The UF-led effort to help 20 states across the nation vastly improve teaching and school leadership for students with disabilities has received a $21 million boost to strengthen the program add more states.
UF education technology researcher Pavlo “Pasha” Antonenko adjusts his EEG headwear on a study subject.
UF education technology researcher Pavlo “Pasha” Antonenko has never been afraid to take risks and go against convention. His pioneering spirit emerged in the 1990s in his Ukraine homeland, where personal computers were scarce and there was no internet connection. Fast forward two decades, to today, and you’ll find him leading groundbreaking studies at the College of Education on a radical new approach for advancing and personalizing the still-fledgling field of online learning.
SETTING THE STAGE
Antonenko’s journey to UF started in the late 1990s when he was a high school teacher. He became fascinated with computers at a time when his hometown of Nizhyn, Ukraine had no internet connections and few computers. He began building and selling computers to supplement his income while he earned a master’s in linguistics in English and German languages.
“I was one of the first people in my hometown to get an internet connection, but it wasn’t very good. I started building websites even before I had internet, but they were just sitting on my computer,” he recalls.
His career path changed dramatically in 2002 when he traveled to Orlando to work as an interpreter at a conference on education technology, a discipline that wasn’t even recognized in Ukraine. But Antonenko had found his passion: exploring ways computer technology can improve education.
“Everything I heard there and the people I met, I said ‘wow, this is what I want to do as my graduate education and job,’” he says.
Within a few months, he and his wife, Yuliya, moved a half-world away to settle in Ames, Iowa, where he spent five years at Iowa State University earning a doctorate in curriculum and instructional technology and human-computer interaction.
Along the way, Antonenko worked with Iowa State neuroscientists on one of his personal research interests—the use of electroencephalography (EEG) to monitor brain activity known as “cognitive load,” which is the amount of mental effort expended by the working memory during a learning task. EEG, which records the brain’s electrical activity, is most commonly used in medicine as a first-line, non-invasive method of diagnosing stroke and other brain disorders.
It would have been intriguing to monitor Antonenko’s own brain activity as he thought to himself, “Hmmm, I wonder if EEG might be a reliable way to study the mental processes underlying learning.” He wrote his dissertation on the topic and became one of the first education researchers to use EEG to measure the cognitive dynamics of learning.
The stars begin to align
After earning his doctorate and serving five years on the education technology faculty at Oklahoma State University, Antonenko joined UF’s ed. tech faculty in 2012. His appointment coincided with the education world’s identification of personalizing online learning as a global challenge and a top research priority of the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation.
UF administrators also targeted research of personalized e-learning for investment of state “preeminent university” funds, which enabled the College of Education in 2014 to recruit top ed. tech scholar Carole Beal from Arizona State University, where she was conducting her own pioneering neuro-education studies. Beal became the first director of UF’s new campuswide Online Learning Institute.
The College of Education made a priority of integrating neuroscience with education research to improve online learning at all levels. Pivotal developments during the 2015-16 academic year made that push a certainty.
UF Education Technology Professor Kara Dawson
Merging Neuroscience and education research at UF
In 2015, Antonenko, Beal and UF education technology colleague Kara Dawson attracted vital grant funding to lead novel interdisciplinary research projects using wireless EEG brain monitoring and other neuro-technology to study how multimedia learning can be impoved for all students, not just those who test well on academic exams. These studies focus on education in the STEM disciplines—science, technology, engineering and math—areas in which the use of multimedia learning tools “has far outstripped the ability of research to keep pace with,” says Antonenko.
Their focus on custom-tailoring instructional design for individual learner differences, rather than a “one-size-fits-all” approach, is a distinctive feature of their studies.
“Virtually all research on multimedia learning methods has been performed on high-achieving students at elite research-intensive universities, where studies like this usually occur. We are evaluating these methods with more diverse student populations and those with special needs,” Antonenko says.
NSF study focuses on community college students
Antonenko heads a team of highly specialized researchers drawn from multiple institutions on a three-year study, supported by a $765,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The researchers are gauging how effective technology-assisted learning practices are for a diverse group of community college students, which now constitute nearly half of all U.S. higher education students.
The team, dubbed the Science of Learning Collaborative Network, includes top scholars in education technology, neuroscience, STEM education, neuropsychology, computer science and educational measurement. They hail from UF, the University of Massachusetts-Boston and Washington State University.
Some 120 students from three colleges—Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Bunker Hill Community College in Boston and SUNY Buffalo State in Buffalo, N.Y.—are participating in the study. The students are screened for demographics and learning differences, such as working memory and visual attention levels, to ensure a varied test group.
Team specialists in cognitive neuroscience are employing EEG and other high-tech methods, including functional near infrared spectroscopy (to measure neural changes in blood oxygenation) and eye tracking (to understand visual attention) to assess the students’ attention and mental processes while they learn using multimedia materials that include text, images, videos, animations and audio.
The researchers hope to land follow-up NSF grants by demonstrating the effectiveness of their network’s organization, infrastructure and integration of diverse research strategies, along with their unique approach to personalized learning.
“Working with scholars from other disciplines and other institutions is really exciting but it’s also challenging because each discipline and each person has a different way to work,” Antonenko says. “We have to make sure everyone is invested and feels valued and make sure we pull all of the expertise together in a way that makes sense.”
UF co-researchers are ed. tech faculty members Dawson and Beal, and psychology professor Andreas Keil. Co-principal investigators are computer science and STEM education scholars Matthew Schneps from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Marc Pomplun from the University of Massachusetts-Boston, and Richard Lamb of SUNY Buffalo State, who focuses on science education and measurement.
Adapting digital media for students with dyslexia
Professor Dawson heads an educational neuroscience study focused on multimedia learning for students with dyslexia, the most common language-based disability. People with dyslexia typically have difficulty reading and processing words.
Dawson was awarded $85,000 for the one-year project from UF’s Office of Research, which awards Research Opportunity Seed Fund grants to UF scholars for the merit and potential of their research proposals. Antonenko is a co-principal investigator.
The study involves 72 college students with dyslexia, each participating in one of four multimedia learning settings while wearing wireless EEG headsets to monitor and record brain activity during the multimedia exercise and comprehension assessment. The student volunteers are drawn from four institutions: Santa Fe Community College and the universities of Central Florida, North Florida and South Florida.
While neuroscience-based methods are central to the study, Dawson is quick to make one thing clear: “In no way am I a neuroscientist.”
“To me, this is not about neuroscience,” she says, “I am interested in what neuroscience techniques can tell us about the learning process. That is what it’s all about for me.”
Dawson and her team will use their findings to evaluate the validity of merging EEG and behavioral measures and, ultimately, to develop new instructional strategies and materials that teachers can personalize for individual students with varied learning traits and backgrounds.
Besides Dawon and Antonenko, the research team includes UF ed. tech colleagues Beal and Albert Ritzhaupt, dyslexia diagnostic specialist Linda Lombardino from UF’s special education program, and UF neuropsychologist Keil. Doctoral students participating are Kendra Saunders from school pyschology and Nihan Dogan, Jiahui Wang, Li Cheng, Wenjing Luo and Robert Davis from the School of Teaching and Learning. Matthew Schneps from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysicists also is collaborating.
“We all share this mutual goal of figuring out how technology can help all types of learners,” Dawson says. “We need to make technology work so everyone feels they can learn and be smart and successful.”
MUCH PROMISE BUT NOT YET READY FOR PRIME TIME
The researchers describe both educational neuroscience studies as exploratory, but Antonenko says he expects them to yield solid preliminary findings that may lead to follow-up NSF research proposals.
“EEG appears to be a great tool for educational research that can produce important implications for teaching and learning in education.” he says. “Our focus is on helping people who need additional support as they learn using 21st century online and multimedia tools in education.”
“That is what I find most rewarding.”
WRITER: Larry Lansford, communications director, UF College of Education; 352-273-4137; llansford@coe.ufl.edu
Nancy Dana has published 10 books on teacher inquiry and professional development.
The photocopied sign taped to a cabinet drawer in Professor Nancy Fichtman Dana’s office at the UF College of Education employs just one word to arrive at the heart of the matter: Inquiry.”
Dana is a leading international authority on teacher inquiry – a powerful form of educator professional development that’s helping teachers design and deliver engaging ways to help all students learn to their maximum potential.
