Kevin Nugent, professor, Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, gave a presentation on Feb. 2, to the Department of Developmental Psychobiology at Columbia University’s Medical Center titled “Preventive intervention with high- and low- risk infants and their families: Clinical uses of the Newborn Behavior Observations (NBO).” Nugent is the founder and director of the Brazelton Institute in the Department of Developmental Medicine at Children's Hospital in Boston and is on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School. Nugent's areas of research include the effects of a range of prenatal teratogens on neonatal and developmental outcome, the impact of melatonin on newborn behavior, the transition to parenthood and the role of fathers.

Sharon Rallis, Dwight W. Allen Distinguished Professor of Education Policy and Reform, was invited to lead a workshop, “Conducting Useful Evaluations”, in Istanbul, Turkey. The workshop, sponsored by Bahcesehir University, was attended by teams of teachers and school administrators, as well as teams from NGOs, foundations, and businesses. Co-facilitating the workshop with Rallis was her former advisee, Aysen Kose (Ed.D. 2010). Because the majority of the workshop participants were not English speakers, Kose also interpreted. During her visit, Rallis also spoke about school principal and leadership training in the U.S. during a forum at the university about principal training and appointment.

Christine B. McCormick, Dean of the School of Education, University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been elected to the Executive Board of the Council of Academic Deans from Research Education Institutions (CADREI). CADREI is an assembly of deans of education from research and land grant institutions throughout North America. The purpose of the Council is the preparation of education personnel and the discussion and formulation of plans, policies, and programs to make the member institutions of the Council more effective in their work. CADREI is a non-profit, apolitical organization.

Instructional Rounds, a process designed to analyze classroom achievement, has been introduced by Rebecca Woodland, associate professor, Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, to schools in Emmaus, PA, as reported in an article in the Lehigh Valley’s (PA) newspaper “The Morning Call.” Woodland has been working with the superintendent and assistant superintendent of the East Penn School District and the district's instructional leadership team to develop the Instructional Rounds process, which is modeled after “hospital rounds.” She has facilitated Instructional Rounds for the Amherst Pelham (MA) Regional school system as part of the Teacher Collaboration Instructional Improvement Project (TCIIP) for which she is PI.

The complete article can be viewed at: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/eastpenn/mc-east-penn-classroom-visits-20120112,0,4128825.story.

On December 19, School of Education Dean, Christine B. McCormick, will begin her service as a member of the Massachusetts Special Commission on Civic Engagement and Learning. Dean McCormick was appointed to the commission by Governor Deval Patrick. The Commission, established by the state legislature, has an ambitious charge, including “assessment of the status of civic education from kindergarten through undergraduate college education . . . [and of] civic knowledge of graduates of public high schools.”

Robert Maloy, senior lecturer, Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, announced that resourcesforhistoryteachers, a wiki founded and administered by Maloy, is the national runner-up in the Best Educational Wiki category in the 2011 Edublogs Awards. Edublogs is a national organization that has recognized educational technology work since 2004.

This is the second year in a row that resourcesforhistoryteachers has received recognition. Last year, the site was honored by the Massachusetts Computer Using Educators organization as its Webbie Award winner in the higher education category.

The resourcesforhistoryteachers wiki receives contributions from students in Maloy’s courses as well as from teachers and students in K-12 schools. Students also serve as co-editors “so it becomes a learning experience for them as future teachers,” Maloy said.

See: resourcesforhistoryteachers enjoys a strong readership with more than 2000 visitors a day during the school week.

Rich Lapan, professor, Department of Student Development, has been named to a new task force formed by the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to address career readiness.

The Integrating College and Career Readiness Task Force, comprising local business, education and community leaders, is charged with helping all students become ready for post-secondary education and viable career pathways . It will be responsible for developing recommendations for better integrating college and career readiness in to K-12 education.

The task force will meet five times over the next six months. In June 2012, the group will present its report to the Board with recommendations around the adoption of a clear, measurable definition of career readiness, identifying "power" standards (knowledge and skills) inherent in a core career development program, identifying indicators of career readiness, and identifying and documenting successful policies and programs that provide students with multiple pathway options to integrate knowledge and skills for career readiness and readiness for postsecondary education.

Professor Emeritus David Schimmel, Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, received the 2011 M.A. McGhehey Award for “outstanding contributions to the field of education law and service” from the Education Law Association. Through his scholarship, Schimmel provides insight into a range of legal issues and bridges theory, policy and practice domains with particular emphasis on the role of teachers and administrators. He is widely recognized as a champion of legal literacy for educators and the need for teachers and school administrators to understand and effectively apply legal principles in the course of their professional work. In addition, he is an acknowledged authority on First Amendment issues and civil liberties as applied to the public education context. He has been a regular contributing author to West’s Education Law Reporter since its inception. His book, Teachers and the Law, now in its eighth edition, is one of the most successful desk references available to teachers and school administrators. In addition to authoring or editing nine books, he has written extensively in leading scholarly journals on topics related to constitutional mandates, civil rights, and preventive law in the public school context.

