Please join the School of Education in congratulating its faculty and students and SOE colleagues in affiliated centers on their achievements over the month of October 2015.

The School of Education monthly achievements is a regular feature of the news section of the SOE website. Please consider sharing recent awards or grants, publications, presentations, and collaborations across campus or in schools.

You may also read about these achievements in UDaily’s November 6 and November 13 “For the Record Column.”

School of Education shares October 2015 achievements

The School of Education launched its Twitter account (@UDSOE), which will be used to participate in conversations on effective teachers, inspiring leaders, and accomplishment researchers in education and human development. The SOE will also announce upcoming events, provide online resources, and share faculty and student news across the department and college. Follow us Wednesday, November 4 at 1:00 for live-tweeting during our third colloquium presentation with Paul Deane, principal research scientist at ETS.

Gary Allison, assistant professor of special education, gave a presentation on campus titled “Autism: What we know and what we do not” on October 26, 2015 and completed “Grand Rounds” at the Intensive Outpatient Program in Wilmington and Dover, operated by Child Mental Health. He approves results of all functional assessments and all proposed behavior intervention plans.

On October 1, Joan Buttram, director of the Delaware Education Research and Development Center and assistant professor of education, convened the 2015 annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Educational Research Association at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. About 45 educational researchers attended. It was her last duty as the president of the association.

On October 28, Dr. Buttram also gave a presentation titled “Program Evaluation: A Strategy for Program Development and Sustainability” at the Virden Center as part of the ILEAD Delaware fall workshop.

She also served as the guest editor for the summer 2015 issue of the International Journal of Educational Reform. She also wrote the introduction for the issue, “Introduction: National survey of U.S. doctoral educational leadership programs,” and co-authored an article with V. Doolittle titled “Redesign of Ed.D. and Ph.D. educational leadership programs.” Full citations follow below.

• Buttram, J.L. (2015). Introduction: National survey of U.S. doctoral educational leadership programs. International Journal of Educational Reform, 24(3), 208-211.
• Buttram, J. L. & Doolittle, V. (2015) Redesign of EdD and PhD educational leadership programs. International Journal of Educational Reform, 24(3), 282-309.

Zoubeida Dagher, professor of science education, gave a seminar and two teacher workshops supported by a Linking Science Educators Program grant sponsored by National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST). With colleagues Sibel Erduran (University of Limerick) and Ebru Kaya (Bogazici University), she gave a seminar titled “From Scientific Inquiry to Scientific Practices: Redefining Teaching and Learning of Science” at the Science & Mathematics Center at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Beirut, Lebanon on Thursday Oct. 29. The seminar was attended by colleagues and students from AUB and other higher education institutions.

With colleagues Erduran, Kaya, Saouma BouJaoude (AUB), Dr. Dagher also led two teacher workshops titled “Scientific Practices: Implications for the Science Classroom” at AUB on October 30 and 31. A total of 131 participants attended these workshop, including K-12 teachers, Ministry of Education and Higher Education staff, representatives from the Center for Educational Research and Development, and teacher educators.

Laura Eisenman, associate professor of education, and Beth Mineo, director of the Center for Disability Studies and associate professor of education, received a Winter Session 2016 Co-Curricular grant to support a Disability Cinema program, which will bring together students and community members to view and discuss four feature films or documentaries about disability experiences. The program will run concurrently with a new Disability & Film course (DIST 267). The goal is to raise awareness about different disability representations and their influences on the lives of people with disabilities, communities, and social institutions.

Laura Glass, interim director of the Delaware Center for Teacher Education and assistant professor of mathematics education, was selected to join the Delaware team in the Network to Transform Educator Preparation (NTEP). NTEP is part of the Council of Chief State State School Officers (CCSSO) and is a network of state teams working to implement policies and practices that can ensure educator preparation programs (EPPs) are preparing candidates to be ready on day one, teaching students to be college- and career-ready and life-long learners. The Delaware team will work with national collaborators, peer states, and key stakeholders to redesign state policies on licensure, program approval, and data collection, analysis and reporting.