“Teacher inquiry is systematic, intentional study by educators of their own practice,” Dana says. “So, rather than research being done to teachers or school leaders, practitioner inquiry empowers teachers and leaders to engage in action research on their own practice, wrapping their professional learning around the learning of students.”
Her influence in the research and growing practice of teacher inquiry is evident in UF’s modernized teacher preparation curriculum, and in the UF Lastinger Center for Learning’s extensive outreach professional learning initiatives and educator coaching programs, which so far have reached over 10,000 teachers. Dana has worked with numerous schools and districts across Florida, the United States and abroad to help them craft professional development programs of inquiry for their teachers, principals and district administrators.
She embraced the inquiry concept while collaborating with a group of teachers and their principal at a Tallahassee elementary school as part of her doctoral dissertation studies during the late 1980s.
“The practice of inquiry was a transformational and empowering experience for all of us at that elementary school,” she says. “Over and over again I’ve seen what an incredibly powerful form of professional development inquiry can be.”
Dana has studied and written about practitioner inquiry for over 20 years, publishing 10 books on the topic, including three best sellers. Her latest book—on Professional Learning Communities and titled, simply, “The PLC Book”—was published in November by Corwin Press.
Dana has turned globetrotter of late, leading educator workshops on teacher inquiry and professional learning communities in several countries.
Dana has been racking up the frequent flyer miles of late, traversing the nation and globe making keynote presentations and leading workshops for educators hungry for professional learning models that focus on examining evidence from practice. Over the past few years her work has taken her to China, South Korea, the Netherlands and Belgium. In January 2015 she led a weeklong course on inquiry in Lisbon, Portugal, for education leaders from nine countries in the European Union. Next October she is headed to Estonia.
Born and raised in New York, Dana has a doctorate in elementary education from the Florida State University College of Education, which recently honored Dana with its 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award. She also served on the Penn State University education faculty for 11 years. She arrived at UF in 2003, around the time the UF Lastinger Center for Learning was created as the College of Education’s innovation hub for education reform. Dana immediately identified with the center’s progressive philosophy and objectives and was instrumental in infusing inquiry into the center’s outreach professional development programs for practicing educators.
“I had always been passionate about raising teachers’ voices in educational reform and helping educators improve their practice, and the Lastinger Center was emerging as a place that kept practicing professionals’ voices at the core,” she says.
Lastinger director Don Pemberton describes the center’s emergence and Dana’s arrival at UF as “perfect timing.”
“Nancy’s work is particularly relevant because it takes research-based practices and translates them into helping educators improve the quality of their teaching through an accessible, scientific process,” Pemberton says. “That is a key distinction of practitioner inquiry and Nancy’s scholarship.”
Dana doesn’t focus singularly on inquiry, although her signature focal point seeps into her other interests. She and co-researchers Cynthia Griffin (UF special education) and Stephen Pape (Johns Hopkins mathematics education) secured a $1.5 million grant from the federal Institute of Education Sciences to develop and study an extensive online professional development program for third-through-fifth-grade general and special education teachers focused on the teaching of struggling math learners. Teachers’ engagement in inquiry was the program’s core feature.
She also is deeply involved in the college’s new, professional practice doctoral program in curriculum, teaching and teacher education. The Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) program is an online, on-the-job degree program designed specifically for practicing K-12 educators who aspire to lead change, school improvement and education reform efforts in their schools and districts. As you might expect, the program emphasizes evidence-based self-study and Dana designed a course specifically to introduce these students to the concept of inquiry.
When it comes to practitioner inquiry or “action research,” Dana and others at the College of Education know that they are onto something special – something that’s transforming teacher practice and boosting student achievement.
“Teacher inquiry is a very personal process,” Dana says. “Teachers are engaging in inquiry because they care really deeply about the learners in their classroom, and they desperately want to do anything they can to be successful in the teaching of all learners and to meet their varied needs.”
SOURCE: Nancy Dana, ndana@coe.ufl.edu
WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, News & Communications, UF College of Education, llansford@coe.ufl.edu
More than 70 well-wishers packed the Norman Hall Terrace Room recently to say farewell to Harry Daniels, a popular counselor education professor whose engaging nature is rivaled only by his soft demeanor.
Harry Daniels (center) enjoys a moment while being roasted during his retirement party held in the Terrace Room.
After devoting 49 years of his life to education – including 19 years as a teaching professor, department head and mentor to many doctoral students at the UF College of Education – Daniels is retiring.
“I’m humbled by the opportunity to work with students that look to me for guidance and direction, Daniels said before Thursday’s party, where he was lovingly “roasted” by several colleagues. “Some of them have been brilliant, but I’ve always believed that I’d know when it’s time to retire. Now that I’m 71 years old, that time is here.
“Counselor education is an intense profession, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” he added. “I’ve been blessed to be surrounded by great friends, a loving family and wonderful colleagues.”
Among those blessings is Paul Sindelar, who took a few jabs at Daniels’ golf game, recalling the different nicknames his longtime friend had earned during their Sunday outings at local courses.
“He was quite a slicer,” and more often than not, his ball would end up on the other side of a fence along the fairway,” Sindelar said as Daniels sat nearby, hiding his face in his hands. “We started calling him Chain Link.”
Daniels also bore the name “Hotel Harry Daniels” – a reference to the Doubletree Inn — after one of his shots ricocheted off two trees in a wooded area, where he apparently spent a great deal of time.
Aside from the ribbing, virtually everyone who spoke of Daniels described him as a man who has remained as dedicated to his family as he has his profession.
“Above all, he’s a devoted husband, a doting father and a completely enamored grandfather,” said Special Ed. Professor Holly Lane, referring to Diane, Daniels’ wife of 48 years; their two married daughters and a baby grandson.
After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Northern Iowa, Daniels received his Ph.D. in counselor education from the University of Iowa in 1978. He taught history and other subjects in public schools for several years, and came to UF in 1996 to head the Counselor Education department.
After 11 years in that capacity, Daniels returned to the classroom, but went on to serve as the director of the COE’s School of Human Development and Organizational Studies in Education.
During his tenure as chair, UF’s Counselor Ed. program ranked among the top five programs nationally in its specialty every year in the U.S. News and World Report’s ‘s annual survey of America’s Best Graduate Schools. The program held the top spot in the 1997 rankings, and continues to receive high rankings.
But there’s no way Daniels’ unassuming nature allows him to take credit for the program’s success.
“I came in here with a great group of colleagues,” he said. “It’s not about me, it’s about our program.”
Perhaps Counselor Ed. program director Ellen Amatea said it best in a written farewell message about the soft-spoken Daniels.
“Your good humor, patience and willingness to listen to us will be missed,” Amatea wrote. “Not only have you been a very inspiring and encouraging teacher and leader, you have been a staunch advocate for the counseling profession and for our counselor preparation program.
“Thank you for all you have contributed to our Counselor Education program,” she added. “We will miss you.”
Contacts
Liaison: Larry Lansford, director, College of Education Office of News and Communications; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; phone 352-273-4137.
Writer: Stephen Kindland, College of Education Office of News and Communications; skindland@coe.ufl.edu; phone 352-273-3449.
The Florida Education Foundation has awarded COE doctoral candidate Zachary Collier a McKnight Doctoral Fellowship based on his academic achievements and promising future.
COE doctoral candidate Zachary Collier
Collier is a member of the UF Algebra Nation team at the COE’s Lastinger Center for Learning, where he collaborates with Study Edge, an entrepreneurial technology firm, to provide online support for Florida students enrolled in Algebra I.
The McKnight fellowship addresses the under-representation of African American and Hispanic faculty at Florida colleges and universities by increasing the pool of minority Ph.D. candidates to teach at the college and university levels. Up to 50 fellowships are awarded statewide each year.
Collier said the fellowship validates his belief that hard work pays off, especially when you have passion for your chosen field.
“I leaped out of my chair when I read the news,” said Collier, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in research evaluation and methodology. “After I collected myself, I called my mother; we cried, we prayed.”
He said the fellowship – which carries monetary awards of up to $5,000 per year toward tuition (with the balance being waived) and an annual stipend of $12,000 – virtually guarantees that he will be able to complete his doctoral work sometime in 2017.