Kysa Nygreen, assistant professor, Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum studies, was awarded an Early Career Presidential Fellowship by the Council on Anthropology and Education (CAE), a section of the American Anthropological Association. CAE Presidential Fellowships are intended to support professional development and mentoring in the field of educational anthropology for scholars early in their academic careers.

Associate professor Kathleen Davis, assistant professor Sandra Madden and senior lecturer Barbara Madeloni, all of the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies (TECS), Stephen Schneider from the College of Natural Sciences, and Paula Sturdevant Rees, School of Engineering, were awarded a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a NOYCE Teaching Fellowship project: “Supporting STEM Teaching and Learning through Communities (S2TLC).” The grant was accompanied by $1.5 million in matching contributions from the University and project partners.

The project responds to the critical need for middle and high school science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers through a collaboration of UMass Amherst educators and researchers, mathematics and science administrators from Springfield, Holyoke and Greenfield public schools and Mahar Regional school district, and the Hitchcock Center for the Environment, a non-profit organization focused on the professional development of teachers and the education of youth in the sciences.

Please Join Us to Launch

The Masha Kabakow Rudman
Issues in Children's Literature Collection
at UMass Amherst Libraries

September 17, 2011

Read more

In his article, “Rap Universal”: Using Multimodal Media Production to Develop ICT Literacies”, published in the May 2011 issue of the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, assistant professor K.C. Nat Turner illustrates how teachers in an urban public school in one of northern California’s most impoverished, lowest performing districts taught students to use multimodal media production (MMP) as a relevant sociocultural practice that demanded school-based literacies. Through this MMP literacy intervention in an extended-day program, culturally and linguistically-diverse students developed specific “how-to” skills useful in future academic, professional, social, and civic contexts, abilities to critically interpret and produce media, and an understanding of the value of skills and literacies across contexts. Read more …

David Schimmel, professor emeritus, Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, writes about the benefits to educators who learn about school law and to schools that have legally literate staff and administration. Read the article in Education Week.

“PAVEd for Success- Building Vocabulary and Language Development in Young Learners” by Claire E. Hamilton, associate professor, Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, and Paula J. Schwanenflugel, University of Georgia, has been published by Brookes.

Called a “road map to school readiness for preschool and kindergarten students,” the book is based on K-PAVE, a kindergarten vocabulary instruction program developed by Hamilton and Schwanenflugel, that has been shown to have positive impact on the vocabulary and academic achievement of kindergarten students.

The book includes a complete introduction to the PAVEd for Success approach, with tips, strategies, and classroom examples to help teachers enhance children's emergent literacy, as well as 24 PAVE lesson plans that are scientifically based and evaluated in more than 300 prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms. A CD-ROM provides access to all the printable materials needed for the PAVE lessons.

In 2010, the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance released a report on a randomized control trial that tested the impact of Kindergarten PAVEd for Success (K-PAVE) on 1300 kindergarten students’ expressive vocabulary. The REL-Southeast K-PAVE study found that the program had a significant positive impact on students’ vocabulary development and academic knowledge, as well as for the classroom instruction outcome of vocabulary and comprehension support.

School of Education Professor Emerita Sonia Nieto has been selected as a Laureate of Kappa Delta Pi (KDP), the international education honor society established in 1911 to foster excellence in education and promote fellowship among those dedicated to teaching. Membership in the KDP Laureate chapter is limited to 60 people who, by their lives and work, exemplify the highest ideals of education. Nieto joins Margaret Mead, Albert Einstein, Jean Piaget and other distinguished individuals as a KDP Laureate

A longtime champion of multicultural education dating back to her teaching days at the Bronx, New York, P.S. 25, the first fully bilingual school in the Northeast, Nieto is nationally recognized for her work in multicultural and bilingual education and curriculum reform.

Earlier this year, she was named a 2011 Fellow of the American Educational Research Association in recognition of her exceptional scholarly contribution to education research in the field of multicultural and bilingual education.

Nieto’s numerous awards include the Henry T. Trueba Lifetime Achievement Award, the Distinguished Career Award from the American Educational Research Association’s Committee on Scholars of Color in Education, the American Educational Research Association Division K Legacy Award, and the School of Education Award of Distinction. She holds honorary doctorates from Lesley University, DePaul University, Bridgewater State College, and Manhattanville College. Her publications, including “Affirming Diversity: the Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education” (5th edition, 2008, with co-author Patty Bode), are widely used in teacher preparation and in-service courses throughout the country.

Nieto will be inducted into KDP’s Laureate Chapter at the society’s Centennial convocation in Indianapolis, Nov. 2011. More about Kappa Delta Pi at http://www.kdp.org/

Distinguished Professor Ronald Hambleton, Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, received the Robert L. Linn Award for his outstanding contributions to measurement and educational policy including his work in the areas of test adaptation methodology, international assessment, item response theory, score reporting, and setting performance standards at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA.) As the recipient of the award, he has been invited to address the AERA’s 2012 annual meeting in Vancouver.

