alumni and other stakeholders of the College of Education.

UF COE master mathematics teacher Gloria Weber assists UFTeach student Heather MacNeill in an exercise.

Another 90 UFTeach students, or 18 per year, will each receive stipends of nearly $5,000 while serving summer internships in informal science education settings such as the Florida Museum of Natural History at UF, zoos, botanical parks and nature centers. Interns must first attend an orientation and “boot camp” promoting learning in informal education settings.

“The informal teaching experience will help interns build their toolkit of ideas and teaching strengths and help them develop strategies for engaging a wide variety of learners in their classrooms,” said UFTeach associate director Dimple Flesner, the co-principal investigator of STEM EduGators. “This type of awareness and insight cannot be easily gained in the traditional settings in which teachers learn.”

Flesner said the interns also will participate in a mentored STEMS EduGator online community of students, faculty and staff to share insights, concerns and “aha moments” they experience during their summer internships.

She said the grant also pays for hiring staff, research and program evaluation, travel for interns, recruitment promotion and overhead expenses.

The NSF-Noyce scholarship program is just the latest initiative the College of Education has launched to bolster teaching and learning in the STEM subjects. The UFTeach program received a state workforce policy board’s Best Practices Award in 2011 for its role in addressing the critical shortage of math and science teachers. The newest NSF project follows on the heels of a $2 million state grant awarded to the college last October to create prototype “teacher induction” programs to support Florida science and math teachers in their first two years on the job.

An earlier NSF grant in 2011 pairs the College of Education with its K-12 laboratory school, P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School, in a $5 million campaign to boost student achievement in middle schools by improving science content knowledge among practicing teachers.

“Teachers have the greatest impact on student learning. Our country’s future success in this global economy requires college graduates who are literate in science, math and technology and can drive innovation, lead scientific discoveries and become engaged, informed citizens,” Dana said. “This means providing students with a much stronger foundation in the STEM subjects beginning in middle and high school.”

CONTACTS
Source: Tom Dana, UF College of Education, tdana@coe.ufl.edu, 352-273-4134
Source: Dimple Flesner, associate director, UFTeach, dimple@ufl.edu, 352-273-4189
Writer: Larry Lansford, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4147

 

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COE, UF partner with Colombian schools to improve human rights law

For more than 45 years, Colombia has been barraged by a civil war that has resulted in significant violations of human rights.

Now, amid the recent decline of overt war in the South American country, the University of Florida’s College of Education, Levin College of Law and the Center for Latin American Studies have partnered to establish a human rights center at two Colombian law schools closest to the center of conflict.

Mendoza

“Things have settled down compared to the 1990s, but there’s still things going on,” said Pilar Mendoza, a College of Education assistant professor in higher education administration who was born in Colombia. Mendoza is the co-partnership director and co-principal investigator for the project grant.

The three-year effort will be partially funded by the national Higher Education for Development (HED) office with a grant of more than $757,000. The national office works closely with the United States Agency for International Development to mobilize the expertise and resources of the American higher education community to address global development challenges. The participating institutions also provide financial support for the effort.

The human rights center will have an office at the Colombian law schools of the Universidad del Magdalena in Santa Marta and the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla. The center will offer professional training for law professors, research opportunities, human rights clinics and outreach programs including one in which law students will teach the local Colombian community about human rights.

“The University of Florida faculty at the colleges of Law and Education, and at the Center for Latin American Studies, possess great depth in international law, human rights and experiential learning, and are well suited to achieve the goals of this ambitious program,” said College of Law Dean Robert Jerry.

Although the project has just begun, Mendoza said some important infrastructure is already in place. For example, Mendoza and faculty from the College of Education’s Collaborative Assessment and Program Evaluation Services (CAPES) unit will lead the assessment and monitoring of the new center’s effects.

“The U.S. government is really interested in ensuring what they’re devoting resources to is actually accomplishing the end goals that it sets out to achieve,” said Pedro Villarreal, a CAPES consultant and clinical assistant professor of higher education administration.

The collaboration with Colombian partners began last summer when Mendoza taught a seminar in educational leadership at la Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, her alma mater, opening the doors to other projects related to the development of higher education in the region.

Then, last May, HED announced a grant opportunity for three U.S. law schools that would partner with Colombian law schools to enhance their programs related to human rights in the Colombian Caribbean.

“I had been involved with Colombia in other projects, and this partnership came at the right time,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza said the partnership is particularly important because it serves as a learning opportunity for the Colombian community, as well as for the United States.

“There are a lot things we can learn from other nations about the way we do things here,” Mendoza said. “We have enough domestic problems here, and I do think it’s beneficial to have an open mind to learn from other models and other systems. Maybe there are better ways to do things.”

SOURCE: Pilar Mendoza, assistant professor in higher education administration, pilar.mendoza@ufl.edu; 352-273-4309
WRITER: Alexa Lopez, new media coordinator, news and communications, UF College of Education; aklopez@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4449
MEDIA LIAISON: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

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U.S. News ranks college’s online ed program 1st in state, 18th in nation

The College of Education at the University of Florida is one of two UF colleges with online master’s degree programs rated first in the state and in the top 20 nationally in their respective specialties, according to rankings announced Jan. 15 by U.S. News & World Report.

The College of Education’s distance learning program ranked 18th in the magazine’s 2013 Best Online Graduate Education Programs reference guide, higher than any other Florida education college. Campuswide, only the Hough Graduate School of Business ranked higher, placing fourth in its specialty. Other top UF performers were the College of Engineering at 26th and UF’s online bachelor’s degree programs at 34th.

This is the second year that U.S. News has collected data on distance learning programs in higher education. U.S. News ranks education programs based on wide-ranging criteria that includes admissions selectivity, student services and engagement, technology, and faculty credentials.

“Our online education courses are designed by top-flight faculty using the latest knowledge about best practices in web-based learning environments. Our goal is to develop master educators who can lead transformations in practice,” said Tom Dana, COE associate dean for academic affairs.

He said “the feature that sets our online programs apart” is a cohort instructional approach with extensive student-to-student and student-to-teacher interaction.

Dana has steered the development of UF’s online education program since its inception in 2004, when 57 students enrolled in three graduate distance-learning courses. The program has grown exponentially.