“It’s a blessing to me and my family,” Collier said. “And – lest we forget – I’ll be free of student loans.”
Sylvia Boynton, the Lastinger center’s innovation manager, says Collier has a “brilliant future” ahead of him.
“Zach has been helping our team understand the impact that Algebra Nation’s components have on teacher practice and student achievement,” Boynton said. “He’s dedicated to improving the teaching and learning of the most vulnerable students in Florida schools.”
Contacts
Liaison: Larry Lansford, director, College of Education Office of News and Communications; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; phone 352-273-4137.
Writer: Stephen Kindland, College of Education Office of News and Communications; skindland@coe.ufl.edu; phone 352-273-3449.
COE research and evaluation methodology professor David Miller made quite a statement on his way to winning a Doctoral Mentoring Award sponsored recently by the UF Graduate School.
David Miller helps celebrate the graduation of two of his mentees, Miao Gao (left) and Janna Underhill.
“The core of mentoring is based on long-term commitment to building a mutually beneficial relationship with students,” Miller wrote in a mentoring statement required by the selection committee. “The mentoring relationship evolves over time and becomes deeper through the shared experience of advancing the research and career goals of the mentee.”
Miller’s philosophy is based on an intellectual relationship he had with the late Dr. Leigh Burnstein, Miller’s adviser and mentor when Miller was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles more than three decades ago.
“That relationship had a profound affect on me,” said Miller, a COE faculty member since 1998 who next month replaces Harry Daniels as director of the college’s School of Human Development and Organizational Studies in Education.
“I’ve always enjoyed working with younger talent, and UF has a longstanding tradition for mentoring that hasn’t always been recognized through awards,” he added. “There’s also a strong mentoring ethic here in HDOSE, so I consider myself very fortunate.”
The annual award encourages and rewards excellence, innovation and effectiveness in mentoring doctoral and master of fine arts students through their final dissertation or thesis project. Each winner receives $3,000, with an additional $1,000 deposited into each recipient’s department account for use in supporting doctoral or master of fine arts students.
Miller was one of four UF faculty members to receive the 2014-2015 Doctoral Mentoring Award.
Contacts
Liaison: Larry Lansford, director, College of Education Office of News and Communications; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; phone 352-273-4137.
Writer: Stephen Kindland, College of Education Office of News and Communications; skindland@coe.ufl.edu; phone 352-273-3449.
Several of the 26 UF students who have received Florida Fund for Minority Teacher scholarships say they were impressed with this year’s FFMT-sponsored Teacher Recruitment and Professional Development Symposium.
Among the 26 UF students who attended the recently held Florida Fund for Minority Teachers symposium were Aida Valdes (from left), Alexis Potter, Jessica Vera Garcia, Samantha Cordero, Monique Levy and Suntrell Butler.
The 16th annual event, held on consecutive weekends at the University of Central Florida and Florida A&M and Florida Memorial universities, featured recruitment fairs that focused on placing minority teachers in classrooms throughout Florida’s 67 school districts.
Students said they left the symposium feeling confident about their ability to pursue teaching careers, including Aida Valdes, a junior in the UF ProTeach program who is majoring in elementary education.
“I got really energized after I went to a mock job interview breakout session,” Valdes said. “There were two people role playing as interviewers, and at first they asked some standard questions — but then the questions got tougher. I needed that perspective.”
FeIlow junior Jessica Vera Garcia, also a ProTeach elementary education major, said she left the symposium feeling confident that she is on the right career path.
“Overall, it was one of the best professional experiences I’ve ever had,” Garcia said. “The job recruiters told me I’m headed in the right direction.”
Since the Florida Legislature created FFMT in 1996, the program has disbursed more than $36 million in scholarships to minority education students at public and private colleges and universities throughout Florida. More than 3,500 recipients have gone on to teach in Florida’s public school classrooms.
FFMT is housed in the College of Education’s office for Recruitment, Retention and Multicultural Affairs, where Michael Bowie serves as the program’s executive director. COE Dean Glenn Good is chairman of the FFMT board of directors.
Bowie said the event has continued to grow in size and in importance to aspiring teachers.
“Our scholars are passionate about learning their craft,” Bowie said. “The scholars, the school districts, the institutions and our board members all welcome the symposiums each year.
The workshops supplement the incredible pedagogy being taught at the participating institutions, and many students left the events with contracts,” he added. “The school districts are always impressed with our scholars — their quality, qualifications and professionalism.”
More information about the FFMT and the scholarship program can be found online at www.ffmt.org.
Contacts
Source: Cheryl Williams, UF College of Education liaison; cwilliams@coe.ufl.edu; phone 352-273-4364.
Liaison: Larry Lansford, director, College of Education Office of News and Communications; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; phone 352-273-4137.
Writer: Stephen Kindland, College of Education Office of News and Communications; skindland@coe.ufl.edu; phone 352-273-3449.
David Miller doesn’t plan to make immediate changes when he takes over as director of the COE’s School of Human Development and Organizational Studies, but the longtime COE professor of research and evaluation methods has a few priorities he’d like to set.
David Miller
“HDOSE has some great people, so I’d really like to see us increase the quantity and quality of our research productivity and scholarship,” said Miller, who in late May will replace retiring counselor education Professor Harry Daniels, who has served as school director since May of 2012.
Miller also would like to take on the ambitious if not daunting task of adding faculty.
“The number of our tenured tracks has fallen the past few years, partly through attrition but mainly because of budget cuts,” he said. “We’ve been doing more with less, so it wouldn’t hurt to look for ways to add quality people.”
Quality is an operative word for Miller, who embraces the university’s Preeminence initiative and in 2011 began serving as director of UF’s Quality Enhancement Plan, a requirement for accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
As a QEP team member, Miller has been directing a campuswide initiative called “Learning Without Borders: Internationalizing the Gator Nation” that seeks to enhance the learning environment for undergraduate students by increasing awareness of the university’s global nature. The project calls for curricular enhancement, faculty training, a speaker program and a new international scholar program.
Miller looks to parlay that experience into his new role as director of HDOSE, which he describes as a “cohesive section of great faculty members” comprising several programs, including Counselor Education, Educational Leadership, Higher Education Administration, Student Personnel in Higher Education, Research and Evaluation Methodology and Educational Psychology.
“I see my position as being more administrative than academic,” Miller said. “I hope we can continue moving forward as a single unit.”
Miller also is director of the COE’s Collaborative Assessment and Program Evaluation Services (CAPE), which was established to support grant funding in the social sciences by providing expertise in evaluation, assessment and research design for scholars across the UF campus.
A UF education faculty member since 1998, he served for seven years as chairman of education psychology. His research interests include large-scale assessment and psychometrics (the science of measuring mental capacities and processes).
Miller has a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in educational research and evaluation, and a bachelor’s degree in math and psychology, all from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Contacts
Source: David Miller, dmiller@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4306
Writer: Stephen Kindland, College of Education Office of News and Communications; skindland@coe.ufl.edu; phone 352-273-3449.
Michael Hudson-Vassell always liked puzzles.
Last summer, the UF College of Education doctoral candidate was awarded the chance to work with the Florida Legislature to solve puzzles of public policy.
Hudson-Vassell was the only summer intern selected for the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, the evaluation arm of the Florida Legislature.
They apparently liked his work: He since has been hired as a legislative policy analyst in the office.
“Getting the position was a great feeling,” he said. “I knew the opportunity to get out into the real world and put into practice the things I learned in the classroom would be useful.”
Accepting a full-time job in Tallahassee has not hindered Hudson-Vassell’s doctorate process. The alumni fellow will earn his Ph.D. at UF in educational leadership, with a concentration in research and evaluation methodology, upon the completion of his dissertation.
Fortunately, he is not required to make the long trip to-and-from campus because he has completed all necessary coursework.
Hudson-Vassell said legislative interns gain experience working side by side with office staff members.
Throughout the summer, he performed document citing and analyzed educational programs and policies from all different angles, including legislative, procedural and financial.
Hudson-Vassell said he never realized the complexity behind the legislature system and the process of forming public policy.
“There’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes by folks who you never hear about, which makes it even more interesting that I’m one of those people,“ he said. Thanks to extensive statistical training at UF, he has no trouble understanding and speaking intelligently about statistical analysis.
“It’s a good feeling to know that essential parts of your job aren’t going over your head,” he said.
