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Special ed. alumni cited for early research success
Brian Boyd
A pair of College of Education alumni have been selected for prestigious national honors from the Council for Exceptional Children for their outstanding research.
Brian Boyd won the 2016 Distinguished Early Career Research Award and recent graduate Elizabeth Bettini won for the best student-initiated research study.
The Arlington, Virginia-based Council for Exceptional Children is the world’s largest organization of special education professionals and educators. CEC will present the awards in April in St. Louis at the group’s annual convention.
Elizabeth Bettini
Boyd’s honor recognizes scholars who have made outstanding scientific contributions in basic or applied research in special education within 10 years after receiving their doctoral degree.
Boyd now is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received a doctorate in special education in 2005 from UF under mentorship of Maureen Conroy, Ph.D., who now serves as co-director of the Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies.
UF Special Education Professor Mary Brownell said: “The Early Career Award is one of the most significant awards recognizing the promise of young scholars in special education.”
The official language from the award said: “Dr. Boyd is considered one of the most promising scholars in early childhood and autism. He has published 46 papers in top-tier journals, such as the Journal of Child Psychology and the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, and his work is cited frequently.”
Bettini won for quantitative design for her research paper titled: Novice Special Educators’ Perceptions of Workload Manageability: Do They Matter and Are They Influenced by Novices’ Perceptions of Their Social Context?
Selected through a confidential review process, the award recognizes high-quality scholarship across multiple research methodologies conducted by students in the course of their undergraduate or graduate special education training program.
Bettini earned a doctorate in special education from the College of Education in 2015 and now is an assistant professor of special education at Boston University.
“Elizabeth was an outstanding student who continues to be devoted to conducting research on working conditions for special education teachers,” Brownell said. “She won the Outstanding Graduate Researcher Award for our College of Education in 2015.”
UF online graduate education rated best in nation
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The distance education program at the University of Florida College of Education, already recognized for having some of the nation’s best e-learning students, now can stake a claim as America’s best online graduate education degree program overall, according to the latest national rankings announced Jan. 12 by U.S. News and World Report magazine.
UF was tied for first with the University of Houston in the new 2016 rankings of America’s Best Online Graduate Education Programs, improving by 12 spots over last year. For the second year in a row, UF also received the survey’s highest score for “admissions selectivity”—considered an indicator of the high quality of its students.
UF now is the top-ranked education college in Florida and among public education schools in the Southeast in both online and on-campus graduate degree programs. The College of Education also was UF’s highest-rated online program in the survey.
This is the fifth year that U.S. News has numerically ranked online learning programs in higher education. Education is one of seven disciplines at the master’s degree level that were rated. Programs were ranked based on five weighted factors: student engagement (35%), student services and technology (20%), admissions selectivity (15%), faculty credentials and training (15%), and peer reputation (15%).
“Our distance ed courses are designed by top-flight faculty using the latest knowledge about best practices in web-based learning environments,” UF education Associate Dean Tom Dana said. “Our goal is to develop master educators who can lead transformations in practice.”
COE online instructors work with the college’s instructional design creative teams to produce high-quality videos, both for on-screen lessons and “virtual field trips” (Photo courtesy of Matt Stamey/The Gainesville Sun)
Dana said a key distinction of the UF online program is its cohort instructional approach, meaning the students start and complete the degree coursework together, which Dana said creates more opportunities for students to interact with each other and with their instructors.
“The cohort model has been shown to increase student retention and the graduation rate,” he said.
Dana has steered the development of the college’s e-learning program since its inception in 2004, when 57 students enrolled in three online graduate courses. In 2015, more than 1,750 students were enrolled in 160 online courses.
The College of Education offers eight Web-based degree programs, geared mainly to working teachers and school administrators seeking additional certifications, career advancement or professional development. The five online graduate education programs considered in the U.S. News rankings were: curriculum and instruction; educational leadership; educational technology; reading, language and literacy; and special education.
