COE scholars will be out in force at April AERA meeting

For years, the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association has been a hotbed of new and exciting, research-based ideas about teaching. This year’s meeting—set for April 12-17 in San Diego– focuses on the role of education as “a hub of interdisciplinary scholarship.” As always, UF education faculty and graduate students will be a major presence in the program.

AERA’s online program lists some 30 COE faculty and a like-sized contingent of graduate students presenting or participating in more than 60 presentations, panel discussions and association-related business meetings. The UF presentations include hot education topics such as: social studies education reform, classroom aggression intervention, improving the readability of FCAT tests, advancing black education, classroom technology integration, forging effective parent-teacher partnerships, and UF’s landmark school-readiness initiative in Miami public schools.

You can view or print out a complete list of presentations by COE faculty and students, in PDF format, by clicking here.

COE faculty members Kara Dawson, Henry Frierson, Mirka Koro-Ljungberg, Walter Leite, Cirecie Olatunji, Bernard Oliver, Philip Poekert, Dorene Ross, Mark Shermis and Sevan Terzian will be particularly busy, presenting or participating in three or more conference activities. Doctoral student Brian Barber, in special education, also is involved in three presentations.

This year’s conference theme is “Disciplined Inquiry: Education Research in the Circle of Knowledge.” Michael Feuer, the 2009 AERA conference program chair, says the heightened role of interdisciplinary scholarship in education research was the motivation behind this year’s theme.

“It takes an intellectual village . . . and supportive discourse across conventional disciplinary lines” to understand and eventually solve the most complex problems in education today, Feuer writes in the March 2009 edition of the journal Educational Researcher. “The 2009 annual meeting will be an opportunity for renewed discussion and expansion of the role of education research as a hub of interdisciplinary scholarship.”

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

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Writer: Larry Lansford, COE News & Communications, llansford@coe.ufl.edu