Please join the School of Education in congratulating its faculty, students, and SOE colleagues in affiliated centers on their achievements over August 2016.

The School of Education monthly achievements is a regular feature of the news section of the SOE website. To submit achievements, please email Jessica Henderson by the last day of the month. Please consider sharing recent awards or grants, publications, presentations, and collaborations across campus or in schools.

School of Education shares August 2016 achievements

Grants

Roberta Golinkoff and her colleagues in the Science of Learning Collaborative Network received a three-year $750,000 research grant from the National Science Foundation. This research will inform educational policy by developing novel methods and ways of thinking about education that foster immediate learning while also promoting engagement and enjoyment that can drive future learning.

Chrystalla Mouza has been awarded the following grants from the National Science Foundation with collaborators from the College of Arts and Sciences and the Center for Teaching and Assessment.

• A three-year $1 million grant for project titled “Leveraging Partner4CS to Build Sustainable Capacity for Teacher Preparation and Support.”
• A two-year $300,000 grant with Rosalie Rolon-Dow for project titled “WeC4Communities (We Compute for our Communities): Community-Focused Computing.”
• A two-year $300,000 grant for project titled “Infusing Computational Thinking into General Education.”

Rosalie Rolon-Dow, with J. Ewing Flynn from English Education and L. Worden from Early Childhood Education, received a Center for Teaching, Learning and Assessment (CTAL) Transformation Grant titled “Racial Literacy Moves: Professors’ Experiences Teaching about Race, Racism, and Education.” This grant will support an ongoing project focused on racial literacy which examines how to promote racial literacy and how to make pedagogical choices that help educators to address race in education across courses in three teacher education programs.

Publications

Nigel Caplan, a PhD in Education student and ELI faculty member, and his colleague Monica Farling have published “A dozen heads are better than one: Collaborative writing in genre-based pedagogy” in TESOL Journal.

Roberta Golinkoff and co-authors J. Zosh and K. Hirsh-Pasek have published “Guided play” in Encyclopedia of contemporary early childhood education (pp. 645-646), edited by D. L. Couchenour & K. Chrisman. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Eugene Matsutov and Elizabeth Soslau with PhD alumnus Mark Smith and Kathy von Duyke are awaiting the publication of their article “Dialogic education from and for authorial agency” in Dialogic Pedagogy: An international online journal.

Chrystalla Mouza and co-author B. Athreya are awaiting the publication of their book Thinking skills for the digital generation: The development of thinking and learning in the age of information from Springer Publications.

Chrystalla Mouza, in collaboration with Ratna Nandakumar, Rachel Karchmer-Klein and EdD student Sule Yilmaz-Ozden, is expecting the publication of “A longitudinal investigation of pre-service teachers’ development of technological pedagogical content knowledge in the context of teacher preparation” in Action in Teacher Education.

Frank Murray, professor emeritus, published “The Importance and Clarity of the New CAEP Principles and Standards” in Teacher Education & Practice, vol. 29 (1), 2016.

Presentations

Roberta Golinkoff was a panelist for the Unite for Sight webinar on Innovations in Education on August 17. An online version is now available.

Roberta Golinkoff attended the following interviews:

• Radio interview with Vicki Davis, the host of Every Classroom Matters about educational apps on August 17.
• Radio interview with Rae Pica on critical thinking on August 30.
• Radio interview with Benard Dreyer, President, American Academy of Pediatrics on August 31.
• Interview with Sylvia Barsotti from Highlights Magazine for their Annual State of the Kids Report on August 16.
• Interview with journalist Katherine Lewis.

Stephanie Kotch-Jester, Vicky Goettel, Nick Bell, Bridget Duda, Dede Lilly, and Elizabeth Soslau will present “Capturing Practice: Using Video to Parallel Conference with Teacher Candidates” at the Association of Teacher Educator’s Annual Conference in February, 2017.

Amanda Jansen has been invited to present as the Keynote Speaker at the National Innov8 Conference organized by the National Council of Teachers in Mathematics in November at St. Louis, MI.

Rosalie Rolon-Dow supervised Brahnam Menard and Season Cooper, McNair Center for the Study of Diversity Summer Research Scholars in the College of Arts and Sciences. The students conducted a research study over the summer and presented the research project titled “Tell It Like It Is: UD Storytelling Project on Race” at the Undergraduate Research and Service Celebratory Symposium on August 11.