“Many of our online instructors are full-time college faculty members and nationally recognized as experts in their field,” Dana said. “All online instructors receive training in the technology and best practices of online learning.”
Many instructors have worked with the college’s instructional design team and digital creative staff to produce high-quality videos, both for on-screen lessons and for “virtual field trips” that allow students to see and hear some of Florida’s most inspiring teachers and school administrators in action and discussing best practices and professional insights.
“The videos link to a specific assignment or learning activity,” said Bruce Mousa, coordinator of UF’s educational leadership online degree program. Mousa also has been known to upload videos from his personal computer to provide feedback to individual students.
Education Professor Sevan Terzian even incorporates some Ken Burns-like production techniques to deliver engaging content in his Education and American Culture online course, such as inserting historical images accompanied by captions and his voice-over narration.
“I wouldn’t be the first to say there is a small element of performance in everything we do,” Terzian said with a smile.
For more information, visit the college’s distance learning website at https://education.ufl.edu/distance-learning/.
The full rankings and rankings data for Best Online Programs in Graduate Education are publicly posted on the U.S. News website at http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/education.
SOURCE: Tom Dana, associate dean, UF College of Education; tdana@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4134
SOURCE: Jason Arnold, associate direct of e-learning, technology and creative services, UF College of Education; jda@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4442
WRITER / MEDIA RELATIONS: Larry Lansford, communications director, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137
COE international students honored for academics, service
Mary Brownell (back row, left) and Theresa Vernetson smile with (front row, from left to right) Nari Choi, Sungar Gurel and Yasemin Sert, three of the four College of Education recipients of a Certificate of Outstanding Academic Achievement from the UF International Center.
Four UF College of Education international students – Nari Choi, Sungur Gurel, Ahyea (Alice) Jo, and Yasemin Sert – were recently honored with a Certificate of Outstanding Academic Achievement by the university’s International Center.
The annual award recognizes international undergraduate and graduate students across the University of Florida who have achieved an exceptional record of academic work, scholarship and service to the UF community.
Choi (from South Korea) is a doctoral student studying special education. She is also a research assistant in the College of Education’s CEEDAR Center, a national center to improve teaching and leadership supporting students with disabilities. Choi’s scholarship focuses on cultural linguistic diversity and students with disabilities.
Gurel (Turkey) is pursuing a Ph.D. in research and evaluation methodology, in which he recently received his master’s degree. He is also pursuing a minor in statistics. Gurel has been involved as a researcher and paper author for a number of College of Education-based studies about how statistics are used in education.
Jo (South Korea) is a pursuing her doctorate in ESOL and bilingual education. Since 2008, she has been involved in a U.S. Department of Education-funded grant for which she has helped plan, develop and produce professional development videos. Jo has also contributed to conference presentations related to the research.
Sert (Turkey) is a doctoral student in mathematics education. She has taught pre-service teachers at the College of Education for five semesters, and has received consistently high rating each time. Sert is also participating in a research project on how technology can support algebra instruction.
PhD candidate in elite company after winning national honor for aiding exceptional children
Crystal Crowe Bishop, a University of Florida doctoral candidate in special education, joined some illustrious company with College of Education ties after receiving the 2013 J. David Sexton Doctoral Student Award from the Division for Early Childhood of the international Council for Exceptional Children.
Bishop joins a growing line of UF EduGators who have previously received the annual Sexton honor, which recognizes a doctoral student who has made significant contributions to young children with special needs and their families through research, higher education, publications, policy, and information dissemination. The award is named for J. David Sexton, who was a revered mentor and leader in the field of early intervention and early childhood special education.
Previous Sexton award recipients with links to UF’s nationally-ranked special education program include alumna Tara McLaughlin (honored in 2010), who now works as a senior lecturer at Massey University in New Zealand; alumnus Brian Boyd (2004), now on the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill faculty; and Patricia Snyder (1991), director of the Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies who holds the David Lawrence Jr. Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Studies. Snyder is Bishop’s doctoral adviser and also studied under Sexton while pursuing her own Ph.D. degree at the University of New Orleans.