In the 2011-12 academic year, nearly 1,200 individual students took online courses at the College of Education, including all advanced degree programs, generating more than 3,300 total enrollments and nearly 10,000 credit hours. The college offered 114 fully online courses and nearly 280 “blended” courses, mixing online and face-to-face instruction.

“The emphasis on student engagement makes this ranking particularly rewarding because we strive to integrate innovative instructional approaches that best take advantage of how adults learn in online environments,” said Kara Dawson, who coordinates the College’s education technology program.

The College’s distance learning program brings together diverse and far-ranging students from around the world. According to Dan McCoy, senior director of e-learning and technology at the college, online students last year ranged in age from 18 to 65 and hailed from six countries, 25 states and some 200 Florida cities and towns.

The College offers three online master’s degrees: teacher leadership for school improvement (TLSI), education technology and Teach Well (teaching students with disabilities). The job-embedded TLSI program won the national Association of Teacher Educators’ 2011 Distinguished Program in Teacher Education Award.

“We’ve been able to attract the best and brightest students to our online programs. We provide world-class faculty who have embraced online education as a way to be innovative in their teaching and increased access to students working in the field,” McCoy said. “Our online support staff work tirelessly to ensure that students can enjoy the best education our college can offer while helping them to feel at home as members of the College of Education academic family.”

U.S. News is not publishing a printed guidebook for the online rankings, but does plan to include highlights in the 2014 guidebooks for Best Graduate Schools and for Best Colleges.

You can view the complete online graduate education rankings and accompanying data on the U.S. News website at www.usnews.com/online-education.

CONTACTS
   SOURCE: Tom Dana, associated dean for academic affairs, UF College of Education, tdana@coe.ufl.edu, 352-273-4134
   SOURCE: Dan McCoy, senior director for e-learning, technology and creative services, UF College of Education, dmccoy@coe.ufl.edu, 352-273-4134
   WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

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‘Tools for getting along’ helps schoolchildren solve social conflicts

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Two University of Florida special education researchers have found a method to help at-risk students with significant behavioral problems learn to calm aggressive tendencies and actively solve their social conflicts.

Researchers Stephen Smith and Ann Daunic

For the past 15 years, UF College of Education researchers Stephen Smith, the Irving and Rose Fien Endowed Professor, and associate scholar Ann Daunic have been developing a curriculum that would target these students’ problem-solving skills. The curriculum, Tools for Getting Along, known as TFGA, gives upper elementary students processes for approaching social problems rationally.

“A lot of times when kids are having a social conflict with another person, it can be emotion-laden,” Smith said. “Because of that, they can end up with an irrational approach to solving their problems, often through physical or verbal aggression, or some other inappropriate behavior that doesn’t really achieve what they want to achieve.”

Daunic and Smith’s latest evaluation of their problem-solving curriculum appeared in a spring issue of the Journal of School Psychology. Smith said the paper is the first to reveal the curriculum’s effectiveness.

In the study, the curriculum was randomly assigned to about half of the 87 fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms observed in 14 schools in North Central Florida with the other half receiving no intervention. Almost 1,300 students participated in the study.

Between 70 and 87 percent of the students in both groups studied received free and reduced price lunch, an attribute of socioeconomic status that can contribute to risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties. The researchers also considered gender and race, which can also be associated with this risk.

“While the target of Tools for Getting Along is children who have difficulties, it’s also a preventive curriculum because it is implemented classwide with the idea that peers will help at-risk children see that there are other ways to solve problems that are more productive,” Daunic said.

The curriculum contains instructional lessons, role-play scenarios, small-group activities and practice opportunities. Then, the effects of tool kit’s 27 lessons were evaluated through teacher and student self-reports, observations and other measures.

Smith said the most significant findings of the recent study measuring TFGA’s effects were the improvements in teacher ratings of students’ “executive functions” — a psychological term describing a set of mental processes, including attention flexibility, working memory for temporarily storing and organizing information, and inhibitory control—that help us regulate our emotions and behaviors in new situations.

With better attention flexibility, students are able to shift their attention from being on the aggressive offense in a social conflict to thinking through alternative strategies. Improvement in working memory and inhibitory control enhances students’ ability to stop and think before acting upon emotions.

“I think this shows a good example of what teachers can do for kids to allow them to equip themselves with a way to handle their own behavior,” Smith said. “It’s an opportunity for students to learn how to control behavior when teachers aren’t there to manage it for them, like at recess, in the cafeteria, on the school bus and at home.”

Daunic said that the study’s results are particularly important in light of current research in neuropsychology and neuroscience that ties children’s emotional well-being with their behavior in school and academic success.

“As more research comes out about the brain and how we learn, there’s more support for interventions that help young people regulate their emotions and regulate their thought processes socially and academically,” Daunic said. “What makes me feel good about this kind of work is that there’s more and more evidence about its importance.”

According to Daunic, positive effects of Tools for Getting Along have endured even a year after the study took place. The researchers are now writing a paper about the curriculum’s longer-term effects and analyzing more data. Their findings will then be reviewed by national educational review panels, or clearinghouses, and considered for designation as a preferred, “evidence-based practice” in education.

The curriculum is available for purchase by teachers and schools at https://education.ufl.edu/conflict-resolution. 

CONTACTS
    Source: Stephen W. Smith, UF professor of special education, 352-273-4263; swsmith@coe.ufl.edu
Writer: Alexa Lopez, UF College of Education, news and communications, 352-273-4449
    Media contact: Larry Lansford, director, UF College of Education news & communication, 352-273-4137

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Studying abroad found to boost creative thinking

Co-researchers: David Therriault, associate professor in educational psychology, and graduate student Christine Lee

When American college students travel overseas to study, they often seek deep cultural immersion, adventures among historic sites, culinary and artistic exploration and a life-changing learning experience.

Now, according to a new study out of the University of Florida’s College of Education, study-abroad students can also expect one more benefit: enhanced creativity.

UF researchers have found evidence for a link between studying abroad and creativity, showing that exposure to other cultures benefits creative-thinking skills. The research team was made up of graduate student Christine Lee, David Therriault, an associate professor of Educational Psychology, and Tracy Linderholm, a dean at Georgia Southern University and a former UF education professor.

In this study, Lee, Therriault, and Linderholm showed that the “cultural experiences from living abroad may have wide-reaching benefits on students’ creativity,” according to their research article, published recently in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology.