Postdoctoral researcher Brian Verdine with Roberta Golinkoff and others have given the following the presentations:

• Verdine, B.N., Marzouk, M.A., Brezack, N.G., Tonob, D., Rosen, A.J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R.M. (2016, August). “Toying around with spatial learning: How toy design influences parent-child interactions around geometric shapes.” Spatial Cognition 2016, Philadelphia, PA.
• Verdine, B.N., Golinkoff, R.M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Newcombe, N.S. (2016, August). “Preschool spatial skills: Are they important for mathematics?” Spatial Cognition 2016, Philadelphia, PA.

Sharon Walpole and colleague M. McKenna were interviewed by EdWeek about their free, open-access, elementary ELA curriculum “Bookworms,” following reviews of the curriculum on EdReports.

Professional development

John Strong, a doctoral student, delivered a two-day professional development workshop to middle school English language arts teachers in Brandywine School District on August 24th and 25th based on strategies from Cracking the Common Core by Lewis, Walpole, and McKenna (2014).

Service

Gary Allison continues to serve as the faculty advisor for Autism Speaks U at UD, Best Buddies and the American Sign Language Club. All three student-run organizations have retained “Established Status” with the Registered Student Organizations (RSO) on campus and continue to support disability studies. The upper status with the RSO grants them special advantages and benefits.

Professional Development Center for Educators

Grants

Sharon Brittingham and Tammy Croce wrote and were awarded $100,000 to support the Laurel Middle School Priority Plan in which PDCE/DASL will be providing content & leadership professional development and coaching.

Publications

Marisa Hockman is awaiting the publication of an article with a Penn State colleague titled “Addressing the Needs of 21st Century Teachers Working with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners” in The CATESOL Journal.

Presentations

Kendra China and co-authors presented on “Towards A Model: Investigating Predictors of Online Reading Comprehension” at the 23rd Annual Conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading in Porto, Portugal.

Service

Faith Muirhead will serve as the Project Manager for the partnership between PDCE-DASL and Woodbridge Leadership Team to provide professional development and coaching to teachers and principals in all schools in the Woodbridge SD in ELA, Math, Social Studies and Math.

Fran O’Malley has been selected by The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) to serve as national advisor for its Social Studies Assessment, Curriculum and Instruction (SSACI) workgroup

Professional development and partnerships

Rhonda Banks

• Facilitated “Interactive and Innovative Chemistry: Higher Order Thinking and Next Generation Science Standards” professional development over two days to the state of Delaware’s Department of Services for Children, Youth, and Families’ (DSCYF) high school alchemy and chemistry teachers to help them better reach their students, while raising the science and instructional bars in their classrooms.
• Helped develop pre, during and post science lessons for Milford School District PreK – 5th grades that were Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) aligned to accompany Abbott’s Mill ecosystem field trips in July 2016.
• Created and delivered “Classroom Management and Positive Student Engagement” and “Writing Lesson Plans and Instructional Strategies” professional learnings to Jobs for Delaware Graduates’ (JDG) new teachers. These key professional development experience will count toward Delaware certification.

Gina Castelli provided Responsive Classroom training in Newark, NJ and Chicago, Illinois school districts.

Kendra China, Kim Wagner, and Anita Hart provided three days of professional development to teachers and principals in the Cecil County Public Schools to support the adoption and implementation of the Bookworms Reading Program.

Marisa Hockman

• Conducted professional development with district administrators from Milford School District focused on what teachers and administrators need to know about English Language Learners (ELLs).
• Selected along with Jimmy Wheatley to represent and provide input on behalf of the state of Delaware DOE in Denver, CO as part of a Smarter Balanced (SBAC) ELA Item Review Team.
• Selected along with Jimmy Wheatley as part of the team chosen to review and revise the 2016-2017 measure B mathematics and ELA assessments for the state of Delaware DOE.

Tracy Hudson developed three new district partnerships with Indian River School District, Positive Outcomes Charter School and Cape Henlopen School District to provide professional development and coaching in ELA, Science, Social Studies and Math.

Sharon Brittingham

• Provided professional development with Ed Burton and Tammy Croce for Principals on the Evaluation of Assistant Principals on the Delaware Performance Appraisal System for Administrators on behalf of DE DOE.
• Facilitated professional development with Tammy Croce on the Evaluation of Principals and District Office Administrators on the Delaware Performance Appraisal System for Administrators on behalf of the DE DOE.
• Along with Aleta Thompson and Kendra China attended three days of Learning Focused Schools training in Laurel, Delaware where they will be providing professional development coaching in ELA leadership support as part of the Laurel RFP for the Middle School Priority Plan.