He attributes his success to his mentor, Linda Behar-Horenstein, a UF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, COE professor of educational administration and policy and an affiliate professor with the College of Dentistry.
“She’s been instrumental throughout this process, not only in helping me learn the research techniques but also in encouraging me to move forward,” he said.
In turn, he left a lasting impression on Behar-Horenstein as her research assistant. The two became close after collaborating on several projects and still work together, coordinating over the phone and computer.
“Michael is incredibly diligent, and you can count on him to handle detailed work well. Not only will he get it done, but he will get it done perfectly,” she said.
Hudson-Vassell received his bachelor’s degree in business administration in 2009 and his masters in educational leadership in 2011, both from UF.
At age 27, he is unsure of exactly where his career will take him; however, he is interested in developing public, specifically educational, policy. He said his experience with the Florida Legislature is already helping him to fulfill that goal.
“Right now the job is the perfect fit,” he said. “I am hoping the research I do there will help our legislative system work as well it possibly can.”
CONTACTS
SOURCE: Michael Hudson-Vassell, Legislative Policy Analyst; mike1987@ufl.edu
WRITER: Candice Wynter, communications intern, UF College of Education; cwynter@ufl.edu
MEDIA CONTACT: Larry Lansford, communications director, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137
Put simply, Kristen Apraiz – recently named the COE’s Undergraduate Teacher of the Year — makes lasting impressions in the classroom.
“After completing seven semesters at the University of Florida, [Dr. Apraiz] is one of the best professors I’ve ever had,” senior Paulette Santa-Parzons wrote in one of several nomination letters that helped determine the winner. “She practices what she teaches. The activities she presents in class are engaging, thought-provoking and applicable to our future classrooms.”
Apraiz, who taught for two years as a COE graduate student before earning her Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction last year, now serves as a clinical assistant professor and teaches mathematics education in the Unified Elementary ProTeach program.
Prior to that, the Cape Coral, Fla., native spent seven years teaching math at charter and public schools in Florida, and her athletic ability came in handy when she coached varsity swimming for four years at New Smyrna Beach High School.
Apraiz is now eligible for this year’s University Undergraduate Teacher of the Year Award, but that’s not something the married mother of a 14-month-old daughter has time to think about.
“I love my job already, so being recognized by my students is icing on the cake,” said Apraiz, who earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees at Florida State University. “As a teacher, you never know where you stand with your students, but those letters – they were so honest, so sincere. They just overwhelmed me.”
Apparently the feeling is mutual.
2015 Undergraduate Teacher of the Year Kristen Apraiz (lefrt) works with elementary ed. student Taylor Goyette on a lesson in teaching math in an inclusive elementary classroom.
“Dr. Apraiz was constantly offering us specific support and praise when we shared our thoughts or answers,” wrote Briana Shustari, who had Apraiz for two undergraduate ProTeach courses. “This showed us the importance of treating our future students with this same encouragement and kindness, [and] it motivated us to continue to put in our best effort and made us feel that our contributions were of value.”
Apraiz says it’s important that she knows who her students are, not just as education majors, but as young adults who have lives outside the classroom.
“It just seems natural to me,” said Apraiz, whose teaching origins go back to early childhood when she would teach her stuffed animals how to add and subtract. “I mean, we’re all going to be in the same room for a semester. Why wouldn’t I want to know who they are?”
No arguments there, either.
“She takes the time to ask us how we are doing in our other classes and within our practicum,” pre-service student Raina Weismantel wrote in her nomination. “Anyone who has had Dr. Apraiz for a professor knows that you are always welcome to visit her during her office hours for not only math help, but for emotional support as well.”
Put simply, it all adds up for a math education professor whose students make lasting impressions as well.
Arthur “Art” Sandeen’s 26 years as head of University of Florida student affairs and 14 years as a College of Education professor translate well into writing.
Sandeen recently published his eighth book, “Making Change Happen in Student Affairs,” to share valuable advice with university administrators all over the country. The 240-page book focuses on ways student affairs administrators can best cater to today’s generation of college students.
He co-wrote the book with Margaret Barr and George McClellan, the former heads of student affairs at Northwestern and Indiana University, respectively.
According to Sandeen, student affairs leaders must learn to adapt to changing environments and increased expectations from the public and their own institutions. One of the biggest issues lies in how university student affairs will adjust to the increase in residential and face-to-face campuses moving online.
His book advises student affairs leaders to strive for self-sufficiency, achieving initiatives through their own inventiveness rather than depending solely on their institutions for money and other resources.
Sandeen, served as vice president for student affairs at UF from 1973 to 1999, when he became a professor of higher education administration at the College of Education. He has “retired” three times but continues to teach part-time in the higher education administration program. He previously was dean of students at Iowa State University. In 2014, the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators honored Sandeen with its Distinguished Pillar Award for his longtime service to students and university communities. He also has published more than 50 journal articles and 21 book chapters.
Although not exclusively about the University of Florida, Sandeen said many of the ideas in his latest book were influenced by his work in UF student affairs and teaching at the College of Education.
“My experiences at this institution have shaped, and continue to shape, my idea of what student affairs should be now and in the future,” he said.
His latest book, published by Jossey Bass, is available online at google, amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and other online book retailers.
CONTACTS
SOURCE: Arthur Sandeen, Professor, UF College of Education; sandeen@ufl.edu
WRITER: Candice Wynter, communications intern, UF College of Education; cwynter@ufl.edu
Four College of Education alumni will offer career advice that extends well beyond teaching during the college’s annual Education Career Night set for April 8 at the Reitz Union Auditorium.
The event is scheduled for 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. and is open to all.
This year’s four-member panel will share wisdom they each have gathered along four distinctly different career paths. Panel members include Tina Calderone, school board member at Seminole County Public Schools, Jayne Ellspermann, principal of Ocala’s West Port High School, Steve Freedman, executive director of the Institute for Child Health Policy of the State University System of Florida, and Skip Marshall, vice president and CTO of Tribridge, a technology services firm.
Calderone, who received her Ed.D in educational leadership in 1999, was elected to the Seminole County School Board in 2010 and served as board chairman in 2011-2012. She has established a diverse and successful career that includes education, marketing, sales, public relations, fundraising and training. Previously, she worked as a college administrator at Stetson University and the University of Florida, and an adjunct instructor at both Seminole State College and the University of Central Florida.
Ellspermann received her M.Ed. in educational administration and supervision in 1983. Recently, the National Association of Secondary School Principals recognized her as Principal of the Year. During her 11 years as principal of West Port High, she changed the school’s entire philosophy by spearheading a college-going culture personalized for students. Under her leadership, course failure has nearly disappeared, the graduation rate has jumped 15 points and participation in activities has increased seven-fold to nearly 70 percent.
Freedman earned his BAE‘ 95 and MAE‘97 in education, and went on to receive his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1983. When he’s not working as an executive director, he doubles as a USF professor of pediatrics, political science and public health. Previously, he was a professor of child health policy at the University of Florida for over 20 years. His lifetime achievements warrant his distinction as one of a handful of non-physicians elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Marshall earned everything at UF from his BAE’ 95 in education to his MBA ’09 in business management at UF. He can be considered as the brains behind many online learning operations. He specializes in instructional design theory, integrative content design, learning program solutions and learning systems integration. He is a former faculty member at the University of South Florida and a teaching and technology fellow at the University of Florida.
Following the panel discussion, UF’s award-winning Career Resource Center is hosting “Careers in Education” Career Fair in the Reitz Union Ballroom from 5 to 7 p.m.
For more information, visit: https://education.ufl.edu/alumni/career-night/.
CONTACTS
SOURCE: Jodi Mount, Associate Director of Alumni Relations & Events, UF College of Education; jmount@coe.ufl.edu
WRITER: Candice Wynter, communications intern, UF College of Education; cwynter@ufl.edu
David Fields, a 2008 M.Ed. graduate in social studies education, has been named the Clay County (Fla.) School District’s Teacher of the Year.
Fields has been teaching advanced placement U.S. history and American government at Orange Park High School for the past seven years, and also designed a sports history course that requires students to research the history of a pro franchise or college team.
“I learned that being passionate about my profession helps to get students to buy into the subjects I teach,” Fields said. “Sometimes I think it’s crazy that I get paid to work every day and talk about subjects that I’m so interested in – whether it’s Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement or how instrumental he was in saving football from extinction in the early 1900s.