The Council for Exceptional Children, which sponsors the award, is the world’s largest advocacy organization for students with disabilities.
“I first heard about this award when I was only a few months into my doctoral program, and I remember thinking ‘I hope I can be that kind of scholar someday,’” said Bishop, who hopes to find a post-doctoral research position after her graduation. “To receive the award is an affirmation of my commitment to this work, but it also motivates me to continue to make important contributions to the field.”
Working as a graduate research assistant at UF’s CEECS, Bishop’s focus is in improving instruction in early childhood settings, including strengthening the professional capacity of leadership personnel. Bishop is also investigating how early childhood policies are translated and enacted into practice.
She first became interested in helping children with disabilities as a youth worker in a group home for adolescents who had hearing impairments. Later, she became a teacher for infants and toddlers at an all-inclusive preschool, where she worked with children with special needs. One child’s parent, Barb Best, who nominated Bishop for the award, said Bishop was “more than ‘just a teacher’” to her students.
“Without a doubt, I would entrust her with my children’s lives,” Best wrote in her recommendation letter for Bishop.
Since then, Bishop has received her master’s degree in human development counseling from Vanderbilt University. Throughout her graduate studies, she has also been involved in several research projects funded by the Institute of Education Sciences. Further, Bishop has authored a number of academic articles, book chapters, and presentations related to her research interests.
Bishop’s commitment to serving young children through her research, policy work, and teaching experiences has left a lasting imprint. According to Snyder, her doctoral adviser, Bishop “exemplifies the essence” of the J. David Sexton Doctoral Student Award.
“Crystal embodies many of the scholarly and interpersonal characteristics that David possessed and that he valued in others,” Snyder said. “He would be proud that Crystal is a part of his extended ‘academic’ family.”
Bishop will receive the award Oct. 18 at the Division for Early Childhood’s annual international conference in San Francisco.
CONTACT:
WRITER: Alexa Lopez, news and communications office, UF College of Education; aklopez@coe.ufl.edu
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 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.
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
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.
WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137
UF education researchers recognized at state research conference
Several University of Florida education researchers were honored at this year’s Florida Educational Research Association annual meeting, hosted last month by the College of Education at UF’s Hilton Conference Center Hotel.
Walter Leite, an associate professor of research and evaluation methodology (REM), and his research assistant Francisco Jimenez, a Ph.D. student, received the conference’s Distinguished Paper Award. They were recognized for their paper evaluating the effects of the Teacher Leadership for School Improvement (TLSI) degree program offered for prekindergarten through 12th-grade teachers. The graduate program is a joint project of the college’s School of Teaching and Learning and the UF Lastinger Center for Learning.
Leite and Jimenez developed statistical models following 10 years of performance by 78 third- through fifth-grade teachers’ who are currently enrolled or graduated from the program. They compared the teachers’ effects on students they had taught prior to their TLSI coursework to their effects after joining the program.
The study revealed that the students exposed to these teachers had improved their FCAT math and reading scores, and reduced their school absences.
“The most important finding of our study is that the TLSI program, which is unique to the College of Education and the Lastinger Center, is positively affecting schools,” Leite said. “It also shows that the work done by the college and Lastinger Center matters.”
Koro-Ljungberg
Also recognized at the conference was professor Mirka Koro-Ljungberg, who received the Educational Researcher of the Year award for her contributions to educational research. Koro-Ljungberg is a professor in REM. In the past two years, she has authored or co-authored 11 peer-reviewed papers.
For Koro-Ljungberg, a qualitative researcher, the award came as a surprise because quantitative research is often seen as dominant, she said. Qualitative research is the practice of analyzing personal and narrative accounts, such as interviews, focus groups, observations, artifacts and oral histories. On the other hand, quantitative research often involves larger samples and relies on numbers and statistics.
“I hope this will motivate people to do more and present more qualitative research in the future,” she said.