Brandon, professor emerita, at Tribeca. Read more

Sangeeta Kamat, associate professor, Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, has been invited to become a member of the Advisory Committee of the Global Forum on Indian Higher Education, an initiative of the Australia-India Institute at the University of Melbourne in Australia, with the support of other institutions, both in India and elsewhere. This initiative involves the creation of a web-based Global Forum on Indian Higher Education (GFIHE) designed to stimulate conversations around policy developments in Indian higher education.

Carey Dimmitt, associate professor, Department of Student Development, has been named a recipient of the 2011 Distinguished Teaching Award for exemplary teaching at the highest institutional level by the UMass Amherst Provost’s Office and the Center for Teaching and Faculty Development. For more than 30 years UMass Amherst has conferred this teaching award that recognizes and honors individual excellence. It is the campus’ most prestigious prize for classroom instruction.

Student input is key as only current students and alumni may nominate faculty for this award. It is a highly competitive award with well over 100 nominees submitted each year to faculty, graduate and undergraduate committees for review. Only three faculty and two teaching assistant awardees are selected annually.

Dimmitt will be recognized at several events on campus as a recipient of this year’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

Stephen Sireci, School of Education professor, Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, was awarded the 2010 Thomas F. Donlon Memorial Award for Distinguished Mentoring from the Northeastern Educational Research Association (NERA.) The award is given in recognition of Donlon’s long and valued contributions to NERA, particularly as a mentor, and is awarded to an individual identified for distinguished mentoring.

According to NERA, Sireci, who has been an active member of NERA for more than 20 years and was himself mentored by others in NERA, continues the NERA tradition of mentoring by consistently bringing his students to conferences to further their professional development. He is praised by his students for focusing on their strengths, always providing sound advice and support for their work, and helping them in non-academic ways, such as finding housing, navigating a new culture, and opening his home to them. His own former mentor described Sireci this way: “While Steve has developed professionally and has risen to the top of his profession, internally he has stayed the same kind, generous, friendly and energetic person.”

Sireci is the director of the School of Education’s Center for Educational Assessment. He is the author of more than 100 publications and conference papers, and has served on numerous advisory boards. He is known for his research in evaluating and facilitating test fairness particularly involving issues of test bias and cross-lingual assessment.

The Center for Research on Families has named six UMass Amherst faculty members, including two members of the School of Education faculty, 2011-12 Family Research Scholars on the basis of their promising work in family-related research. The SOE scholars, both in the Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, are assistant professors Ryan Wells and Sara Whitcomb.

Wells’ research interests examine the transition from secondary school to postsecondary education. During his scholar year, Wells will work on a grant proposal to study "The work-to-college transition: Investigating pathways to degree attainment for working adults." This research will consider many aspects of adult workers' pathways to college. In today's global economic climate, policymakers and education professionals need a greater understanding of pathways to college enrollment and degree attainment for the current workforce. With a better understanding of the barriers, motivations, and aids to enrolling in college, actions can be taken to help institutions and organizations reach out to working adults to help them succeed, and in turn improve the conditions of their families.

Whitcomb’s research interests include implementation of mental health promotion and positive behavior support efforts in schools, and behavioral and instructional consultation. During her CRF Scholar year, Whitcomb will be developing a proposal to research "The Impact of Implementation of a Social-Emotional Curriculum and Parent Training Program on Preschool Children Identified as Behaviorally At-Risk." This research is particularly relevant to family research in that aims to identify how families and schools may align in their efforts to feasibly promote the healthy social-emotional development of young children.

The Family Research Scholars Program provides selected faculty with the time, technical expertise, peer mentorship, and national expert consultation to prepare a large grant proposal for their research support. The Center for Research on Families' mission is to increase research on family issues, to build a multidisciplinary community of researchers who are studying issues of relevance to families, to connect national and internationally prominent family researchers with faculty and students, to provide advanced data analytic methods training and consultation, and to disseminate family research findings to scholars, families, practitioners, and policy-makers. Families are a basic unit of human and animal life and research must cross academic disciplines and engage many perspectives to fully understand family functioning.

From The Republican newspaper
Robotics program wins funding
Friday, April 01, 2011

By PETER GOONAN
pgoonan@repub.com

SPRINGFIELD - The state has awarded a federally funded, $123,900 grant to Springfield to provide a six-week robotics program at Van Sickle Middle School this summer, expected to serve 145 local students.

Springfield was one of just four school districts chosen statewide for the expanded-year, summer pilot program. The districts received grants up to $125,000 from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

"This is about enrichment and empowerment," said Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, among local and state officials who gathered at Van Sickle on Wednesday to announce the grant and program.

The program is for youth who participated during the school year in Springfield's 21st Century Community Learning Centers Afterschool Program. In addition to Van Sickle, it will target students from "feeder" schools, namely Liberty, Pottenger, Bowles and Glenwood, said Paula E. Thayer, the city's assistant director of recreation who submitted the city's proposal.