“The Secondary ProTeach program at UF gave me the tools to enter my classroom on Day 1 as a consummate professional,” he added. “I need to adapt to new technology and content so I can meet the needs of students in the 21st century.”
Students from Clay County (Fla.) Teacher of the year David Fields’ advanced placement U.S. History class show their support during a recent ceremony held at Orange Park High School.
Fields’ former social studies education professor, Elizabeth Washington, said she wasn’t surprised to learn of Fields’ selection as Teacher of the Year.
“Dave was very committed to making his lessons culturally relevant and engaging,” Washington said. “He was always
very passionate during classroom discussions — always willing to think through challenging issues and make thoughtful contributions.”
Fields, who also earned bachelor’s degrees in history and political science with a minor in secondary education at UF, will go on to compete to become Florida’s Teacher of the Year.
Clay Today, a weekly newspaper in Clay County, ran a recent article on his latest honor.
The partnership between P.K. Yonge DRS and the Nanjing Experimental International School continues to grow and touch the lives of an increasing number of faculty, students and families from both schools. NJEIS is a university-affiliated laboratory school in China much like PKY is the UF College of Education’s K-12 developmental research school.
Blue Wave and NJEIS students forge new friendships on the P.K. Yonge campus.
This year, 23 high school students and four chaperones from NJEIS visited P.K. Yonge for five days in late September. Visiting students were able to experience American family life by staying with PKY host families and participating in after-school activities, bowling, tubing, and trips to St. Augustine and the Florida Museum of Natural History. The Chinese high schoolers also participated in PKY music class with Melanie Harris, a PE class with Kelly Barrett and English language arts class with Cody Miller.
The relationship between the two schools originated from UF College of Education professor Danling Fu’s vision for a China-United State partnership focused on school-based connections.
P.K. Yonge students who visited China in 2013 and 2014 enjoyed seeing old friends and making new ones, and Blue Wave students planning to travel to China on a school-sponsored trip in March 2015 connected with friends they will see again in their home country.
“The experience serves as an excellent lesson in cultural and global awareness, as well as in empathy building.” said Julie Henderson, P.K. Yonge’s coordinator of international partnerships. “Previous Blue Wave student travelers to Nanjing recall their own struggles with feeling awkward and displaced in a foreign land and are able to be empathetic to their Chinese guests. For students planning to travel to China for the first time, they gain a glimpse of how they will feel when they make the return visit to NJEIS next spring.”
“After two visits on both sides on the partnership, the schools feel deeply connected and bonded, and look forward to a lasting partnership with lifelong impacts for students, faculty, and families,” Henderson said.
Pavlo “Pasha” Antonenko has received the College of Education’s 2014-15 College Research Incentive Fund (CRIF) grant which will help the education technology faculty member conduct cutting-edge research on the neurological dynamics of individuals during group problem-solving activities.
Pavlo “Pasha” Antonenko and doctoral student Jiahui Wang discuss Wang’s EEG data as it shows up on a computer screen.“Working with others to solve the complex challenges of our global society is an important 21 century skill,” Antonenko said. “Now we’ll be able to obtain important brain-based data on how individuals collaborate within a group, and how that can be applied to teaching techniques.”
“Working with others to solve the complex challenges of our global society is an important 21st century skill,” Antonenko said. “Now we’ll be able to obtain important brain-based data on how individuals collaborate within a group, and how that can be applied to teaching techniques.”
The COE gives its annual CRIF grant, worth $40,000, to education faculty members with promising and meaningful research projects that are likely to attract additional funding.
Antonenko, an associate professor, used part of his grant to buy the latest in wireless electroencephalogram (EEG) equipment that will allow him to measure brain-based factors involved in cognitive processing among student “teammates” solving a common problem.
“The fun part will come when they put on the EEG headgear and their brainwaves show up on the computer screen,” Ukraine-born Antonenko said with a laugh.
The EEG data, as well as behavioral measures of learning strategies and performance, will be analyzed to address whether neurodynamics — communication between different parts of the nervous system — align with behavioral measures of team problem-solving performance.
“We’ll also try to see whether it’s possible to devise such neurodynamic models to assess, predict, and improve performance in problem-solving teams,” Antonenko said.
Florida Times-Union
10-12-14
Project-based learning
The Florida Times-Union ran a story on project-based learning that was the result of a media source request triaged by the College of Education’s Office of News & Communications. The story is about the Foundation Academy and its project-based approach to education.
Anita Zucker, a passionate advocate of early childhood education, will provide a leadership gift of $5 million to bolster a comprehensive initiative at the University of Florida focused on optimizing early childhood development and learning experiences.
Anita Zucker (BAE ’72)
Zucker’s gift – the largest from an individual to the College of Education – will be combined with another $5 million in Preeminence faculty and program support from the university over the next several years. This $10 million investment will help further position UF as a national and world leader in understanding how young children develop and learn in the context of their families and communities and help create programs that enhance early supports and learning. UF’s Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies, housed in the College of Education, will be named for Zucker, a UF education alumna, in recognition of her generosity.
The new funding supports an interdisciplinary team of faculty, fellows, doctoral students, and local, state, national and international partners working to establish an innovative model in early learning. Studies show that nurturing and responsive interactions and quality early learning experiences during a child’s first five years can produce a lifetime of benefits.
Zucker, a former schoolteacher, has long been interested in early childhood. In 2011, she established a professorship in UF’s College of Education dedicated to early childhood. She also sponsored the Anita Zucker Alumni Challenge, in which she matched dollar-for-dollar gifts to UF’s College of Education.
“Education really is the key to unlocking doors for later learning and success in life,” said Zucker, CEO and chair of the Charleston, S.C.-based global manufacturing conglomerate The InterTech Group. “Transforming our children’s lives through education is so important in so many ways. The early childhood years are the most critical time for learning. That’s when they build a foundation that will play a major role in defining later success in learning and life.”
Improving early childhood studies is one of the university’s highest priorities, UF President Bernie Machen said. As part of UF’s Preeminence Plan, the university has invested in four faculty positions in the colleges of Education, Medicine and Public Health & Health Professions to support this interdisciplinary effort.
“Anita’s vision and leadership makes it possible for UF to transform America’s approach to early childhood studies,” Machen said. “Having Anita as a partner in this endeavor brings us that much closer to our goal of helping to ensure that every child has a chance to succeed.”
The newly named Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies is dedicated to advancing knowledge, policy and practices, with a focus on newborns to 5-year-olds and their families. Faculty and students from a number of UF colleges and departments are affiliated with the center, which collaborates with local, state, national and international partners to address family support, health, nutrition, mental health and early learning.
The Anita Zucker Center is one of a number of cutting-edge programs in the College of Education that are improving teaching and learning in Florida and across the nation.
“Early childhood education and research has been the big, missing piece in our education system. For UF’s College of Education to partner with others to address this critical need from an interdisciplinary perspective makes sense,” Dean Glenn Good said. “As Florida’s flagship university and a nationally preeminent institution, we have a responsibility to children everywhere to promote the very best learning opportunities for every stage of their lives.”
Zucker is a lifetime education advocate. She earned a bachelor’s degree in education at UF in 1972, received a master’s degree in educational administration and supervision at the University of North Florida and, for 11 years, taught English and social studies in elementary schools in Florida and South Carolina. In 2008, when her husband, Jerry, passed away, she succeeded him as CEO of the Hudson Bay Company and head of the InterTech Group. Jerry Zucker graduated from UF in 1972 as a triple major in math, chemistry and physics.
CONTACTS
SOURCE: Patricia Snyder, professor and David Lawrence Jr. Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Studies, and director, UF Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies; 352-273-4291; patriciasnyder@coe.ufl.edu
SOURCE: Maureen Conroy, professor and co-director, UF Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies; 352-273-4382; mconroy@coe.ufl.edu
The Gainesville Sun
10-6-14
Rose Pringle honored as top science teacher
The Gainesville Sun ran a brief in its business announcements section about COE science in education associate professor Rose Pringle being honored by the Southeastern Association of Science Teacher Education with the John Shrum Award for Excellence in the Education of Science, as well as the Mary L. Collins Teacher Educator of the Year Award from the Florida Association of Teacher Educators.