A 2009 study at Northwestern University first identified a potential relationship between multicultural experiences and enhanced creativity. The UF study confirmed the earlier finding by comparing a group of students who were immersed in a foreign country for an extended period of time to existing groups of students who have not studied abroad.

The researchers analyzed the creative mental processes of 135 students from UF, who were recruited by an online participant pool from the College of Education and on-campus International Center.

The volunteers were divided into three groups of 45 students each: those who had studied abroad, those who were planning to study abroad and students who had no plans of studying abroad. Each student completed two measures of creativity to test their general and culture-specific creative thinking.

For example, one of the activities on the general test asked participants to draw pictures using nine identical isosceles triangles and two unfinished figures.

The second task, designed by the UF researchers, tested culture-specific creative ability. Students were asked to answer questions like “What steps can you suggest that would get many more foreign people to come to [America] as tourists?” and “Suppose you had access to any ingredient from all over the world. Describe the dishes you would create using a combination of the most unique and/or exotic ingredients you can think of.”

Results showed that students who had studied abroad outperformed both groups in those tests. Lee said a surprising finding was that the study-abroad students not only performed better on the culture-specific task, but on the general test as well.

“One implication of this finding is that experiences abroad facilitate students’ ability to think in more innovative ways,” Lee said. “The ability to not only master course content but to also creatively apply that knowledge is important for students as they enter the real world.”

The researchers said future studies on the creativity-study abroad link is needed to investigate the influence of other factors such as students’ ethnic backgrounds and the location and length of their study abroad.

“It’s important to understand the complex blend of influences that may explain the link found in this study,” Therriault said.

CONTACTS
SOURCE: David Therriault, 352-273-4345, therriault@coe.ufl.edu
WRITER: Alexa Lopez, 352-273-4449, aklopez@coe.ufl.edu
MEDIA RELATIONS: Larry Lansford, 352-273-4137, llansford@coe.ufl.edu

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UF education, dentistry schools team up to sharpen dental faculty’s teaching skills

For years, University of Florida education scholar Linda Behar-Horenstein has dreamed of helping UF dental faculty sharpen their teaching skills and chairside manner as they perform precise dental procedures on their patients.

Behar-Horenstein, who has been teaching at the College of Education Department of Educational Administration and Policy since 1992, has always had an interest in the communication between health-care teaching professionals and their students and patients.

Her dream was realized when the College of Dentistry recently received a five-year $2.5 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Behar-Horenstein, co-principal investigator for the grant, has been working with the College of Dentistry since 1996, when she was asked

to observe the extent to which faculty were promoting critical thinking skills in clinics. Today, she is an affiliate professor in the college’s Department of Community Dentistry and Behavioral Science, as well as a Distinguished Teaching Scholar in both the colleges of Education and Dentistry.

The grant’s focus is on enhancing faculty’s teaching repertoire through instruction, and incorporating cultural competency and motivational interviewing, among other skills that are important for serving dental patients. The dental school received another grant three years ago worth $3.5 million aimed at providing pre-doctoral dentistry students with similar patient-centered skills.

“The idea is to help develop new and better skills in our faculty,” said Frank Catalanotto, who first invited Behar-Horenstein to the college about 16 years ago when he was dean. Catalanotto is the co-principal investigator for the grant. “If the grant is successful, our students will be better dentists when they go out into practice. Better dentists are going to improve the health of the public.”

Behar-Horenstein first became fascinated with professors’ differing teaching styles after taking a course with a frustrating professor in graduate school. When she realized she would have to teach herself the material, Behar-Horenstein started studying the styles of all her instructors, making a mental inventory of strategies that either promoted or prevented student learning.

“This issue is very important to me because I think professors’ research and training greatly affects the teaching that their students receive,” said Behar-Horenstein.

Over the years, she has traveled across the country showing instructors how to teach critical thinking and active learning skills. Behar-Horenstein now enjoys discussing with UF dentistry professors how to be engaging, interactive and productive in their teaching.

“The grant supports faculty in teaching pre-doctoral students how to become patient-centered in their communication,” Behar-Horenstein said. “If faculty haven’t had the opportunity to learn these teaching skills, it will be very difficult to model that.”

As a co-PI for the latest federal grant, Behar-Horenstein will lead online classes, webinars and presentations for faculty and help them with research projects and surveying their progress in the classroom and clinical learning environments

“I’m an internal resource because they can come to me seeking counsel or advice,” Behar-Horenstein said. “Talking with a colleague who understands teaching sometimes opens doors for others who may be experiencing challenges and reassures them that it’s really OK. We all go through this. Being an instructor requires growth and reflection.”

SOURCE: Linda Behar-Horenstein, distinguished teaching scholar and professor at UF College of Education, distinguished teaching scholar and affiliate professor at UF College of Dentistry; lsbhoren@ufl.edu; 352-273-4330

WRITER: Alexa Lopez, new media coordinator, news and communications, UF College of Education; aklopez@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4449

MEDIA LIAISON: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

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UF Lastinger Center partners to create free online app to help students prep for Algebra end-of-course exam

Don Pemberton, director of the University of Florida Lastinger Center for Learning

More than 40 percent of Florida middle and high school students failed the spring 2012 Algebra 1 End-of-Course, or EOC, exam. Vulnerable children fared even worse. In many high-needs schools, the failure rate topped 80 percent.

Florida students must pass the Algebra 1 EOC to earn a high school diploma.

“Algebra is a key STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subject,” said Don Pemberton, who directs the University of Florida College of Education’s Lastinger Center. “It serves as a gatekeeper to success in high school and beyond.”

To help students succeed on the 2013 EOC exam, the UF Lastinger Center has joined forces with Gainesville-based Study Edge to create Algebra Nation – an intensive, accessible, easy-to-use, free, 24/7 online preparation resource.

UF education professors have dissected the material tested on the EOC and aligned Algebra Nation with the latest state standards.

“Algebra Nation is based on the latest research and best practices,” Study Edge founder and president Ethan Fieldman said. “And it features some of Florida’s top math teachers.”

Algebra Nation launches as a free app statewide Jan. 15. This represents the first phase in a grand effort to help accelerate and upgrade learning throughout Florida. UF and Study Edge plan to create and roll out Geometry Nation, Biology Nation and other EOC exam preparation resources next year.