The program was designed to "significantly expand innovative summer learning that address both the academic and developmental needs of students," Thayer said.

Superintendent of Schools Alan J. Ingram said the program will help "strengthen and build the character and academic achievement of students."

The children will have an opportunity to learn about robotics while having fun; it is also designed to prevent regression in learning that can occur over summer, officials said.

Karyl Resnick, the state's coordinator of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Projects, said Springfield's application rose above many others in part because the many groups and individuals that will work together on the robotics summer program.

The planning team in Springfield consists of Springfield College; University of Massachusetts-Amherst; Tufts University; the Hampden County Regional Employment Board; Hasbro Summer Learning Initiative; and Van Sickle's principal, Cheryl DeSpirt; a district science specialist; and two of Van Sickle's science teachers who were trained in LEGO robotics.

Other districts that received the grants were North Adams, Wareham, and the Triton Regional School District.

The Review of Research in Education, an official journal of the American Educational Research Association, recently published assistant professor, Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, Laura A. Valdiviezo's co-authored chapter, "Adolescent Literacies in Latin America and the Caribbean" (2011). The volume edited by Stanton Wortham is dedicated to review contemporary research in youth cultures, language and literacy.

The American Educational Research Association has announced that School of Education professor emerita Sonia Nieto has been elected a Fellow of the AERA in recognition of her exceptional scholarly contribution to education research in the field of multicultural and bilingual education.

The AERA Fellows Program honors education researchers with substantial research accomplishments. The fellowship conveys the Association’s commitment to excellence in research and emphasizes to new scholars the importance of sustained research in the field of education

Nieto’s numerous awards include the Henry T. Trueba Lifetime Achievement Award, the Distinguished Career Award from the American Educational Research Association’s Committee on Scholars of Color in Education, the American Educational Research Association Division K Legacy Award, and the School of Education Award of Distinction. She holds honorary doctorates from Lesley University, DePaul University, Bridgewater State College, and Manhattanville College. Her publications, including Affirming Diversity: the Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education (5th edition, 2008, with co-author Patty Bode), are widely used in teacher preparation and in-service courses throughout the country.

Nieto will be installed in the AERA’s 2011 Class of Fellows on April 9 during the AERA’s Annual Meeting in New Orleans.

Patricia Griffin, professor emerita, School of Education, has been named a recipient of the 2011 R. Tait McKenzie Award from the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD). The award provides the means through which the Alliance recognizes significant contributions of its members made outside the framework of the Alliance, but which reflect prestige, honor, and dignity on the Alliance. Named after the distinguished Canadian physician, sculptor and physical educator, Dr. R. Tait McKenzie, it epitomizes McKenzie’s professional ideals, his service to humanity, and his dedication to the advancement of knowledge and understanding of physical and health education, recreation and dance.

Griffin became a member of the School of Education faculty in 1980. Her scholarly contributions reflect her commitment to social justice, particularly in kinesiology, physical education, and athletics. She is the author of “Strong Women Deep Closets,” which provides a critical analysis of discrimination and prejudice against lesbians in sport. She has published numerous articles in the Journal of Teaching Physical Education; Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance; Research Quarterly; and Quest. She is the winner of the Research Consortium’s Research Writing Award. Her authored chapters have been included in anthologies on homophobia, equity in education, heterosexism, transgender athletes, and qualitative research.

Griffin was one of the first people to openly address the issue of homophobia in sport. She has led seminars on heterosexism/homophobia in sport at numerous colleges and universities, as well as at coaches' and athletic administration conferences. She also serves as a media expert for stories on homophobia in athletics. She has consulted on social justice in education and athletics working with organizations before and after litigation because of homophobia. Her career is marked by 25 AAHPERD presentations and many national, regional, and state presentations. She served on the AAHPERD Social Justice Committee and the Human Rights Task Force. Griffin participated on the National Education and Advocacy Project of the Women’s Sports Foundation, It Takes A Team! Education Campaign for LGBT Issues in Sport. She has been on ABC Wide World of Sports and ESPN, and has her own sports blog.

Laura Valdiviezo and Nelida Matos have been awarded Public Service Endowment Grants by the UMass Amherst Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement. The awards are intended to enhance the public service mission of the campus. Grants support projects that deliver public services through special projects with an emphasis on converting knowledge into readily usable forms for immediate applications.

Matos, lecturer, Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, will use the grant for a project aimed at closing the achievement gap in Springfield's middle schools. She will draw on teacher knowledge and experience to identify where teachers are implementing innovative teaching practices that have the potential to effectively reduce the achievement gaps in their classrooms. The study will carry out preliminary research to identify where promising practices appear to be emerging, with future research planned to carry out an in-depth assessment of the most effective strategies.

Through her project, Valdiviezo, assistant professor, Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, intends to provide teachers with research strategies to develop knowledge of the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of English language learners. Her project focuses on the preparation of teachers as researchers as an effective approach to better support English language learners in Amherst's regional public school system.