Natalie King (left) and Rose Pringle, King’s faculty adviser, work together on a science project.
The University of Florida Women’s Leadership Council has selected COE doctoral student Natalie King to receive this year’s Phyllis M. Meek Spirit of Susan B. Anthony Award, which recognizes a female student who promotes the rights and advancement of women at UF and beyond.
King’s COE curriculum adviser couldn’t be more proud of the former high school science teacher.
“Natalie’s amazing,” said Rose Pringle, associate professor in the COE’s School of Teaching and Learning. “She’s exceptionally motivated and she exemplifies everything the award stands for.”
The annual Spirit of Susan B. Anthony Award goes to a young woman at UF who best represents courage, confidence, leadership and dedication — qualities that defined Anthony, an early 1800s schoolteacher who later led the women’s suffrage movement. The award is given in honor of Phyllis Meek, a former UF associate dean for student services, assistant professor of education and former president of the Gainesville Commission on the Status of Women.
King, who gave birth to her second child just three days before the award was presented recently during a Women’s History Month awards reception at the UF President’s House, said she felt honored but took the recognition in stride.
“So many individuals have helped me throughout my life,” she said. “That’s why I make a point of serving my community; it’s my way of saying ‘thank you.”
King taught biology and chemistry for three years at Eastside High School in Gainesville before entering the COE’s Ph.D. program in 2012. She said she spent a great deal of time motivating some students and “just as much time keeping up with motivated students” in her International Baccalaureate classes.
King is on track to receive her doctorate in curriculum and instruction by August of 2016.
“That’s my drop-dead date,” she said with a laugh. “My husband and I have two boys now. I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
She previously received the 2013 Graduate Student Mentoring Award, given by UF’s I-Cubed program, for helping other students succeed in their undergraduate or graduate studies or in K-12 classrooms.
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
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
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, 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
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
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
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.
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:
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.
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.
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 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.
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
The UF College of Education has honored school psychology doctoral graduate Michael Sulkowski with its 2013 Outstanding Young Alumni Award.
Sulkowski, currently an assistant professor of school psychology at the University of Arizona, received his M.Ed. degree in 2007 and his Ph.D. diploma in 2011 from UF.
His rapid emergence as a high achiever and rising scholar became evident during his graduate coursework and has carried over into his professional life. While at UF, his dissertation research, investigating college students’ willingness to report threats of violence on campus, received wide coverage in the news media and scholarly publications and contributed to his receiving the College of Education’s 2011 outstanding graduate research award.
Sulkowski completed his predoctoral internship at Louisiana State and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of South Florida
At Arizona, he teaches classes on law and ethics in psychology, behavior modification and personality and social-emotional assessment.
His research focuses on how youth are affected by bullying, peer aggression and school violence. Corollary studies finds him exploring the role of bystanders on bullying and aggression. He also is interested in increasing schools’ mental health services and improving students’ emotional well-being through effective interventions.
His clinical specialties include assessing and treating childhood mood, anxiety, tic, obsessive-compulsive spectrum and disruptive behavior disorders.
The UF Alumni Association honored Sulkowski and other college Young Alumni Award winners April 6 at a ceremony on campus.
On a post-graduation trip to the Philippines in 2006, Leah Villanueva looked out across the South China Sea as the sun set and was struck by an overwhelming calling to be a teacher.
Villanueva, who identifies as “Filipina-Canadian-American,” had just graduated from the University of Florida’s College of Education with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education, but was heading to law school in the fall – or so she had planned.
Growing up in Florida, Villanueva was accustomed to seeing sunsets on the beach. But there was something about that particular Philippine sunset with its picturesque red-orange gradient that “spoke to me,” Villanueva said.
After that trip, Villanueva chose not to attend law school and instead began teaching kindergarten and reading in Kissimmee, Fla., where she stayed for three years.
“I was drawn to education because I really believe in the potential of people and helping people reach that potential,” Villanueva said. “I recognize how nurturing and guidance play a role in reaching that potential, and that’s what a teacher does.”
Villanueva, 28, has just finished her master’s degree in educational leadership at the College of Education. She also has served for the past year and half as the university’s first director of Asian Pacific Islander American Affairs (APIA).
This spring, she moved to the Philippines, becoming one of the first international fellows of the new Teach for the Philippines program, which is similar to the United States’ Teach for America program. Villanueva is one of 10 international fellows who are helping to build the new Teach for the Philippines program. In March, she began co-teaching at an elementary school in Manila, Philippines, as she simultaneously helps to shape the program’s policies.
“I love what I was doing at UF, but this opportunity in the Philippines is a perfect marriage of my passion for cultural identity and social justice and working with young kids,” Villanueva said. “Teach for the Philippines is an educational movement, but it’s also a reinstatement of pride for being Filipino.”
In Toronto, Canada, where she was born, Villanueva never felt like an outsider. But that changed when she moved to Florida during elementary school. There, a classmate slapped her because she was “different,” Villanueva said.
“If, throughout your education, your race or ethnic group is not even mentioned in the textbook or present in the teaching materials and you don’t see other students or teachers who can relate to you, it kind of erases your identity and minimizes your experience,” said Villanueva, who felt like she was “tokenized as the Asian kid” growing up.
Still, she also remembers the positive reaction she received after presenting a project about her Filipina heritage for class in the fourth grade.
“I remember being really scared I was going to be teased because I felt that being Filipina is really different,” Villanueva said. “But it was so affirming when my classmates were like, ‘This is so cool!’”
That feeling of acceptance and affirmation is what Villanueva promoted as UF’s APIA director since she arrived there in 2011.
Villanueva credits several College of Education courses for opening her eyes to diversity issues and how to create inclusive environments.
She may have the opportunity to train or mentor Teach for the Philippines participants while she is abroad. She said she intends to eventually become a teacher educator who “encourages her students to take a deep, introspective look at their own identities in order to understand the life experiences of their students and better serve them.”
“I love the classroom, I love the students and I think I’m a good teacher,” said Villanueva, who plans to pursue a Ph.D. “But for me to really chip away at the bigger problems I need to be able to influence and help guide those people who are going to be teaching.”
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
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
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
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
The UF College of Education’s online teacher education program has been ranked 16th in the nation—and sixth among public programs—by TheBestSchools.org, an independent online resource for people seeking college degree programs and higher-education institutions that best meet their needs.
The rankings, announced Thursday, June 21, by the Web-based group, are based on academic excellence (measured by faculty education and productivity), program depth (measured by number of courses available) and affordability.
The website’s listing of the top 25 ranked programs includes a five-paragraph summary of UF and the College’s “wide variety” of education degrees and certificate programs.
Dan McCoy, senior director of E-learning, technology and creative services for the College, attributed the high ranking to “the fact that we take the needs of our online students very seriously.”
We work hard to accommodate the busy lives of working educators in the structure of our programs while also providing an excellent education,” McCoy said. “Access to an online degree can better facilitate the immediate application of our best research by teachers and administrators to their workplace.”
The University of Florida’s overall distance education program ranked second nationally behind the Penn State University World Campus.
TheBestSchools.org provides information on a wide variety of career options and strategies and in-depth rankings of colleges and degree programs in many categories. It has no ties to any educational institution and, according to the website, the organization’s editors “all hold Ph.D. degrees and have extensive experience in teaching, research and publishing at the university level.”
CONTACTS
WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137
The 11-by-17-inch poster, taped to a women’s bathroom door in Norman Hall, offered a sad-but- true fact about sexual orientation and tolerance–or lack of same–in America’s public schools.
The bright orange-and-white poster’s message read: “Did you know. . .Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning youth hear anti-gay slurs on average once every 14 minutes at school?”
Members of the COE Faculty Policy Council's Diversity Committee display posters they developed for a collegewide diversity awareness campaign. Pictured, clockwise from left, are: Brianna Kennedy-Lewis, Bridgett Franks (chair), Maria Coady, Theresa Vernetson, Elayne Colon and Erica McCray. Not pictured are Shelley Warm and Michael Bowie. (Photo and story by Nicole La Hoz)
COE assistant professor Brianna Kennedy-Lewis, member of the college’s diversity committee, had hung the poster recently as part of a collegewide campaign, but found it in a hallway trash can the next day.
