The National Science Foundation recently awarded a $500,000 grant to Associate Professor Gillian Roehrig and Lecturer Terry Wyberg, both in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, for a teacher preparation project.
Continue reading "Roehrig and Wyberg receive $500K grant for teacher prep" »
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Professor Richard Beach (Department of Curriculum and Instruction) was recently appointed to serve as a member of the Commission on Media for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).
Continue reading "Beach appointed to NCTE media commission" »
Postdoctoral associate Christine Greenhow (Curriculum and Instruction) has received the University's Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar Award. The award recognizes extraordinary performance and achievement of postdoctoral scholars at the University of Minnesota. Each recipient will receive an honorarium of $1,000 and will be recognized at the annual Postdoctoral Reception in fall 2008.
Congratulations, Chris!
The Office of University Relations has selected Assistant Professor Aaron Doering (Curriculum and Instruction) and his adventure learning/GoNorth! research for its next round of Driven to Discover television ads. He is one of only four faculty selected from across the entire University this year.
Aaron follows in the glamorous footsteps of Professor Nicki Crick (Institute of Child Development), whose research on relational aggression was featured in last year's TV ads.
Look for Aaron's commercial to start airing in October.
Congratulations to the entire GoNorth! team.
On June 30, Trond Febolden, Permanent Secretary of Norway's Ministry of Education and Linda Pederson, Vice Council for the Norwegian Consulate in Minneapolis, visited CEHD. Febolden is responsible for writing the white paper that will guide the reform of teacher education in Norway. During his visit, Febolden met with Carole Gupton and Bob Utke from the Preparation to Practice Group and Ruth Thomas, Tom Post, Aaron Doering, Terry Wyberg, Misty Sato, and Dee Tedick, all from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
During this official visit, the Norwegian delegation will also visit Hamline University, Augsburg College, and the Minnesota Department of Education. At the close of the visit, Febolden expressed interest in establishing formal collaborations between the Norwegian Ministry of Education and CEHD.
A recent study by postdoctoral associate Christine Greenhow (Curriculum and Instruction) on the educational benefits of social networking sites has been garnering media attention from around the world. Below are several multimedia pieces on the study, as well as links to articles.
Download a fully produced podcast on the study.
Digital divide? What digital divide?
THE Journal (Calif.) June 2008
New research reveals educational benefits of social networking web sites
TMCnet.com (Conn.) June 20, 2008
MySpace, Facebook & Orkut's educational side revealed
Economic Times (India) June 21, 2008
KSTP 5 Eyewitness News AM
KSTP (Minn.) June 21, 2008
Social studies
Erie Times-News (Pa.) June 22, 2008
Social networking sites provide educational benefits to students - study
Telecom Paper (The Netherlands) June 23, 2008
Even poor kids are social network savvy
Scientific American (N.Y.) June 26, 2008
Earlier this year, one of FOX 9's Top Teacher awards was given to Donna Butterfield, a family and consumer sciences teacher at Richfield Middle School here in Minnesota. Donna is a CEHD alum, with an M.Ed. in family education. She has also served as a cooperating teacher for the family and consumer sciences program. Vist MyFox Twin Cities to see Donna accept the award or to read her nomination letter.
Congratulations, Donna!
Professors David O'Brien and Deborah Dillon (Curriculum and Instruction) presented the results of their two-year evaluation of Hennepin County Library's Guys Read book discussion program in March. Their audience was more than 100 librarians from all parts of the country attending the national conference of the Public Library Association (PLA), a division of the American Library Association.
In her letter of thanks, Gretchen Wronka, Youth Services and Outreach Coordinator at the Hennepin County Library wrote: “Drs. O'Brien and Dillon's Guys Read research is ground-breaking. No other public library in the country has engaged in this kind of academic, neutral evaluation of a children's book discussion program."
Several C&I graduate students are also part of this project: Cassie Scharber, Brad Biggs, Kristen Nichols-Besel, and Beth Brendler.
Professor Deborah Dillon (Curriculum and Instruction) offers advice to adults on encouraging their children to read.
"A Place of Our Own"
PBS (Va.) June 17, 2008
In April postdoctoral associate Christine Greenhow (Curriculum and Instruction) organized and hosted a guest lecture by Eszter Hargittai of Northwestern University titled “The Digital Production of Inequality." The lecture was co-sponsored by the University's Social Networks Research Collaborative and the Institute for Advanced Study.