A trailer for “Your Baby is Speaking to You - A Visual Guide to the Amazing Behaviors of Your Newborn and Growing Baby” by Kevin Nugent, professor, Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, is featured on the home page of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s web site http://www.hmhbooks.com. The trailer is also on YouTube.

Nugent and acclaimed photographer Abelardo Morell capture communications strategies that babies demonstrate from the moment they are born in this book that the publisher describes as “destined to become a parenting classic.

”Nugent directs the Brazelton Institute at Children's Hospital, Boston, where he has led studies of newborn infants and early parent-child relations for over three decades. With T. Berry Brazelton, he developed the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale, used in hospitals around the world. Recently Nugent and colleagues created the Newborn Behavioral Observations system, designed to help parents understand their baby's behavior.

K.C. Nat Turner and Florence Sullivan, assistant professors in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies (TECS), co-authored “Multiliteracies in Multi-user Virtual Environments (MUVE’s),” which Turner presented at the Fifth International Conference on Multimodality, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia in December 2010. “As my research is focused on multimodal media production in the development of multi-literacies, the conference was a unique opportunity to come together with scholars in the field from all over the globe,” Turner said.

Associate professor Claire Hamilton and Paula J. Schwanenflugel of the University of Georgia have developed K-PAVE, a kindergarten vocabulary instruction program that has been shown to have positive impact on the vocabulary and academic achievement of kindergarten students.

The National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance recently released a report on a randomized control trial conducted by REL-Southeast in the Mississippi Delta to test the impact of Kindergarten PAVEd for Success (K-PAVE) on students’ expressive vocabulary. The report’s results included findings that kindergarteners who received the K-PAVE intervention were one month further ahead in vocabulary development at the end of kindergarten compared with their peers who did not receive the intervention. The study also found that K-PAVE training had a positive impact on teachers’ instructional practices.

"We were very excited by the results of this independent study,” said Hamilton. “At the end of their kindergarten year, students in the K-Pave classrooms were more advanced in their spoken vocabulary and general academic knowledge than students whose teachers did not use this program."

This study was the first independent test of the effectiveness of the K-PAVE vocabulary intervention, using a rigorous randomized design, and testing the intervention as it is implemented in multiple school districts.

K-PAVE is designed to promote kindergarten students’ vocabulary development through frequent, interactive book reading, explicit vocabulary instruction, and teacher-child conversations built around enhanced use of vocabulary.

Robert Maloy, senior lecturer, Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, has received the 2010 Webbie Award from Massachusetts Computer Using Educators (MassCUE) organization for the website “Resources for History Teachers.” MassCUE launched the Webbie Awards in 2007 to recognize excellence in school web site design at the classroom, building and district level.

Assistant professor Sandra R. Madden’s article “Designing Mathematical Learning Environments for Teachers” appeared in the November 2010 issue of Mathematics Teacher. The article suggests that scaffolding tasks can help increase teachers’ comfort and competence with technology.

“More Teaching Games for Understanding: Moving Globally” edited by Linda Griffin, Associate Dean of the School of Education and professor, Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, and Joy I. Butler, associate professor, Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, University of British Columbia, has been published by Human Kinetics.

The comprehensive book presents current research and practice from experts on teaching games for understanding (TGfU), a significant movement in physical education worldwide. Following Griffin and Butler’s highly successful 2005 book, Teaching Games for Understanding, the new book includes all-new chapters by 27 contributors representing six countries, including a co-authored chapter by Dr. Griffin entitled “Unpacking Tactical Problems in Invasion Games: Integrating Movement Concepts Into Games Education”.

The book is intended for teacher educators, graduate and undergraduate students in physical education and sport pedagogy, as well as teachers and coaches interested in helping students and players become better game players.

Professors Jacqueline Mosselson and Gretchen Rossman, and seven graduate students at the School of Education’s Center for International Education in the Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, recently completed a two-year project, Learning Initiatives in Rural Education (LIRE), in Senegal and The Gambia, which was funded by the World Bank-administered Bank-Netherlands Partnership Program (BNPP).

	Jacqueline Mossleson	Gretchen Rossman

The goal of the project was to work alongside educators in Senegal and The Gambia to strengthen local capacity to deliver and support quality multi-grade (MG) education in rural areas with low population densities.

The SOE team worked in collaboration with in-country LIRE team staff, Ministry of Education officials, local teacher training instructors, as well as rural teachers and inspectors in both countries.

The LIRE project team worked with 20 demonstration schools (13 in Senegal and 7 in The Gambia) to develop teacher training manuals and teachers’ guides that were locally appropriate and aligned with the curricula of each country. They met regularly in person, on Skype, and over email to collaborate in the development of training workshops, teachers’ guides, and training manuals that focused to strengthen multi-grade education. In addition, the team worked with a National Advisory Committee and Technical Working Group in each country which comprised Ministry officials, senior personnel at INGOs, and local leaders in the education sector of each country. Consistent feedback from the workshop evaluations, the conference, and the external evaluation was that this collaborative approach was a highly valued and unique part of the LIRE project.