These cutting-edge online resources utilize social learning and technological breakthroughs to construct and stage a vibrant e-learning system for students, teachers and parents. Intuitive and interactive, they offer differentiated instruction through live and asynchronous tutoring, as well as other effective learning tools.

“We are deeply respectful of educators and have designed Algebra Nation as a powerful supplemental tool,” said Pemberton, a member of Gov. Rick Scott’s educational transition team. “At a time when teachers are being evaluated on their students’ standardized test scores, they need targeted supports, particularly when it comes to preparing for the End-of-Course exams. Algebra Nation is the answer.”

Study Edge has achieved success at improving college student outcome. Fieldman, its founder and president, was the first winner of the Cade Museum Prize for Innovation. Study Edge experts have succeeded not only at the college level but also with a test-prep program for AP courses at Boca Raton Community High School over the past five years.

Housed in the UF College of Education, the Lastinger Center is an educational innovation incubator. It harnesses the university’s intellectual resources to design, build, field-test and scale models that advance teaching, learning and healthy child development. The Center continuously evaluates and refines its work, widely disseminates its findings and roots its initiatives in a growing network of partner sites around the state and the country.

CONTACTS
SOURCE: Don Pemberton, director, UF Lastinger Center for Learning; dpemberton@coe.ufl.edu, 352-273-4108
WRITER/MEDIA LIAISON: Boaz Dvir, UF Lastinger Center for Learning; bdvir@coe.ufl.edu, 352-273-0289

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State scholarship program aids future minority teachers

Carolina Diaz

Sixth-grader Carolina Diaz did not feel like her Hispanic roots made her a minority within the diverse collection of students at her Miami Beach elementary school. Instead, it was her limited grasp of English that made her feel like an outsider.

Things changed when her teacher, a young Jamaican woman, told Diaz that she saw something special in her; Diaz could work as well as other native English speakers, her teacher told her. This minority teacher’s confidence in Diaz was enough to inspire the sixth grader to become a teacher when she grew up.

“I do believe it made a difference for my teacher to be a minority because she made me feel more comfortable,” Diaz said. “As a young student coming from a vibrant Latin culture, white American teachers at times appeared to me as impersonal.”

Years later, Diaz received the Minority Teacher Education Scholarship from the Florida Fund for Minority Teachers (FFMT) to study elementary education at the University of Florida. She received her master’s degree in elementary education and now teaches at UF’s English Language Institute.

Since 1996, the statewide FFMT program, headquartered at UF’s College of Education, has been providing scholarships helping thousands of minority college students pursue dreams of receiving a teaching degree.

FFMT offers a $4,000-a-year Minority Teacher Education Scholarship over two or three years. Incoming juniors of African American, black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American/Pacific Islander or American Indian/Alaskan Native descent are eligible. Recipients must be enrolled in one of 37 approved teacher education programs in Florida.

Yet for most FFMT scholars, the scholarship offers much more than financial assistance.

“FFMT has made me feel valued,” Diaz said. “The program is supporting diversity because it recognizes that most teachers in the United States are statistically white, middle-class women and FFMT is doing something to change that. It’s not just a statistic that goes unsolved.”

FFMT scholars are required to commit two or three years, depending on the length of their scholarship, to teach in a Florida public school after receiving their degree. If this requirement is not fulfilled, they must repay the scholarship amount to FFMT.

FFMT hosts an annual conference and offers mentoring and pre-professional development for scholarship recipients. FFMT Executive Director Michael Bowie said such training helps foster an understanding and acceptance in today’s students that the world, and Florida in particular, is becoming more diverse every day.

“Having diverse teachers is important for everybody – it shapes us,” he said. “If children don’t see themselves reflected in the classroom, the psychological effect of that is not being able to think ‘I can do that too.’”

In fact, current scholarship recipient Shayla C. Davis, an African-American UF senior studying elementary education, has been able to see the effects of having a minority teacher in the classroom.

“The students begin to look forward to seeing you and you begin to realize how great of an impact you make on their education,” said Davis, an intern at Williston Elementary School.

One third-grade girl of a minority background once approached Davis and said, “Miss Davis, I want to be a teacher just like you.”

“That just shows how much students are watching you, and how much of a difference you make by just being there for them,” Davis said. “They just appreciate interacting with someone who looks like them.”

Originally, FFMT was able to offer the scholarship to 700 minority students in the state each year. However, due to millions of dollars in state budget cuts, FFMT can now only aid about 250 prospective teachers.

Since the program’s inception, FFMT has produced more than 3,500 teachers in Florida’s public schools, according to Bowie. He said about 80 percent of scholars remain in teaching or administrative positions at these schools after the two or three years required for the scholarship.

“It‘s a win-win situation for the state,” Bowie said. “This program has demonstrated its success.”

Applicants must be a Florida resident of junior standing in an approved teacher education program at a college in the state. Apply online at ffmt.org.

CONTACTS
SOURCE: Michael Bowie, executive director of the Florida Fund for Minority Teachers, mbowie@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4367
WRITER: Alexa Lopez, new media coordinator, news and communications, UF College of Education; aklopez@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4449

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Nov. 14 event celebrates education around the world

Pack your book bags and set your GPS destination for Norman Hall on Nov. 14 to partake in the College of Education’s seventh-annual International Day, part of International Education Week.

The College of Education Office of Student Services sponsors the annual celebration as a part of International Education Week, a global project of the U.S. departments of Education and State.

Prepare for an afternoon filled with multicultural treats and intellectual conversation as you learn about the international education experiences of American students and professors from the college who have studied or taught abroad, as well those from other countries now studying, visiting or teaching at UF.

Here is your International Education Day itinerary:

12:00-12:30: Start your exploration with entertainment by the Greek American Student Association, food from local favorite dining spots like Mi Apa and Gyro Plus, and tabling by UF organizations including Children Beyond Our Borders and the Center for Latin American Studies.

12:30-1 p.m.: Hear stories from Lindsay Vecchio, a doctoral student who has taught in Paris, and Amanda Brown, a ProTeach student who has assisted in international schools in Italy, during a panel discussion.

1:15-2:15 p.m.: Visiting scholars from schools abroad, including Rong Gong, Sang Min Lee, Elton Furlanetto and Jose Garrido, will host their own panel discussing teacher preparation and the progression of learning in their home countries, from Korea to Brazil.

2:30-3:30 p.m.: Finish the celebration of international education by listening to keynote speaker Isa Jahnke, a professor in Sweden, as she discusses Swedish teaching and learning.