Roberta Golinkoff gave a keynote presentation for the spatial preconference at the 2015 Cognitive Development Society conference in Columbus, Ohio. She presented an overview of how children learn about geometric forms and spatial assembly, based on a three-year longitudinal study funded by NIH and NSF.

Dr. Golinkoff also gave an address for a fundraising benefit for Action for Children in Ohio, a presentation titled “At the touch of a screen: A new test of early language development” to the Council of Chief State School Officers, and a keynote address for the launch of a new kindergarten initiative at the University of Stavanger in Norway.

She was an invited attendee at the Frontiers of Innovation Conference at Harvard University and an invited attendee to the University of Cambridge opening of the Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL). Established with 4 million pounds from the LEGO Foundation, this ground-breaking research institution aims to study play.

Dr. Golinkoff has also published “(Baby)Talk to Me: The Social Context of Infant-Directed Speech and Its Effects on Early Language Acquisition” in Current Directions in Psychological Science.

Dr. Golinkoff’s laboratory presented posters at the Cognitive Development Society conference in Columbus, OH. Kristina Strother-Garcia presented her study on preschooler’s knowledge of prefixes and suffixes. Haruka Konishi, recent Ph.D. graduate, presented results of her dissertation on the relationship between language and thought. Natalie Brezack, laboratory manager, presented two posters, one on statistical learning of dynamic action sequences and the other on the lab’s new computerized language assessment for children from 3 through 5 years of age.

UDaily published an article on learning sciences researcher Joseph Henderson’s recent trip to the White House. Dr. Henderson and his colleague David E. Long, assistant professor in the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University, were invited to attend in light of their work on climate change education.

Charles Hohensee, assistant professor of mathematics education, published “Preparing Elementary Pre-Service Teachers to Teach Early Algebra” in the Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education. doi: 10.1007/s10857-015-9324-9.

Charles Hohensee and Anne Morris, professor of mathematics education, also began a 5-year term as associate editors for the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education. Jinfa Cai, professor of mathematical sciences, serves as the executive editor.

James Hiebert, Robert J. Barkley professor of education, gave an invited address titled “The bleak history of American education reforms: How can we ensure good ideas reach students?” in the department of Mathematics at Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN.

As a part of the Delaware K-12 Mathematics Partnership, a collaboration between the Delaware Mathematics Coalition and the University of Delaware’s Professional Development Center for Educators, Amanda Jansen, associate professor of mathematics education, led two professional development evenings in Dover, DE, for the Delaware K-12 Mathematics Leadership Community. On September 22, she led a seminar titled “Participating in Classroom Discourse: The Voices of Students.” On October 15, she led a follow up seminar titled “Exploratory (Rough Draft) Talk.”

Nancy Jordan, professor of education, presented a research paper entitled “Early Number Sense Shapes Educational Outcomes” at the Biennial Meeting of the Cognitive Development Society in Columbus, OH, on October 9, 2015.

Marisa Kofke, Ph.D. student in education, received a one-year, $1,145 grant from UD’s Center for the Study of Diversity to study “Undergraduate Student Reflections of Disability: Implications for Postsecondary Pedagogy.” This month, UDaily published an article on her work.

Charles MacArthur, professor of education, published the second edition of the Handbook of Writing Research, co-edited by Steve Graham and Jill Fitzgerald. The second edition includes a chapter titled “Argumentative Writing” by Ralph Ferretti, director of the School of Education, and Yueyue Fan, Ph.D. student in education.

Kristen McKenney, Ph.D. student in education, received $500 of professional development funding from the UD graduate office to help support her travel to East Lansing, MI. She will present her research during at poster session at the annual conference of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education in early November. This funding is being matched by the School of Education for a combined travel grant of $1000.