In addition to the trainings and training materials, the LIRE team undertook local and national advocacy activities surrounding multi-grade education in each country. They developed a monitoring and evaluation toolkit and facilitated an international conference in West Africa on multi-grade education. As a result of this initiative, The Ministry of Education in The Gambia signed a Memorandum of Understanding in demonstration of their commitment to continuing the work undertaken by the LIRE team.

The Gambia has just completed a national multi-grade training initiative of all multi-grade teachers in the country, using the materials developed by LIRE and implemented by LIRE partners. Additionally, the government in Senegal has published the training manuals and teachers’ guides and distributed them to schools and teacher training colleges across the country.

Sandra Madden, assistant professor in the School of Education’s Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, will be in Ljubljana, Slovenia in July to present a lecture on “Overcoming obstacles to support secondary teachers’ statistical content knowledge for teaching.”

The talk, to be presented at the International Conference on Teaching Statistics, builds on Madden’s work in statistics education with practicing teachers and the use of dynamic technology to support learning.

Organized by the International Association for Statistical Education, the conference is held every four years as a means to provide statistics educators and professionals around the world the opportunity to exchange information, ideas and experiences, to present recent innovation and research in the field of statistics education, and to expand their range of collaborators.

Margy Pierce, assistant professor in the Department of Student Development and Pupil Personnel Services, received the 2010 College Outstanding Teacher Award.

The College Outstanding Teacher Award program was instituted as a complement to the Distinguished Teaching Awards given by the Graduate School to honor individual faculty members for their teaching accomplishments within their own colleges.

“Margy encourages discussion, self reflection, and complex problem solving in her classes. Students are supported to take charge of their learning and invest themselves deeply in the content,” said Linda Griffin, Associate Dean, announcing the award at the School’s end-of-year meeting.

Dr. Griffin shared some comments from Pierce’s students, including the following:

• “Dr. Pierce has served as a wonderful role model. Her outstanding professionalism is readily evident in all aspects of her position. Classroom lessons are exceptionally well planned and effectively utilize multi-modal approaches that are truly engaging and effectively link to objectives to best practices.”

• “Margy is a gifted teacher and a wonderful person who inspires me to want to be the best teacher I can.”
• “I love this class, did I say that already?!”

School of Education professors Lisa A. Keller and Jennifer Randall, both in the Department fo Educational Policy, Research and Administration, have been accepted into the American Educaitonal Research Administration (AERA) Statistics Institute for Faculty.

This initiative of the AERA grants program, which is supported by the National Science Foundation, is intended to help develop a critical mass of U.S. education researchers using large-scale federal data sets, especially those sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), NSF, and other federal agencies.

These data sets, which are often longitudinal and nationally representative, offer an excellent opportunity for students and early career scholars to conduct research and learn advanced quantitative methods with high quality policy relevant data. The program is tailored to faculty members at postsecondary institutions who teach quantitative research methods courses at the graduate level and who seek to integrate the analysis of large-scale federal education data sets into the curriculum.

The Massachusetts Adult Proficiency Test for Math and Reading (MAPT), developed by the School of Education’s Center for Educational Assessment in cooperation with state education officials, has earned a top score from the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE).

The federal Office of Vocational and Adult Education has given the test a seven-year approval for use in the National Reporting System for Adult Education (NRS) – an outcome-based reporting system for state-administered, federally funded adult education programs.

“Think of the MAPT as the MCAS for adult education,” said Stephen G. Sireci, professor of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, who led the project.

Massachusetts, he said, is the only state in the country to have created an assessment tool for adult learners from the ground up, in consultation with teachers in the field. Other states either built on existing models or rely on commercial “off-the-shelf” tests. The approval, which was the result of rigorous independent review, confirms the extent to which MAPT is leading the way as a high quality assessment program, said Sireci.

“Massachusetts is doing everything right, and the USDOE also got it right by approving this state-of-the-art assessment system,” he said.

Part of what makes the MAPT test so effective, he added, is that the difficulty of the test is adjusted in real time as the student responds to test questions through the use of computerized adaptive technology. This “tailored testing” means that students rarely take items that are too easy or too difficult for them. The tests are also administered over the Internet (via the UMassOnline Web-based Learning system), making them the only Internet-based, computerized-adaptive test in adult education.

The center’s work on MAPT got under way in 2003 under a contract with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and in collaboration with the department’s Office of Adult and Community Learning Services (ACLS).

Sally Campbell Galman, assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, is quoted in an article in the February 2010 edition of Anthropology News in the Society for Anthropology of Work column. The article talks about a roundtable offered at the 2009 American Anthropological Association’s meeting in Philadelphia titled “Balancing Children and the Academy from Grad School to Tenure,” in which scholars, including Galman, who are also parents, share their experiences. Roundtable organizers Susanne Cohen (University of Michigan) and Csilla Kalocsai (Yale University ) write that “Galman noted that it was her personal goal to ‘transform the academy with motherhood.’” The article further notes that many of the discussion participants “agreed that it was imperative to take steps to change academic structures in order to help future generations more easily juggle scholarly and parental roles.”