Others honored at the meeting were UF doctoral students Kristi Cheyney (in special education), Nicole Jean-Paul (school psychology) and Jean Theurer (REM), who received awards for the best overall project posters.
For more information about the Florida Educational Research Association, visit feraonline.org.
CONTACTS:
SOURCE: Walter Leite, 352-273-4302, walter.leite@coe.ufl.edu
SOURCE: Mirka Koro-Ljungberg, 352-273-4304, koro-ljungberg@coe.ufl.edu
WRITER: Alexa Lopez, 352-273-4449, aklopez@coe.ufl.edu
MEDIA RELATIONS: Larry Lansford, 352-273-4137, llansford@coe.ufl.edu
GAINESVILLE SUN, INDEPENDENT FLORIDA ALLIGATOR: CEDAR Center
Gainesville Sun, Independent Florida Alligator, WUFT-FM Radio, Sunshine State News, Education Week, American Institutes for Research, SiloBreaker.com
10-1-12
CEDAR Center
The Gainesville Sun, along with the Independent Florida Alligator, WUFT-FM Radio, Sunshine State News, Education Week, American Institutes for Research, and SiloBreaker.com, reported that the University of Florida’s College of Education will receive $25 million over the next five years to improve the teaching of children with disabilities. This grant from the U.S. Department of Education will fund the opening of the new Collaboration for Educator Development and Accountability and Reform (CEDAR) Center slated for January 2013.
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
Award reflects McCray’s rise as top scholar in special education
A diverse and potent research agenda—focusing on (of course) diversity and equity along the teacher-education pipeline—has helped University of Florida special education instructor Erica McCray win a 2012 UF Excellence Award for Assistant Professors.
The awards, presented by the university’s Provost’s Office, recognize junior faculty for excellence in research. Each award is a onetime allocation of $5,000 in support of research that can be used to fund travel, equipment, books, graduate students and other research-related expenses.
Now in her fifth year as assistant professor at UF’s College of Education, McCray has quickly drawn national and international attention for her work. She recently received an Outstanding Author Contribution Award from the Emerald Literati Network for a book chapter resulting from her study of black women scholars teaching at predominately white colleges of education. Her research activities, also involving teacher quality and professional development and K-12 student experiences, have generated more than $4 million in collaborative, highly competitive grant support.
She also is a consultant on two training grants worth more than $2 million.
“My goal is to prepare pre-service teachers who are skilled and have a strong sense of self-efficacy to teach students with special needs, as well as students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds,” said McCray, who earned her doctorate in special education from the University of South Florida in 2006 and was a visiting instructor there for a year before joining the UF faculty in 2007.
At UF, McCray made an instant impact as a special education instructor and mentor, receiving the College of Education’s Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2009. She also served as a research associate with the UF-based National Center to Inform Policy and Practice in Special Education Professional Development (NCIPP). Her research is widely published in highly regarded journals including Teacher Education Quarterly and the Journal of Special Education Leadership.
Her intriguing assortment of research topics also includes studies on the experiences of students enrolled in magnet schools and on the perspectives of K-12 students on their literacy and technology experiences.
“Professor McCray established herself quickly as a talented instructor and she is moving rapidly toward becoming a national leader in her field,” said Jean Crockett, professor and director of the college’s School of Special Education, School Psychology and Early Childhood Studies.
CONTACTS
SOURCE: Erica McCray, UF assistant professor in 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
FLORIDA TODAY: James McLeskey
Florida Today (Cocoa)
7-6-12
James McLeskey (special education)
Florida Today daily newspaper for the Cocoa area quoted McLeskey in a story on the Florida Education Department’s inclusion of disabled students and English Language Learners in their statewide school assessment measure.
UF launches $1.5 million effort to restructure teacher-preparation programs
Aided by a $1.5-million federal grant, the University of Florida has announced plans to restructure the College of Education’s special education teacher-preparation program to meet increasingly higher national standards for new teachers.