Master's student Peter DeLong (Social Work) and doctoral student Judi Petkau (Curriculum & Instruction) are both mentioned in a recent article on the Southeast Como neighborhood's community garden.
Community gardening season gets started in southeast Como
Minnesota Daily (Minn.) June 11, 2008
Alumna Sarah Clyne (M.Ed., second languages and cultures) has been named principal of Washington Elementary School in the Champaign, Illinois school district.
Champaign hires 3 principals for fall
News-Gazette (Ill.) June 5, 2008
Lecturer Rob Shumer (WHRE, C&I) has been named a John Glenn Scholar in Service-Learning . The award, which was given by the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University, honors individuals who have made significant contributions to advancing service-learning scholarship, particularly in the K-12 context. In particular, the award honors Rob's 2006 publication, The Wisdom of Delphi: An investigation of the most influential studies in K-12 service-learning research in the past 25 years.
Congratulations, Rob!
Professor Thom Swiss (Curriculum and Instruction) comments in an article on the Minnesota Science Museum's new Star Wars exhibit.
'Star Wars' exhibit comes to Science Museum, but is it science?
MinnPost (Minn.) May 23, 2008
George Veletsianos (Ph.D. candidate, learning technologies), Cassie Scharber (Ph.D. candidate, learning technologies and literacy), and Assistant Professor Aaron Doering, have contributed a paper titled "When Sex, Drugs, and Violence Enter the Classroom: Conversations between Adolescent Social Studies Students and a Female Pedagogical Agent" for the latest issue of Interacting with Computers.
The paper investigates the discourse between a female conversational pedagogical agent and 59 adolescents in the context of a social studies lesson. A close look at learner–agent discourse revealed that learners readily misuse and abuse virtual characters while treating them as subordinate and inferior objects.
Veletsianos, G., Scharber, C., & Doering, A. (2008). When sex, drugs, and violence enter the classroom: Conversations between adolescent social studies students and a female pedagogical agent. Interacting with Computers, 20(3), 292-301.
Assistant Professor Mistilina Sato, Assistant Professor Benjamin Jacobs, and Professor Patricia Avery published “Preparing Minnesota Teachers for Diverse Contexts." [PDF] in the Spring 2008 issue of CURA Reporter. The article summarizes initial findings from an ongoing study being conducted by the Minnesota Teacher Education Research Consortium (MNTERC)—a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minnesota State University-Mankato, and the College of St. Catherine—on how teacher preparation experiences contribute to the instructional practices of teachers in Minnesota’s increasingly diverse schools. The first phase of the project was supported by a Faculty Interactive Research Program grant from the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs here at the University. Other members of the research team include Mary Bents (UMN), Linda Distad (St. Kate’s), Jane Gilles (UMN), Taeho Jung (UMN), Daria Paul Dona (MSU-Mankato), Maia Sheppard (UMN), and Ken Vos (St. Kate’s).
Assistant Professor Bic Ngo (Curriculum and Instruction) has been named one of the University’s Interdisciplinary Graduate Faculty Teaching Fellows for 2008-10. Interdisciplinary Graduate Faculty Teaching Fellowships are intended to foster and support best practices in interdisciplinary graduate research, teaching, and writing at the University. Faculty fellows engage with each other as members of a mutual interdisciplinary intellectual community while simultaneously working to develop and teach new interdisciplinary graduate dissertation seminars. The seminars seek to exemplify best practices in interdisciplinary graduate education and to serve as institutional models for interdisciplinary pedagogy and dissertation writing support.
On April 12 postdoctoral associate Christine Greenhow (Curriculum and Instruction) was interviewed on WCCO Radio on the topic "Social Network Sites like MySpace and Facebook among Teens." Download the interview. [.mp3]
Assistant Professor Misty Sato (Curriculum and Instruction) recently received a Young Scholars Research Fellowship from the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation. One of only four awarded nationally, the award provides support for the recipient’s research over a two-year period.
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Teaching Specialist Peggy DeLapp (Curriculum and Instruction) was recently awarded one of only 15 prestigious State’s Impact on Federal Education Policy (SIFEPP) Conference Fellow Awards. This honor is for doctoral candidates, advanced degree recipients, and persons engaged in early career research, and recipients will participate in the SIFEPP conference, which takes place at the Holiday Inn Capitol in Washington, D.C. on May 8 and 9, 2008.