Ronald Hambleton, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, has been chosen to receive the prestigious Jacob Cohen Award for Distinguished Teaching and Mentoring from Division 5 of the American Psychological Association.

The Jacob Cohen Award recognizes demonstrated excellence in teaching and mentoring as well as educators who positively influence students in Division 5-based areas and in contributing through teaching and mentoring in public forums, such as workshops, conference presentations, and publications.

APA Division 5 Awards recognize outstanding accomplishment in the areas of assessment, evaluation, measurement, research methods and/or statistics.

The award will be presented at the APA’s annual meeting in San Diego in August.

“Transforming Learning with New Technologies,” written by the School of Education’s Robert W. Maloy, senior lecturer, Ruth-Ellen Verock-O’Laughlin, lecturer, and Sharon A. Edwards, clinical faculty member, and Beverly Park Woolf, research professor in Computer Science, has been published by Pearson.

The book demonstrates ways to create highly interactive learning opportunities for elementary and secondary school students using a full range of technologies and emerging Web 2.0 tools. Each chapter addresses the needs of educators who are new to teaching or technology. Instructional examples and lesson ideas from across the curriculum at all grade levels give teachers starting points from which they can develop their own technology-infused lessons.

The work’s Technology Transformation Lesson Plans provide examples across grade levels and subject areas that demonstrate how technology transforms lessons by showing minimal technology use juxtaposed with fully-infused technology options that align to learning goals of each lesson.
 
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A study by Rebecca Gajda, associate professor, Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, in the International Journal of Public Administration was the publication’s most viewed article last year.

“‘Communities of Practice’ as an Analytical Construct: Implications for Theory and Practice” was co-authored by Christopher Koliba of the University of Vermont. The article was published last January.

More Information: Journal website

J. Kevin Nugent, professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, gave the keynote address at “The infant, the family and the modern world: Intervening to promote healthy relationships,” the 2009 joint conference of the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health and the Australian Marcé Society, in Melbourne, Australia, in October.

Dr. Nugent was also invited to speak at the First International Congress on Parent-Child Relationships at the Universitaire de Tivoli, Brussels, Belgium, and at the International Conference on School Health in Evora, Portugal, both in November.

Dr. Nugent is the Founder and Director of the Brazelton Institute at Children's Hospital in Boston and is on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School in the Department of Pediatrics.

Kathleen Davis, associate professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, is a recipient of a Public Service Endowment Award from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Public Service Endowment Grant, intended to enhance the public service mission of UMass Amherst, funds the delivery of public services through special projects with an emphasis on converting knowledge into readily usable forms for immediate applications. This year, the awards were given to projects that related to outreach and engagement in Greater Springfield.

Dr. Davis’ project, titled “Energy Thinking - Energy Action: Teaching about climate change and renewable energy,” operates in conjunction with the award-winning Hitchcock Center for the Environment, and targets elementary and middle-school teachers and 700 students at three high-priority schools of the Springfield Urban Schools Consortium. It is designed to foster a perspective essential to sustainable living: that human needs and achievements are both supported and limited by the natural world. Throughout the duration of the project, students will be introduced to basic ecological principles and systems thinking, helping them achieve an understanding of the natural world’s processes and the ability to think in terms of patterns, relationships and contexts.

The project will partner a Hitchcock Center science educator with Springfield teachers and School of Education teacher interns in the target schools. Classroom instruction will emphasize experiential learning, inquiry, problem-solving, cooperative learning, and other teaching methods proven to advance science proficiency.

Carey Dimmitt, professor in the Department of Student Development and Pupil Personnel Studies, will participate with faculty from 21 UMass Amherst departments in Commonwealth College’s Advanced Honors Seminars designed to prepare the college’s students for their independent research and capstone projects. Dr. Dimmitt’s seminar is titled "EffectiveTeaching PreK-16: What Works?"

The Advanced Honors Seminars cap the innovative Honors Seminar Series. Together, the seminars hone students’ critical interpretation skills and encourage them to consider carefully how data is presented. The courses introduce them to the value of interdisciplinary study and the expectations of being an honors student.

“The new Advanced Honors Seminars give students a chance to see how faculty identify and pursue questions worth asking,” said Priscilla Clarkson, dean of the college.

Recently, USAID asked the School of Education’s Center for International Education’s Higher Education Project (HEP) to take on an additional responsibility to strengthen The Kabul Medical University. The new component is managed by the Academy for Educational Development in partnership with three U.S. universities. The School of Education’s Center for International Education (CIE) and the Institute for Global Health (IGH.) comprise the UMass Amherst unit.