Co-researchers McLeskey and Cox
Like many American education colleges, UF is revamping its teacher-education programs to include more practical teaching experience. UF special education professors James McLeskey and Penny Cox are leading the effort.
Politicians, federal education officials and policymakers are holding U.S. colleges of education accountable for teacher education—and ultimately for student learning—as never before. Many cite the need for more hands-on classroom and field experience in teacher preparation programs.
Students in UF’s unified elementary ProTeach program complete a five-year blend of coursework and hands-on teaching experiences, resulting in a master’s degree in elementary education and the option of dual certification in K-12 special education.
McLeskey said UF’s special education program, ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report’s annual survey of America’s Best Graduate Schools, already integrates its theoretical and real-world teaching experiences. Under the grant, though, the researchers are working to relate the two more closely by applying research on effective instructional practices with work being done in real-world classrooms.
The UF effort, funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs, is called Project RITE—short for Restructuring and Improving Teacher Education. McLeskey and Cox will collaborate with special education professionals across the nation to ensure UF’s ProTeach graduates will be well prepared to improve educational outcomes for students with disabilities.
The researchers will develop a statewide mentoring program that pairs each new special education graduate at UF with an experienced classroom teacher who will provide support and feedback in their first year of teaching. Mentor teachers will be selected in collaboration with local school district administrators for their knowledge of effective teaching methods, experience, and effectiveness in improving outcomes for students who struggle learning basic skills. The program emphasizes high-need schools to better prepare students for Florida’s diverse classrooms.
“Florida is a ‘majority minority’ now,” McLeskey said. “Wherever you go, you’re going to get students from different cultural backgrounds.” McLeskey is UF’s former chair of special education and also directs the college’s Center on Disability and Policy Practice.
“Increasingly, our student-teachers need to learn things in natural contexts, which means they need to spend more time in schools,” he said. “We’re moving teacher preparation much further in the direction of building everything into what they’re doing in the classroom.”
Cox said UF ProTeach students will begin to see the instructional changes next fall.
CONTACTS
SOURCES: James McLeskey, professor of special education, UF College Education; mcleskey@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4278
MEDIA RELATIONS: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; 352-273-4137; llansford@coe.ufl.edu
WRITER: Jessica Bradley, communications intern, UF College of Education.
’08 PhD graduate wins Initial Research Award
Todd Haydon, a 2008 UF doctoral graduate in special education, is one of two recipients of the second annual Ted Carr Initial Research Award, presented by the international Association for Positive Behavior Support.
Haydon is an assistant professor in the School of Education at the University of Cincinnati. His research involves examining classroom management strategies that modify classroom environments (general education and self-contained classrooms) in order to decrease problem behavior and increase academic outcomes for students with emotional behavioral disorders.
The Carr award is named after a founding member of APBS. Haydon will be honored in March, 2012, at the APBS 9th international conference.
COE student awarded Korean Honor Scholarship
Yujeong Park
Yujeong Park, a UF doctoral student in special education, is one of 25 Korean and Korean-American graduate students nationwide to receive the 2011 Korean Honor Scholarship for high academic achievement and noteworthy extracurricular activities.
The Republic of Korea government created the scholarship in 1981 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the opening of diplomacy between Korea and the United States, and to encourage outstanding Korean students to achieve their highest academic performance and develop leadership qualities for their future professional careers.
The scholarship committee awarded 105 scholarships this year and more than 2,400 over the past 28 years.
Park began her UF doctoral studies in special education two years ago. She also works as a research assistant for UF’s National Center to Inform Policy and Practice in Special Education Professional Development.
She presented a research report in April in New Orleans at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Her report explored the linkages between knowledge for teaching fluency, classroom practice and student achievement. She also is leading a study on the effects of the Head Start program for English language learners.
Park previously received the University of Florida’s 2010 International Outstanding Student Award.
Researchers awarded $5.5M in grants to help teachers reduce disruptive classroom behavior
University of Florida education researchers have received two federal grants totaling $5.5 million to conduct studies aimed at reducing significant behavior problems in children that can disrupt the classroom learning environment.