Post-doctoral fellow in the School of Education, Ilyse Resnick, presented a poster entitled “Developmental Growth Trajectories in Understanding of Fraction Magnitude from Fourth through Sixth Grade at the Biennial Meeting of the Cognitive Development Society” in Columbus, OH, on October 10, 2015. Co-authors were recent Ph.D. graduate Nicole Hansen, Ph.D. student Jessica Carrique, and Nancy Jordan, professor of education.

The PennTESOL conference committee accepted the proposals of M.A. in TESL graduate students Jiaying Bi, Amy Braun, Ketong Chen, Jingjing Cheng, Kariann Flynn, Andrew Hassell, Connor Kelleher, Jiadou La, Annastasia Purinton, Andrew Saunders, Xiaowei Shi, Yicong Teng, Mengzue Yang, Wanhong Ye, and William Zimkouski. These students will present their work on November 7.

The College School

The College School began raising money on UD’s crowdfunding site to grow its new STEM initiative. Readers can learn more about the project and offer support here.

Professional Development Center for Educators

Sharon Brittingham, Professional Development Center for Educators (PDCE) associate, coordinated the second session of the Delaware Academy for School Leadership’s Executive Leadership Program on the topic of special education law.

Tammy Croce, PDCE associate, has been working with the principal and teachers at East Dover Elementary School to develop the Focus School Plan. This plan will outline the school improvement priorities for 2016-2017.

Alison Dubinski, PDCE associate, provided an orientation for principals from Delaware school districts who are serving as mentors in the new University of Delaware Principal Preparation Program.

Faith Muirhead, associate director of mathematics in PDCE and assistant professor of education, was invited to give a TED talk for TEDx Chemung River. The talk is titled “Should We Stop Trying So Hard to Teach?” In the talk, she examines what it means to teach and how in our efforts to teach, we often leave students behind. She provides examples from her own teaching, where she fell into the trap of trying too hard to teach, and presents a refreshing alternative. The talk will be presented on November 7, 2015 and available for viewing here shortly after the live taping.

Amy Trauth-Nare, associate director of science in PDCE and assistant professor in education, published “Re-envisioning scientific literacy as relational, participatory thinking and doing” an invited forum response for Cultural Studies in Science Education. doi:10.​1007/​s11422-015-9668-6.

Trauth-Nare also facilitated professional development at several schools. She facilitated the school-wide professional development, “Engineering is Elementary,” at Olive B. Loss Elementary School on October 9. More than 40 teachers and support staff participated. This professional development supports a school-wide STEM initiative and provides teachers with skills for implementing Next Generation Science Standards-aligned engineering design lessons into classroom instruction. With middle and high school teachers from Newark Charter School, and Colonial, Appoquinimink, and Christina school districts, she facilitated “Orthopaedics in Action,” which is designed to support teachers’ knowledge of biomedical engineering and provide them with an overview of six lessons that they can implement in their classrooms.

Kimberly Wagner, literacy specialist in PDCE, began new partnership with the Seaford School District in collaboration with Sharon Walpole, professor of education, to provide literacy instruction and coaching to teachers in 4 elementary schools. She also began a Guided Reading partnership with Eastside Charter and Family Foundations Academy and started a writing workshop partnership with Edison Charter School.

Jackie Wilson, interim director of PDCE and coordinator Ed.D program in the School of Education, has been asked to attend the Wallace Foundation convening of the Principal Pipeline Districts, a group of six urban schools districts. On November 9, she will talk about the approved Professional Standards for School Leaders. Districts engaged in this national work include Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC, Gwinnett, GA, Hillsborough, FL, New York City, NY, Prince Georges, MD, and Denver, CO.

PDCE development coaches, John Kreitzer, Sue Dutton, Connie Fisher, Gary Brittingham, Jim Hudson, Ed Burton, Deb Thompson, and LouAnn Miller are working with 55 principals from Delaware school districts and charter schools to assist principals with teacher goal-setting using the Delaware Performance Appraisal System. They have also been working closely with principals to provide support and assistance as they conduct pre-observations, lesson observations, and post-conferences to assure that they are providing actionable feedback to teachers and specialists. Sharon Brittingham provides leadership to the 8 coaches involved with the project.