“I don’t know who took it down or why,” said Kennedy-Lewis, an instructor in curriculum, teaching and teacher education. “It justifies further that we need to be raising these issues.”
The poster is part of a diversity awareness campaign coordinated by the COE’s nine-member diversity committee, including eight faculty (chair Bridget Franks, Kennedy-Lewis, Maria Coady, Ana Puig, Erica McCray, Theresa Vernetson, Elayne Colon and Shelley Warm) and Michael Bowie, director of COE recruitment, retention and multicultural affairs.
The committee, charged by the College’s Faculty Policy Council, makes recommendations concerning diversity at the college and in the community.
Eight sets of six “Did you know…” posters have been placed throughout Norman Hall. Each poster targets an issue of inequity in public schools, such as access for students with disabilities or high-quality schooling for at-risk youth and minorities, and promotes projects of faculty committee members addressing those issues. Featured projects include Coady’s Project DELTA, a grant-funded study that looks at how well graduates of UF’s Elementary ProTeach program do at teaching English-language learners in Florida’s schools, and Franks’ collaboration with the Human Rights Council of North Central Florida on an anti-bullying initiative in Alachua County public schools.
The “Did you know…” project began last year when committee members discussed creating posters that detailed ongoing projects in the college. They then agreed to broaden the focus to include intersections between diversity-related programs at the college and concerns in public education.
The Diversity Committee first met as a task force in 2009, advising the college on creating a safe and accepting environment for all faculty, students and staff. Now, the committee hopes to gather other faculty members’ work—and even projects by graduate students—to include in the next academic year on a new set of posters.
“These issues of equity,” Kennedy-Lewis said, “are what we’re all about as a college of education.”
CONTACTS
SOURCE: Brianna Kennedy-Lewis, asst. professor, UF College of Education, 352-273-4041; email bkennedy@coe.ufl.edu
WRITER/PHOTOGRAPHER: Nicole La Hoz, communications intern, UF College of Education, 352-273-4449; nicdyelah@coe.ufl.edu
MEDIA RELATIONS: Larry Lansford, director, news & communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137; llansford@coe.ufl.edu
UF’s new Innovation Academy, one of the nation’s most forward-looking undergraduate enrollment programs, didn’t have to look far for its inaugural director—hiring Jeffrey Citty (EdD ’11), a recent doctoral graduate in higher education from UF’s College of Education.
Citty, whose appointment took effect in March, is responsible for overall administration and leadership of the academy, collaborating with an advisory board.
Instead of taking traditional fall and spring courses, between 400 and 500 students admitted to the Innovation Academy will be on campus during the spring and summer terms, leaving each fall semester free for online courses, studying abroad, internships, creative problem-solving, community service and unique employment opportunities. The first class of academy students will enroll for the spring 2013 semester.
“This is an exciting and unique opportunity for students who want a little more out of their undergraduate experience,” Citty said. “It targets entrepreneurial-minded students looking for a nontraditional college route. The IA model also increases access to UF by expanding capacity during the spring and summer when more space is available.”
Citty was the College of Engineering’s student affairs assistant director in 2011 and coordinated its academic support services from 2003-2011. He oversaw all aspects of the engineering freshman transition program, focusing on recruitment and retention. In 2009, he was recognized by the National Academic Advising Association with an award for Outstanding Advising.
Dale Campbell, professor and interim director at the College of Education’s School of Human Development and Organizational Studies in Education, called Citty “a passionate, student-centered adviser.”
“I have no doubt that he‘ll be very successful working with other units and colleges on campus to help the Innovation Academy grow and succeed,” Campbell said. “He’s highly prepared to provide leadership for the program.”
CONTACTS
WRITER: Nicole La Hoz, student intern, news & communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4449
MEDIA RELATIONS: Larry Lansford, director, news & communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137; llansford@coe.ufl.edu
GAINESVILLE, FL – More than 300 practicing and future teachers, teacher educators and educational administrators—mainly from North Florida’s I-10 corridor—converged on the University of Florida campus April 21 for the 2012 multi-regional conference and inquiry showcase of the Florida Association of Teacher Educators (FATE).
The conference theme was “Teacher Learning and Practice Across the I-10 Corridor,” with participating educators hailing from the western Florida Panhandle counties to Jacksonville on Florida’s east coast, and as far south as the Alachua County and Marion County school districts in northcentral Florida.
All conference sessions and activities will be in Gainesville at UF’s Norman Hall, home of UF’s College of Education, from 9:45 a.m. until 4 p.m. Norman Hall is located on the southeast corner of UF’s campus at 605 SW 13th Street.
Darby Delane
Conference sessions showcased successful applications of teacher inquiry—also called action research—with attending educators sharing their findings from classroom-oriented research projects conducted to improve their own teaching practices, with enhanced student learning as the metric for success.
“Inquiry, or action research, is gaining popularity as an effective strategy for job-embedded, teacher professional development and school improvement,” said Darby Delane, school-university partnerships coordinator at UF’s College of Education.
Darby and UF lecturer Shelley Warm, who coordinates the college’s SITE educational preparation institute, represented UF on the 2012 FATE conference planning committee.
Several North Florida school districts and teacher-education programs from UF, University of North Florida, Florida A&M, Tallahassee Community College and Daytona State College will be represented at the conference, along with several higher-education institutions and school districts from central Florida regions of FATE.
Pertinent session topics included:
— Preparing African-American, low-income and first-generation students for college achievement
— Social media as a learning tool
— Saving rural and inner-city schools through university-school partnerships
— Social studies: the disappearing subject
— Help stop the revolving door of science teachers
— Cultural competence: Essential skills for new teachers
— Professional Development Schools
A sampling of presentations by UF education faculty and students includes:
— The UF Literacy Initiative, a promising intervention model for preventing reading difficulties in young children
— How race and gender play a role in students’ classroom discipline
— How UF is shifting its elementary teacher preparation program to meet today’s education needs
— Behavior management without raising your voice
— Breaking the code: an approach to increasing math FCAT scores
CONTACTS
SOURCE: Darby Delane, university-school partnerships coordinator, UF College of Education, delane@coe.ufl.edu; (w) 352-273-4191
WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137
GAINESVILLE, Fla.—Cirecie West-Olatunji, an associate professor of counselor education at the University of Florida’s College of Education, has been elected president of the American Counseling Association, the nation’s largest counseling professional organization. She will serve one year as president-elect beginning July 1 and will start a one-year term as the group’s 62nd president on the same date next year.
West-Olatunji
West-Olatunji has held leadership positions at the branch, division and national levels of the ACA, which has more than 43,000 members. She currently serves on the association’s executive committee and on the governing council as a representative of the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development. She is a past president of the latter group.
She joins an impressive lineup of national leaders from UF’s counselor education program, spanning several decades. The program is ranked second nationally in its specialty area in the U.S. News & World Report’s survey of America’s Best Graduate Schools, and has consistently held a Top 5 national ranking since the mid-1990s.
“Dr. West-Olatunji continues the long-held tradition of UF counselor education faculty serving as national and international leaders of the profession,” said UF education dean Glenn Good, who also has a counseling background.
West-Olatunji said she expects the ACA to be dealing with several major emerging trends during her presidency—including the globalization of counseling and new counseling theories based on patients’ cultural backgrounds, learning how emotional responses to traumatic events (such as natural disasters) can contribute to psychological distress, and “a flurry of theories related to counseling young children age 5 and younger.”
“The next decade in counseling will be very exciting times in which counselors will need to be more responsive than ever,” she said.
West-Olatunji’s research specialty is in multicultural counseling and the role of cultural identity in the psychological, emotional and educational development of socially marginalized students. She has worked with local school communities to improve supportive parenting practices among students in low-income African-American families.
With an unusually high number of natural disasters occurring worldwide in recent years, she has been promoting the need to train more practitioners who can provide counseling for victims of disasters and their surviving family members and friends. She has taken graduate counseling students to New Orleans to assist in post-Katrina disaster recovery efforts. (She earned her master’s and doctorate degrees in counselor education from the University of New Orleans.)
She also has organized national teams of counseling students, faculty and practitioners to travel to South Africa and Botswana for community-based counseling of HIV and AIDS patients.