The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) College of Education is establishing the Dr. Barbara Swaby Endowed Professorship to honor CEHD alum Barbara Swaby (M.A., '73, elementary education; Ph.D., '77, education). A $500,000 community fundraising effort is under way to create the endowed chair. This is the first endowed professorship for the UCCS College of Education.
Creating readers, one child at a time
Gazette (Colo.) April 6, 2008
Graduate student Rachel Pike (elementary education) answered the Daily's question of the week in Friday's issue. Read Rachel's response on page 2.
Question of the week: What are you doing over spring break?
Minnesota Daily (Minn.) March 14, 2008
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Professor Barbara Taylor (Curriculum and Instruction), director of the Minnesota Center for Reading Research, comments on recent cuts to the federally-funded Reading First program.
Popular Minnesota reading program may fall victim to Washington politics
Minnesota Public Radio (Minn.) March 14, 2008
News about the latest GoNorth! expedition to Fennoscandia is popping up all over:
GoNorth! Team Prepares for Fennoscandian Expedition
KARE-11 (Minn.) Feb. 21, 2008
GoNorth! team prepares to take off
KARE-11 (Minn.) Feb. 28, 2008
K-12ers watch Arctic explorers 'GoNorth'
Minnesota Daily (Minn.) March 12, 2008
Assistant Professor Aaron Doering is the Education Director of GoNorth!
Doctoral student Brock Dubbels (Curriculum and Instruction) recently had a book chapter accepted for publication:
Dubbels, B.R. (in press) Video games, reading, and transmedial comprehension. In R. E. Ferdig (Ed.), Handbook of research on effective electronic gaming in education. Information Science Reference.
Dubbels was also quoted in an article on classroom blogging practices:
Web 2.0: 5 don't s of classroom blogging pages
Technology Horizons in Education (THE) Journal (Calif.) Feb. 2008
Congratulations Brock!
“Immigrant Families and U.S. Schools" is the theme of Theory Into Practice, Winter 2008, Volume 47, Number 1, guest edited by Assistant Professor Bic Ngo (Curriculum and Instruction). This issue illustrates the complexity of immigrant education and the critical role of teachers and schools in the transformation of culture and identity and academic achievement. Authors for the issue are: Bic Ngo; Nina Asher; Lesa M. Clarkson; Martha Bigelow; Xue Lan Rong and Paul Fitchett; Nancy López; Stacey J. Lee and Margaret R. Hawkins; Loukia K. Sarroub; and Cindy Cruz.
Read the full press release.
Emeritus Professor Harlan Hansen (Curriculum and Instruction) and his wife Ruth Hansen (Ph.D. '81, curriculum and instruction) have published The Literate Child: A Developmentally Appropriate Program for Helping Four-Year-Old Children Acquire Basic and Literacy Skills. The manual was developed with a grant from the Naples (Fla.) Foundation and includes 36 outcomes and related activities.
The Hansens have been conducting free workshops for teachers and by the end of February all teachers of four-year-olds in Collier County, Florida, will have received a free copy.
A new edited volume on language immersion education, co-edited by Tara Williams Fortune (Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition) and associate professsor Diane J. Tedick (Curriculum and Instruction), has just become available from Multilingual Matters, Ltd. The volume, Pathways to Multilingualism: Evolving Perspectives on Immersion Education, features chapters by many of the world’s leading scholars in the field of language immersion education.
This past Tuesday the MAIN Immersion Celebration was held at Northrop Auditorium. MAIN — Minnesota Advocates for Immersion Network — is a non-profit organization comprised of educators that represent Minnesota’s immersion programs and University members representing CEHD’s second languages and cultures education program in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) Immersion Projects.
See a 5-minute video clip of the event from WCCO.
Continue reading "Immersion celebration a rousing success" »
The American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) will hold its annual meeting in New Orleans Feb 6-10. College faculty and staff will make several presentations at the meeting.
Continue reading "Faculty, staff present at AACTE annual meeting" »
Postdoctoral associate Christine Greenhow (Curriculum and Instruction) recently published an article.
Professor Barbara Taylor, director of the Minnesota Center on Reading Research, is a member of the Wireless Generation advisory board. Wireless Generation is the creator of FreeReading.net, a free, sequential, research-based reading intervention program designed for students in kindergarten through first grade.
Florida adopts open-content reading platform
eSchool News (Md.) Jan. 24, 2008
Alumnus Bill Green (M.A., educational psychology; Ph.D., education), superintendent of Minneapolis public schools, will deliver a homily at Gustavus Adolphus College in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Mixed Blood Theatre to perform on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
Gustavus News (Minn.) Jan. 11, 2007
The College has received a $2 million gift commitment from alumnus Dan Huebner for the creation of the Bonnie Westby Huebner Endowed Chair in Education and Technology. The endowment fund will support faculty in the field of school-based learning, with a strong emphasis on the value of technology in education.