Sessions will take place in the College of Education’s Terrace Room, located in G400 in Norman Hall. Each presentation is open to the public.

For more information, contact Brittany Matthews at matthewsbl@coe.ufl.edu.

 

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UF awarded $2 million grant to boost science, math teaching in Florida schools

Answering a call to ensure Florida has the best-educated workforce for the global knowledge economy, the University of Florida is launching a statewide effort to bolster teaching and learning in science and mathematics in the middle school and high school grades.

Officials with UF and the Florida Department of Education jointly announced today that UF’s College of Education has been awarded a two-year grant worth $2 million to create a research-based, professional development support system for new science and math teachers.

The project’s most noteworthy feature is the creation of prototype “teacher induction” programs to support teachers in their first two years on the job. Induction will involve online and face-to-face mentoring, professional development and networking opportunities with their peers.  Center faculty and staff also will assist partnering school districts in creating coaching programs for novice science and math teachers.

To coordinate the project, UF has established a program called Florida STEM-Teacher Induction and Professional Support, also known as Florida STEM-TIPS Center. STEM is a common acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics — key technical subject areas that Gov. Rick Scott has declared as a high priority in Florida’s public schools to support the growth of high-wage jobs in the private sector.

Griffith Jones, a UF science education professor and principal investigator of the project, will oversee development of statewide teacher induction activities. Jones said they will start in Dade, Duval and Palm Beach counties, where UF has existing partnerships with the local school districts, and then  expand to other interested districts throughout the state.

“The induction support activities will ensure that the training and collegial support of teachers-in-training won’t end at graduation, but will continue into their first two years of teaching,” Jones said. “We aim to work with districts to reverse the lack of teacher induction support that historically drives nearly one-third of new teachers from the classroom by their third year of teaching.”

Jones said induction activities for new math and science teachers will include professional-development training in new curriculum standards and high-engagement instructional practices, on-the-job training programs and grade-specific mentoring.

UF professors with the center also will lead webinars and create a web-based gateway for collaborating and sharing information so science and math educators can network with peers across the state.

The need for reform in STEM teacher education is well documented. In Florida, fewer than half of all eighth-graders have teachers who majored or minored in mathematics, according to Jones. Nationwide projections cite a need for 280,000 new math and science teachers by 2015.

Supported by the DOE grant, UF professors also will visit state universities to share information on a highly touted STEM teacher preparation program called UTeach, which is the model for the University of Florida’s own “UFTeach” program. The UTeach model, created by University of Texas-Austin professors in 1997, recruits top science and math majors into teaching by offering a creative curriculum with progressively complex field experiences teaching those subjects in area schools.

“We are poised to make an important leap in STEM education in Florida,” said Tom Dana, UF professor of science education and co-director of UFTeach. “The STEM-TIPS program will allow us to assist other Florida universities who share a goal of reformed science and math teacher preparation.”

As part of the state grant, UF is providing technical assistance to Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne in developing a UTeach “replicate” program on their campus, according to Dana.

For more information, visit the Florida STEM-TIPS website at https://education.ufl.edu/stem-tips.

CONTACTS
SOURCE: Florida Department of Education Press Office, 850-245-041
WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

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Special Education team awarded $25 million to advance teaching of students with disabilities

The University of Florida’s College of Education will receive $25 million over the next five years to address a concern that has plagued American schools for more than two decades—inadequate teaching of children with disabilities.

Mary Brownell

Paul Sindelar

Erica McCray

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs in December granted the first of five annual, $5 million awards to the education college to establish a center to support the development of effective teachers—in general and special education classrooms–and education leaders to serve students with disabilities.

“This grant represents the (Education Department’s) largest investment ever in improving education for students with disabilities,” said co-principal investigator and UF special education professor Mary Brownell.

She said the new Collaboration for Effective Educator Development and Accountability and Reform, also known as CEEDAR Center, will open in January in Norman Hall, home of the College of Education. Other UF co-principal investigators are Paul Sindelar and Erica McCray, also in special education.

Brownell said the CEEDAR Center will work with states in strengthening professional standards and reforming preparation and certification programs for general and special education teachers, and school and school district leaders who work with students with disabilities. The center also will help states revise their teacher evaluation systems to align with the higher professional standards.

“Studies establish that our current systems for licensing, preparing, developing, supporting and evaluating teachers to effectively instruct students with unique needs are wholly inadequate,” Brownell said. “The CEEDAR Center approach is to reform and align these areas with research-proven practices and professional standards.”

“This grant will allow the special education field to take a giant step in improving the education of all students,” she said. “Students with disabilities perform in school more poorly than any other subgroup of students. With truly effective instruction, though, many of these students have abilities that will allow them to advance and succeed in college, career and other postsecondary options.”

Through the CEEDAR Center, the UF group is partnering with nine other organizations in plans to eventually roll out a special-education reform program to 20 states. The center’s primary partner is the American Institutes for Research. Other collaborators include the University of Kansas, the New Teacher Center (a national non-profit), the University of Washington at Bothell, the Council for Exceptional Children and several other national professional organizations.

CONTACTS
SOURCE: Mary Brownell, UF professor of special education, mbrownell@coe.ufl.edu; (c) 352-273-4261; (h) 352-331-2404
SOURCE: Paul Sindelar, UF professor of special education, pts@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4266
SOURCE: Erica McCray, UF assistant professor of special education, edm@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4264
WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137

 

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COE alum receives nation’s highest science teaching honor

Only America’s most exceptional teachers find themselves strolling through the White House discussing education policy with Vice President Joe Biden. COE alumnus Eric Grunden (MEd ’94, science education) recently got the VIP treatment from Biden and the White House staff after receiving the nation’s highest honor in the science teaching profession.

Grunden was one of 97 educators across the country to receive the 2012 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching in a ceremony at the White House.  The honor came with a certificate signed by President Obama, an all-expense-paid trip for two to the capital and a $10,000 stipend from the National Science Foundation. President Obama was scheduled to attend the ceremony but had to make an emergency trip to visit the victims of the Colorado wildfires.

“I had been to the White House before as a tourist, but this was special,” Grunden said.  “We got to come in through the back entrance, and I got to meet Bo, the (Obama family) dog – all that was important, but it was nice to feel validated and meet other educators who think like me.”