After visiting post-earthquake Haiti and other recent disaster sites, West-Olatunji has designed a new online certificate program in disaster counseling at UF for licensed mental health professionals and state-certified school counselors drawn to the field. She is developing a training model that can be used in places like New Orleans, Port Au Prince, Haiti, and Japan, and is planning a trip to Latin America for another outreach trip next year.
She has received numerous awards for research and service to the profession from groups such as the AMCD, Florida Counseling Association, Counselors for Social Justice, and the Association for Black Psychologists.
CONTACTS
SOURCE: Cerecie West-Olatunji, associate professor, UF College of Education; (w) 352-273-4324; cwestolatunji@coe.ufl.edu
WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news & communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137; llansford@coe.ufl.edu
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — UF Teach, a novel program considered to be the pillar of the UF College of Education’s science and math education reform strategy, will split $500,000 in support from AT&T with four other universities with similar programs, according to an announcement Jan. 19 by the National Math and Science Initiative.
From left: FSU President Eric Barron; Marshall Criser III, AT&T Florida President and UF trustee; Glenn Good, dean of the UF College of Education; and UF President Bernie Machen pose with oversized checks from AT&T.
The five benefiting programs, all modeled after the highly regarded UTeach program at the University of Texas at Austin, will each receive $100,000. AT&T presented awards to UF Teach and to model programs at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at Irvine, the University of Northern Arizona and Florida State University.
“AT&T deserves tremendous credit for its foresight in recognizing the growing importance of math and science education,” UF President Bernie Machen said. “If you want to get students interested in those fields, you have to reach them early. This gift is a long-range investment that will help the University of Florida graduate the teachers that are needed to keep our state and our nation economically competitive for years to come.”
UF Teach is a collaboration between the university’s College of Education and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the goal is to recruit the best math and science majors and prepare them to teach effectively. Master science and math teachers from the education college induct the students into the community of teachers by showing them the most effective, research-proven teaching methods in the given content areas and exposing them to supervised classroom experiences with schoolchildren beginning in their first semester.
The program, in its fourth year, offers education minors for their efforts in hopes the students will teach. Their degrees qualify them for teaching certification in Florida schools. Tom Dana, associate dean for academic affairs at the College of Education, co-directs UF Teach with Alan Dorsey, a physics professor and an associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
The first UF Teach class of 41 students enrolled in 2008, and enrollment jumped to 224 last spring. UF officials project that by 2015, UF Teach will graduate more than 60 students yearly who will be certified, and highly qualified, to teach middle and high school math and science in Florida schools. Dana said the number of math and science students in Florida served by UF Teach graduates should top 25,000 by 2015 and continue to grow exponentially each year.
NMSI has partnered with the UTeach Institute to implement the path-breaking program for recruiting and preparing math and science teachers in universities across the country since 2008 and is helping expand the program to 28 universities this fall. Enrollment in UTeach-modeled programs has tripled in the last three years, attracting more than 5,000 math and science majors across the country this fall.
“AT&T is acutely aware that our country needs more skilled workers in the critical fields of science, technology, engineering and math,” said Marshall Criser III, AT&T Florida president and UF trustee. “All Americans will need to be more STEM proficient to be competitive in the 21st century.”
UTeach originated at The University of Texas at Austin in 1997. The program enables students majoring in math, science, or computer science to receive full teaching certification without adding time or cost to their degrees.
The core elements of UTeach model programs include:
The National Math and Science Initiative was launched in 2007 by top leaders in business, education, and science to reverse the decline in American math and science education. Inaugural funding was provided by the Exxon Mobil Corporation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.
CONTACT: Larry Lansford, director, news & communications, UF College of Education, 352-273-4137; llansford@coe.ufl.edu
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida education researchers will lead a $5 million effort, funded by the National Science Foundation, to transform how science is taught in Florida’s middle schools, with high-need schools in 20 mostly rural school districts serving as the testing grounds.
The researchers are chasing an ambitious goal — to close the gap in science learning between U.S. students and their peers in higher performing nations. Scores from a 2010 Program for International Student Assessment report showed the U.S. ranked 17th out of 34 industrialized countries in science scores among 15-year-old students.
Lynda Hayes
“We want to shift middle school science teaching to a goals-driven approach with learning experiences that excite and engage all students. This will increase their chances of success as students transition from middle school to more advanced high school science courses,” said Lynda Hayes, an affiliate faculty member at UF’s College of Education and director of P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School, the college’s K-12 laboratory school.
“To catch up with our peers in other nations, we need to increase the size and diversity of our pipelines in science and math after high school graduation,” added Hayes. “We must ensure that disadvantaged students in small, rural and high-poverty schools are afforded equal opportunity to succeed in a cutting-edge science curriculum before they reach high school.”
Hayes is principal investigator of the five-year NSF project. Her UF co-investigators are science education professor Rose Pringle and Mary Jo Koroly, professor and director of biochemistry and molecular biology. Suzette Pelton, STEM coordinator of the Levy County School District, a project core partner, is also a co-principal investigator. STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Recruiting and retaining more highly qualified middle and high school science teachers is a critical workforce need. The NSF project’s reform strategy calls for boosting student achievement by improving science content knowledge and professional development among practicing middle-school teachers.
The researchers are banking on an award-winning, on-the-job graduate degree program developed at UF called Teacher Leadership and School Improvement, with a focus on science education, to train “Science Teacher Leaders” in new, research-proven practices in science instruction. The TLSI program won the Association of Teacher Education’s coveted 2011 Distinguished Program in Teacher Education Award.
TLSI blends 36 credit-hours of online and face-to-face instruction by UF professors. The program is free for participating teachers with the NSF grant covering their tuition, valued at $21,000 each. Another novel aspect of the coursework is its “inquiry-based” approach, in which the teacher-students collaboratively assess their own teaching practices and share new knowledge with each other.
UF’s College of Education will enroll one teacher from each partnering school district in the degree program, which upon graduation will qualify them as district Science Teacher Leaders.
“In exchange for free tuition, the Science Teacher Leaders must remain at their high-needs schools for five years, including their two-year coursework,” Hayes said. “This will help our most challenging middle schools support and retain some of their best science teachers.”
Rose Pringle...co-PI
Armed with new science knowledge and a research-proven curriculum, the highly-trained Science Teacher Leaders will form and lead “professional learning communities” of their peers—each leader training 10 teachers at their own schools and neighboring middle schools to continuously study science teaching practices and student learning. Their students, in sixth through eighth grade, will be taught the same inquiry-based science practices and critical-thinking methods that the teacher leaders learned in their own coursework.
“Our Science Teacher Leadership Institute will allow 40 middle school science teachers in 20 school districts to earn their master’s degree in science education in two years and coach 400 middle school science teachers in their home districts,” said co-investigator Pringle, the UF science education professor. “The Science Teacher Leaders will work as change agents to lead district-wide transformation in middle school science teaching and learning. Nearly 60,000 middle school students will be impacted, primarily in high-poverty rural and urban areas.”
Participating school districts will come from the Northeast Florida Educational Consortium — a support organization for 15 districts spanning from the Gulf coast to the Atlantic coast in north and central Florida. Five other counties also have committed: Columbia, Dixie, Hamilton, Union and Suwannee.
P.K. Yonge science teacher Mayra Cordero, pictured, will host a demonstration class for Science Teacher Leader trainees.
Under Hayes’ guidance, UF’s P.K. Yonge laboratory school began testing the experimental curriculum last year and is working with Joseph Krajcik, a leading authority on science curriculum development from Michigan State University, to align the curriculum with Florida’s rigorous new science standards. P.K. Yonge’s middle school science program will host demonstration classrooms to help train the Science Teacher Leaders.
Researchers will compare the impact of the new teaching approaches with conventional practices and disseminate their findings nationwide to drive science education reform in middle schools around the state and nation.
Other UF units contributing to course design, training, implementation and project evaluation include the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Center for Precollegiate Education and Training, the Division of Continuing Education and the CAPES (Collaborative Assessment and Program Evaluation Services) program, headed by professor David Miller in the College of Education.
CONTACTS
SOURCE: Lynda Hayes, university school professor at UF’s College of Education and director of P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School (UF’s K-12 laboratory school), lhayes@pky.ufl.edu; 352-392-1554, ext. 223
SOURCE: Rose Pringle, associate professor, science education, UF’s College of Education; rpringle@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4190
WRITER: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137