Aaron Doering will be the first faculty member to hold the chair. Aaron is an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and education director of GoNorth!, an adventure learning project for K-12 classrooms. Read the full press release here.
Congratulations, Aaron!
Professor Deborah Dillon will fill the College's Guy Bond Chair in Reading. One of the nation’s leading reading education scholars, Deborah began her career as a classroom teacher in rural Nebraska working with students in grades four through six. She holds a doctoral degree from the University of Georgia and has taught in CEHD’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction since 2001. Read the full press release here.
Congratulations, Deborah!
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Professor Cynthia Lewis (Curriculum and Instruction) and her fellow co-editors of the recently published Reframing Sociocultural Research on Literacy: Identity, Agency, and Power have won the Edward Fry Book Award from the National Reading Conference. The award is given annually to recognize a book that makes a noteworthy contribution to research in the field of literacy. Read the previous news entry about the book here.
Congratulations Cynthia!
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Professor David O'Brien (Curriculum and Instruction) comments on the need for literacy programs aimed at boys to attract more non-readers (as opposed to boys who are already avid readers).
"Boys and books: How do you get them together?"
Star Tribune (Minn.) Dec. 18, 2007
Faculty and graduate students in the learning technologies program within the Department of Curriculum and Instruction have recently published several book chapters.
Continue reading "Learning technologies: Recent publications" »
A team of researchers recently presented at the National Reading Conference in Austin, Texas. "Motivating Boys to Read: An Evaluation of a Community Library Book Club Program" was presented by literacy education graduate students Cassie Scharber, Kristen Nichols-Besel, Brad Biggs, and Beth Brendler and professors Deborah Dillon and David O'Brien from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
Sophmore Emma Yang and senior Manu Kuffour, both in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, have been awarded UROP grants to support research on learning technologies. Both students will be exploring learning with social computing technologies as part of Dr. Christine Greenhow’s Social Networks Research Collaborative.
Congratulations to these motivated students!
Assistant Professor Bic Ngo (Curriculum and Instruction) recently published the following article.
Postdoctoral associate Chris Greenhow (Currculum and Instruction) and her research on social networking technologies were recently featured in a UMN Brief article discussing how seed grants from the Office of Public Engagement are impacting University researchers.
"Seeds of change"
UMN Brief (Minn.) Nov. 7, 2007
Chris Greenhow, a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, was recently awarded an RCR Grant from the Office of the Vice President for Research to create two seminars on Internet research ethics:
Congratulations Chris!
Sharon Cormany Ornelas, CEHD professional practice school coordinator and alumna (M.Ed. ’00, second languages and cultures), recently received the Milken National Educator Award. Ornelas received the award at her school, Patrick Henry High School. The Milken Award provides public recognition and an unrestricted financial award of $25,000 to teachers, principals, and specialists who are furthering excellence in education. Read more at "Minneapolis teacher surprised with national honor" on WCCO.com.
In a recent Independent Review article, curriculum and instruction professors David O'Brien (pictured right) and Richard Beach commented on how technology is changing children's reading and writing experiences.
Doctoral student Brock Dubbels (Curriculum and Instruction) was an invited speaker at the Games in Education symposium this summer. The conference, held on July 23 in Troy, New York, focused on the use of video games in education.
Brock Dubbels, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, was featured in an article in the October 2007 edition of NEA Today. In the article, titled "Educators Got Game," Brock praises the use of video games to augment teaching practices. He also offers a list of useful educational games for teachers.
Postdoctoral associate Christine Greenhow (Curriculum and Instruction) recently submitted a proposal to convene a multidisciplinary research symposia on “Networks & Neighborhoods in Cyberspace: Exploring Implications for Education, Humanities, Government, Business and Technology" (with Dr. Ann Hill Duin, OIT and Dr. Joanna O’Connell, CLA). The proposal was one of three grant proposals selected for Phase 1 funding ($25,000) in the MN Futures Grant competition. The symposia will convene researchers from over 10 different disciplines and will be held in Winter 2008. Participants in Phase 1 funded symposia are then eligible to compete for Phase 2 funding of up to $250,000 per project. Contact Christine at greenhow@umn.edu for more information.