The Presidential awards are given annually to one math and one science teacher in grades K-12 from each state based on the quality of instruction in their classrooms. Grunden thinks it’s his knowledge of chemistry and teaching skills he honed during his master’s degree coursework in science education at UF that made him stand out as an applicant.

“I think it’s more important to teach less content at a deeper level so students get an appreciation for the system. It’s like cooking: you can teach somebody a recipe, but understanding why you need to add sugar at that point or why  you need to do this over low heat allows you to make your own recipes, and then you’re a chef,” Grunden said.

Grunden has been the science department chair at Raleigh (N.C.) Charter High School since 2000 but got his first teaching job at UF’s P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School after graduation from UF in 1993. He said he still draws on his experience at PKY because it was a small, innovative school much like the school he’s at now.

His science education professor at UF, Linda Jones, recommended Grunden for his first teaching position at P.K. Yonge and said chemistry class enrollment at the school soared after he began teaching.

During his Washington, D.C. visit, Grunder poses a question to physicist Jim Gates, a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, at a recent council meeting. (Photo courtesy of National Science Foundation)

“He taught chemistry like a magician or showman,” Jones said. “Students don’t even realize they’re in a chemistry class because they’re having so much fun.”

Jones said Grunden, who has been a contestant on the TV game show “Jeopardy!,” is the second UF education alumnus to win the Presidential Award – the first was her husband, Griffith Jones, a master science teacher with the College of Education’s UFTeach program, who won in 1998.

Grunden describes his teaching style as Socratic because he believes having students ask questions of themselves helps them realize what they already know and apply it to different situations.

“Our students are very sophisticated,” Grunden said. “I look at the things they do every day with technology, and I think, ‘if they can do that, they can do this, too.’”

With 17 years of teaching experience,, his latest venture is founding a science-and-mathematics-focused charter school in Research Triangle Park in Raleigh, which opened in mid-August with 160 new freshmen. The high school’s neighbors include science and engineering giants such as GlaxoSmithKline to give students opportunities for interaction and internships, much like his nonprofit, the Contemporary Science Center, that places teens in day-long field trips giving them a firsthand look at what scientists do on a daily basis.

“I never wanted to be anything other than a classroom teacher, and when the board of directors asked me to be the school leader, I reluctantly accepted. Since then, I’ve realized that this is a lot of fun, so I don’t know where this is going to take me,” Grunden said. “I’d like to see this school go for a while, certainly through the first graduating class, but who knows after that?”

Professor Jones said it’s like Grunden to leave you guessing.

“You never know what’s going to come next with Eric, but, whatever it is, it turns to gold.”

CONTACTS/CREDITS
   WRITER: Jessica Bradley, student intern, news & communications, UF College of Education
    MEDIA RELATIONS: Larry Lansford, director, news & communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137; llansford@coe.ufl.edu

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Back-to-school tips for parents & teachers

(Compiled by professors and instructors at UF’s College of Education and its affiliated P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School.)

With the start of the new school year upon us, several professors and instructors at UF’s College of Education and its affiliated P.K. Yonge Developmental Reearch School have compiled a few lists of Back-to-School Tips to help PARENTS and their school-aged kids make a smooth transition from the restful (for most) summer break to the excitement and, yes, some anxiety (for some), of a new school year. Accompanying the TIPS FOR PARENTS, below, are also some TIPS FOR TEACHERS, who prepare for the new school year from an entirely different perspective than the parents. Read both sets of tips and you can gain some perspective and respect for the effort that both parents and teachers put into the education of our children.

Read, learn, enjoy. (And for PARENTS OF NEW COLLEGE STUDENTS, there’s some BACK-TO-SCHOOL Tips for you, too. Just click here to view the list.)

Tips for PARENTS

1)       CHECK IN WITH YOUR CHILD. Before the first day of school, schedule a Q&A with your student about how they’re feeling about school starting.  What are they looking forward to?  What are they nervous about?  Who are they excited to see?

2)       SHOP FOR SUPPLIES TOGETHER. Have your student help shop for their school supplies. This helps them build excitement about returning to school.  

3)       REVIEW ASSIGNED SUMMER READING. Talk to your student about their summer reading assignments. You could even help your younger elementary student re-read some parts of the books.  

4)       START SCHOOL BEDTIME ROUTINE AHEAD OF FIRST DAY. During the summer it’s easy to have later bedtimes, but once the school year starts students have to wake up early again. Start helping your student get back on a regular sleep schedule before school starts back up so they won’t be so tired the first few days of school. Add 20-30 minutes to your normal wake-up routine to give the whole family extra time to prepare for the change.

5)       WALK THEM TO CLASS? ASK FIRST. Ask your younger student if they would like you to walk them to their classroom door or if they would like you to simply drop them off at school on the first day.  Let your student be your guide.  You want to support them but not suffocate them.  

6)       BREAKFAST IS GR-R-R-REAT! Healthy breakfast routines are crucial. Make sure your student eats a good breakfast every day. If they eat their morning meal at school, make sure they arrive in time to be served.

7)       REQUEST PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCE EARLY ON. Email your student’s teacher for a parent teacher conference.  This helps you connect with the teacher, ask questions about the school year, and find out ways you can support your student outside of the classroom.


Tips for TEACHERS

1)       COMMUNICATE-COMMUNICATE-COMMUNICATE. Establish clear communication patterns between you and your teaching team, you and your students, and you and your students’ parents.

2)       FUN INTRO LETTER. Send students a fun letter introducing yourself. This gets your students excited for school.

3)       AVOID EARLY BURNOUT. Try to leave school by 5 p.m. every day during preplanning. You don’t want to burn out before school starts.  

4)       EAT HEALTHY. Eat a good breakfast, treat yourself to lunch (because you won’t get to go out to lunch when school starts), and have a healthy dinner. Bring a water bottle to school so you can stay hydrated.  

5)       PLAN AHEAD EARLY. Plan out your first few weeks of class and know that it’s okay if your plans change.  

RELATED READING:  Special column . . . “EASING CHILDREN’S ANXIETY BEFORE THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL” by Dorene Ross, Ed.D., professor of teacher education at UF’s College of Education and co-author of the lists above.

MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS/CONTACTS:
SOURCE: Dorene Ross, Ed.D., professor of curriculum, teaching and teacher education; UF College of Education; 352-273-4206; dross@coe.ufl.edu
SOURCE: Ashley Pennypacker Hill, M.Ed., elementary science instructor, P.K. Yonge School; 352-392-1554; apennypacker@pky.ufl.edu
EDITOR/MEDIA CONTACT:  Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; 352-273-4137; llansford@coe.ufl.edu 

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New Fien Professor finding ways to reduce disruptive classroom behavior

Disruptive, anti-social behavior in the classroom—such as openly defying the teacher’s instructions or bullying a classmate—has been a major concern of school systems for years. Studies show the single most common request for assistance from teachers is related to behavior and classroom management.

Research also shows that students in disruptive classrooms tend to make lower grades and do poorer on standardized tests.

That’s why University of Florida special education professor Stephen Smith has, for nearly 15 years, studied new teaching tools and strategies to help students self-regulate their disruptive impulses and aggressive actions. His research advances have earned him a prestigious appointment to the Irving and Rose Fien Endowed Professorship at UF’s College of Education. The three-year post, worth $120,000 in salary supplements, doctoral student hires and technical assistance, supports veteran faculty members with a track record of successful research aimed at helping “at risk” learners in kindergarten-through-high school, mainly at high-poverty schools.

The College of Education announced Smith’s appointment on Tuesday (Aug. 14).

In his 23-year academic career, Smith has generated more than $10 million through 26 research and training grants–$8.5 million of that since he joined the UF faculty in 1990. His Fien Professorship research will expand the breadth and scope of two federally funded studies he is conducting under highly competitive grants awarded over the past two years by the Institute of Education Services, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education.

One Fien-funded initiative calls for vital post-test analysis, involving 68 classrooms, of a social problem-solving curriculum—called “Tools for Getting Along”—that Smith and colleagues designed to help at-risk upper elementary students regulate their own aggressive behavioral tendencies. His team also will conduct a pilot study to test the curriculum’s effectiveness on small groups of at-risk students who require more personalized and intensive intervention.

“We are developing lessons that tap self-control skills such as monitoring your thoughts, inhibiting impulses, planning better and adapting to changing situations,” Smith said.

These high-level skills, known collectively by cognitive scientists as “executive functions” (or EF, for short), “are fundamental to helping students set personal goals, control their emotions and improve their social problem-solving abilities,” he said.

Smith also will test new training techniques to help middle school students with significant behavioral problems to tap into three specific EF skills—working memory, attention flexibility and impulse control—to counter their emotional and behavioral disorders.

“Up to 10 percent of middle school students have significant behavioral issues that merit some attention outside of what is normally provided in our educational system,” Smith said. “There aren’t many intervention resources available for these students that are effective and teacher-friendly. Our comprehensive program will provide long-term instructional impact.”

The college’s Fien Professorship was created in 1998 through a $600,000 gift by Irving Fien, founder of Fine Distributing, a Miami-based food distribution company. He made the donation to honor his wife Rose, who had died the year before. Irving, once an at-risk student himself, died in 2004.

At UF, Smith has received three teaching awards, a University Research Award, and has served twice as a UF Distinguished Research Professor. He has served on the federal Institute of Education Science’s social and behavioral education research scientific review panel since 2008.

The Fien appointment also recognizes Smith’s commitment to teaching and student mentoring. He teaches graduate level courses in special education research, emotional and behavioral disorders and principles of prevention science in education. He has published with doctoral students on 19 research papers and has hired 21 Ph.D. students as research assistants on his federally funded research grants.

Overall, Smith is the author of 14 professional books and book chapters and more than 60 journal articles and manuscripts.

He is on the executive board of the Council for Exceptional Children’s division for research and is a past president of Teacher Educators of Children with Behavioral Disorders. He has a doctorate in special education from the University of Kansas.

Smith’s appointment keeps the Fien Professorship in his family for three more years: His wife, Mary Brownell, also a UF special education professor, was co-holder of the post from 2008-11.

CONTACTS

    SOURCE: Stephen Smith, professor, UF College of Education,  352-273-4263; email swsmith@coe.ufl.edu
WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news & communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137; llansford@coe.ufl.edu

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Success tips for new college students–and their parents

 

By J. DIANE PORTER-ROBERTS,
Director, Student Personnel in Higher Education graduate program, UF’s College of Education
Associate Director of Housing for Student Learning and Engagement, University of Florida


Tips for NEW COLLEGE STUDENTS

1) CONNECT EARLY. Get connected on campus early in the semester (for example, get involved with at least one club or organization on campus, take advantage of campus programs).
2) HOMEWORK—DO IT! Stay on top of your homework and studying. It is difficult to catch up.
3) STEADY STUDY. Don’t wait until the night before your exam to study.
4) FEED THE NEED TO READ. If you are assigned something to read for class, read it before class.
5) FORM STUDY GROUP. Take advantage of study groups, exam review sessions, and faculty office hours.
6) FIRST IMPRESSIONS, FALSE READINGS. Try to keep an open mind and get to know people before making assumptions based on first impressions.
7) ENGAGE-ENGAGE-ENGAGE. Did I mention you should engage? Engage with other students, with your professors, with your course material and with the campus community.
8) AND PROSPER. Sleep and eat well.


Tips for PARENTS of New College Students

1) SET COMMUNICATION GROUND RULES. Decide with your student the way you want to communicate with each other (e.g., e-mail, text, phone calls, etc.) and how often. Remember that their schedules are very different on campus compared to high school.
2) DON’T HOVER. Let your student solve his/her own problems on campus—such as roommate compatibility issues, course schedules, other conflicts). Take on the role of sounding board, coach or adviser.
3) STAY INVOLVED IN THEIR LIVES. Inquire occasionally about friends, involvement on campus, classes, grades, health, etc. If you detect a red flag, talk directly with your student about it. If needed, encourage your student to discuss issues with his/her Resident Assistant, professor, counselor, adviser, or another campus administrator.
4) EMBRACE NEW LIVING ARRANGEMENT. Try to keep an open mind. Your student will experience many new and different activities, people, and other circumstances on campus.
5) SNAIL MAIL TRUMPS TEXTS. Never underestimate the power of a care package or an actual card in the mail. 