Their intervention research targets at-risk children during two of the most critical times of their development—before they enter kindergarten and the transitional middle school years (grades 6 through 8). The highly competitive grants were awarded by Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education.
Maureen Conroy
The prekindergarten study, funded by a $4 million grant, is a joint effort between special education and early-childhood specialists at UF and Virginia Commonwealth University. Co-researchers Maureen Conroy of UF and Kevin Sutherland of VCU will examine the efficacy of their experimental intervention—called BEST in CLASS—that showed high promise in a preliminary study.
The four-year investigation will involve 120 voluntary prekindergarten classrooms, most of them in Head Start programs, split between UF’s home region in North Central Florida and VCU’s hometown of Richmond, Va. Each year, 90 children identified as high-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders will undergo the intervention; a second group of 90 at-risk children will serve as a comparison group.
“As many as one-fourth of children in Head Start classes exhibit significant problem behaviors that place them at elevated risk for future development, and most have never been in structured classroom situations before,” Conroy said. “Through 14 weeks of classroom-based coaching, we will train teachers to implement effective instructional strategies for improving children’s emotional behavior competence.”
Conroy said the BEST in CLASS model emphasizes both individual and class-wide interventions to improve interactions between the teacher and students and enhance the overall classroom atmosphere for learning.
“Teachers discuss classroom rules and routines with students and praise specific positive behavior—for example, sitting and waiting their turn in a circle during a game or sharing time,” she said. “Such strategies aren’t necessarily new, but we show teachers how to use them more precisely and intensely for given situations.
“The teacher works to prevent any problem behaviors during typical classroom activities.”
The treatment also has a home-school component where teachers send home a daily “behavior report card” stating, in a positive manner, how their child behaved or which corrective behaviors they learned that day.
Stephen Smith
The second federal grant, worth $1.5 million, supports the work of University of Florida special education professors Stephen Smith and Ann Daunic, who are developing a lesson series teaching middle school students with significant behavior problems techniques to control their emotions and behavior in social situations.
“The middle school years are difficult enough for students in their pre-teen and early adolescent years. Those with serious emotional and behavioral disorders face tremendous obstacles to learning,” Smith said. “They require focused attention to help them develop the essential skills for modifying their behavior, and we need to catch them before they drop out of school or end up in the juvenile or adult justice systems.”
Smith and Daunic are developing a curriculum for teachers of children with emotional and behavioral disorders, and they’ve given it a name—In Control—that’s as much a mantra for the students as it is the title of their program. It’s actually a two-unit, 26-lesson curriculum that shows students how their minds work and how they can use that knowledge to take control over their own behavior and their learning process.
“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 as ‘executive functions’—are fundamental to helping students set personal goals, control their emotions and improve their social problem-solving abilities.”
Ann Daunic
Starting in August, the researchers will spend two years developing and testing the In Control lessons in collaboration with special education teachers, school counselors and school psychologists at two Gainesville schools—Lincoln and Fort Clarke middle schools. Participating students will be from small classrooms especially for students with emotional and behavioral disorders.
Smith and Daunic will continually refine and polish the curriculum and expand testing in the third year. If their curriculum effectively improves students’ behavior and learning, the researchers will publish their preliminary findings and develop a professional development package for additional large-scale testing.
“Up to 10 percent of middle school students have significant behavioral issues that merit some attention outside of what is normally provided in our education 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.”
CONTACTS
Source: Maureen Conroy, professor in special education and early childhood studies, UF College of Education, 352-273-4382; mconroy@coe.ufl.edu
Source: Stephen Smith, professor in special education, UF College of Education, 352-273-4263; swsmith@coe.ufl.edu
Source: Ann Daunic, associate scholar in special education, UF College of Education, 352-273-4270; adaunic@coe.ufl.edu
Writer: Larry Lansford, Office of News & Communications, UF College of Education,; 352-273-4137; llansford@coe.ufl.edu