CONTACTS
SOURCE: J. Diane Porter-Roberts, PhD, director, Student Personnel in Higher Education graduate program, UF College of Education. 352-392-2171, ext. 10660; DianeP@housing.ufl.edu
EDITOR/MEDIA RELATIONS: Larry Lansford, APR, director, news and communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137, llansford@coe.ufl.edu

 

 
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Washington works to restore civics instruction, civic involvement

Elizabeth Washington has been smitten with social studies and civics education since her 11th-grade American History class. She remembers dressing up as Eleanor Roosevelt for American Heritage Day as a class assignment and never looking back on her way to becoming a state and national thought leader in civics education.

“That definitely jump-started me and I got more involved in political campaigns my senior year,” said Washington, professor of social studies education in the UF College of Education’s teacher preparation program. “It made me see how much ordinary people can do to change things, but also how important it is to have good leaders who understand the constitution.”

Washington was recently named a Knight Effective Citizens Fellow at UF’s Bob Graham Center for Public Service, created in 2008 by former Gov. and Sen. Graham to give UF students an opportunity to experience political leadership and involvement outside of the classroom and a firm grounding in democratic government. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation created the fellowship with a $3-million grant to support the center’s development and sponsorship of new programs promoting civic involvement for undergraduate students.

“A lot of civic education focuses on kids in school, but what happens when they leave school?” Washington said. “Capitalizing on an interest they have in civic life is a unique focus, and the Graham Center is in a great position to do that.”

Washington will work with six other Knight fellows from around the nation to design and implement a novel online civics course for UF undergraduates. One of her former master’s and doctoral students, Emma Humphries, graduated in the spring and now works as an assistant scholar at the Graham Center who coordinates the grant projects. Humphries said her professor had a big influence on her decision to pursue her Ph.D.

“If civics is your passion and you’re at the University of Florida, then you probably want to make friends with Dr. Washington,” Humphries said.

Washington’s approach to social studies education changed 10 years ago when she attended a conference for social studies education professors. She said the conference inspired her to make it her mission to prepare social studies students to be engaged citizens by integrating civics education into everything she does in the classroom.

Her new classroom philosophy would coincide over the ensuing decade with a changing curriculum standard in Florida education. In 2010, the Sandra Day O’Connor Civics Education Act established state standards for civics education by requiring a civics course for all seventh-grade students and an end-of-course examination in order to pass seventh grade – for a subject that had never been tested before in Florida.

Washington served on a state content advisory committee that designed the end-of-course exam—the first Florida statewide assessment for a social science discipline in more than two decades, according to the Florida Department of Education.

Washington and other social studies educators are hopeful that the subject’s inclusion on Florida’s standardized tests secures civics as a permanent fixture in Florida school curricula. Field testing of the civics exam will begin in middle schools this year, and the actual test will be implemented in the 2013-2014 school year.

Washington also serves as a senior fellow at the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship, a partnership between the Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government at UCF and the Bob Graham Center at UF. She is helping the Joint Center promote civics education by developing a curriculum and professional development programs for seventh-grade social studies teachers whose teaching assignments now include civics, which requires them to learn new content and teaching methods.

Civics education is making a comeback in Florida thanks to leaders like former Gov. and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, former U.S. congressman Lou Frey, former Gov. Charlie Crist and Rep. Charles McBurney, who influenced lawmakers to pass the O’Connor legislation.

“It didn’t hurt that (U.S. Supreme Court) Justice O’Connor made it her mission to focus on civics education after retirement,” Washington said. “When she addressed the Florida Legislature, they didn’t waste any time because she made it clear why civic knowledge and engagement are important.”

Washington stays civically engaged in her free time, too. Her husband, attorney Ray Washington, has a passion for Constitutional law and politics and ran for a Gainesville City Commission seat earlier this year. She said the experience with local government broadened her outlook on civic engagement and was a great learning opportunity for her entire family.

“I wouldn’t know how not to be civically engaged,” Washington said. “It’s my hobby to stay interested in politics and current events.”

Finally, the must-ask question: What does it mean to someone so civically smitten to have the same last name as one of American history’s most iconic figures—General George Washington, our nation’s first president?

“My students comment on that all the time, and I love mentioning it because it’s the perfect last name for a social studies devotee,” Washington answers without hesitation. “I like to talk about why George Washington is my favorite president, and I often begin discussions of civics with his famous Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.”

“His portrait also hangs in my classroom,” she adds, “so, yes, I am a total fan of George Washington.”

Elizabeth Washington hopes to help raise a whole new generation of fans—of the Delaware River-crossing general with the same last name, and of social studies and civic engagement in general.

CONTACTS

SOURCE: Elizabeth Washington, professor of social studies education, School of Teaching and Learning, UF College of Education, 352-273-4236, ewashington@coe.ufl.edu
WRITER: Jessica Bradley, communications intern, UF College of Education
MEDIA RELATIONS: Larry Lansford, director, news & communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137; llansford@coe.ufl.edu

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PKY lab school students score in Top 5 on statewide FCAT, end-of-course exams


The test results are in and a high percentage of students–and their teachers–at UF’s P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School are beaming with pride for the students’ stellar performance on the 2012 statewide End of Course exams and FCAT scores. The average scores of PKY students collectively ranked in the Top 5 statewide on End of Course exam results in Algebra, Biology and Geometry and on FCAT scores on 3rd, 9th and 10th grade reading, and 8th grade writing.

Here are the complete exam results and listings of the teacher teams of the top-scoring student groups:

End of Course Exams:

Geometry: Kristin Weller
1st place in the state for 9th and 10th grades compared across districts

Algebra I:  Paige Allison and Alicia Stephenson
Tied 1st place in the state for 8th grade, in the top 5 for 9th grade compared across districts

Biology: Mickey MacDonald and Kerry Thompson
4th place in the state for combined 9th and 10th grades compared across districts.

FCAT

3rd Grade Reading:
2nd highest mean score and 3rd highest overall performance compared across districts
Angie Flavin, Lindsay Pavlik, Ross Van Boven – 3rd Grade Team

8th Grade Writing:
5th place in the state
Greg Cunningham – 8th Grade Language Arts

9th Grade Reading:
4th place in the state
Jennifer Cheveallier – 9th Grade Language Arts

10th Grade Reading:
4th place in the state
Kate Yurko – 10th Grade Language Arts

Thank you, students, for staying focused, for working hard, and for your great performances! Thank you, faculty, for providing the place, time, and expertise to help your students represent P.K. Yonge so well across the state!

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