HEP is working with Kabul Medical University (KMU) and in partnership with the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) and Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) to improve the pre-service medical training offered in Afghan public universities to better meet workforce needs, beginning with KMU, and to establish a cadre of doctors graduating from Afghanistan’s public universities who are able to offer high quality services to the Basic Package of Health Services and Essential Package of Hospital Services in Afghanistan.

	From left: Dr. David Evans, Dr. Joseph Berger, Chancellor of Kabul Medical University Dr. Obaid, and Dr. David Buchanan in Kabul, Afghanistan

HEP and KMU will also work towards achieving improved coordination among stakeholders, revised and updated curriculum at Kabul Medical University; improved teaching methods at Kabul Medical University; strengthened systems for clinical rotations; and revised and rationalized admissions requirements.

Other responsibilities include creating a new School of Public Health at KMU with revised undergraduate course offerings, and designing a new Masters in Public Health for KMU. CIE/IGH is also responsible for strengthening the pedagogy across all of KMU to support their goal of implementing a problem-based methodology which is adapted to the realities which will be faced by graduates working Afghanistan’s health services.

Drs. David Evans and Joseph Berger, both of the Department of Educational Policy, Research and Development, and David Buchanan of the School of Public Health, work together with a team of UMass Amherst employees in Afghanistan and here on campus to carry out the work of the project.

An article, “On the Run, In the Real,” in which teacher candidates describe their year in an immersion preparation program, by Drs. Robert W. Maloy, Kathleen Gagne and Ruth-Ellen Verock-O’Laughlin, appears in the October issue of Phi Delta Kappan, published by Phi Delta Kappa International, the premier professional association for educators.

A delegation of five visitors from the Ministry of Education of the Sultanate of Oman with an interest in college advising and career counseling recently met with faculty from the School of Education’s Department of Student Development and Pupil Personnel Services under the auspices of the World Affairs Council of Western Massachusetts.

Each member of the delegation heads the Career Guidance Section for a particular region in Oman. The delegation specifically requested to meet with faculty from the School 's National Center for School Counseling Outcome Research (CSCOR), said Cynthia Melcher, World Affairs Council’s executive director.

During the morning meeting on the Amherst campus, the Omanis, aided by interpreters, discussed research-based school and career counseling practices in the U.S. with Drs. John C. Carey, Carey Dimmitt, and Richard Lapan, and assistant research fellow Karen Harrington. Over the course of three days the delegation also met with representatives from Holyoke Community College, Deerfield Academy and the Bement School in Deerfield, Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical High School in Springfield, Holyoke Catholic High School in Chicopee, and Smith College in Northampton. They visited Omaha, NE, Raleigh, NC and Washington, D.C., before returning to Oman.

The Center for School Counseling Outcome Research is dedicated to improving the practice of school counseling by generating, identifying, and disseminating research related to the field, providing evaluation and consultation to support best practices, developing interventions with demonstrated efficacy and positive outcomes, and building the capacity of school counselors. CSCOR provides a range of services, including professional development training, intervention and program evaluation, and consultation.

The World Affairs Council is associated with the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US Department of State that brings to the United States approximately 5,000 foreign nationals from all over the world to meet and confer with their professional counterparts and to experience America firsthand. Dozens of Chiefs of State and Current Heads of Government are IVLP Alumni, including Nicolas Sarkozy, Yukio Hatoyama, Gordon Brown, Morgan Tsvangirai, and Hamid Karzai.

Stephen G. Sireci, professor in the Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, was one of seven UMass Amherst faculty members to receive a 2009 Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity. UMass Amherst Chancellor Robert C. Holub presented the award during the Faculty Convocation, Oct. 2, in Stockbridge Hall.

The Awards were created to annually recognize faculty achievements and current campus initiatives that bring national and international renown to the University. The awardees are chosen by Chancellor Holub based on the recommendation of a Nomination Committee.

Dr. Sireci is internationally known and respected for his work to advance fair, useful and efficient educational assessment practices. During his 14 years at the School of Education, he has focused on issues such as test content validity, test bias, cross-lingual assessment, standard setting and sensitivity review. He is the director and co-founder of the School’s Center for Educational Assessment which conducts research and provides training in the areas of psychometrics, research methods and educational statistics. The Center is a valuable resource for educational policy makers and others who use tests to make decisions regarding individuals, organizations or institutions.

Dr. Sireci is the author of more than 100 publications and conference papers that have appeared in respected journals such as Applied Measurement in Education and Applied Psychological Measurement. He has generated more than $6 million in externally-funded grants and contract projects. He serves on many national commissions, editorial and advisory boards. He is a senior scientist for the Gallup organization.

Mary Deane Sorcinelli, professor in the Department of Educational Policy, Research and Development, and associate provost for Faculty Development, traveled to China July 13-15 to participate in a conference on “Theory, Practice and Implications: Professional and Organizational Development for Chinese Higher Education in the Global Context.”

Sorcinelli discussed a range of topics, including new faculty development, faculty career stages and establishing mutual mentoring networks among scholars.

Co-sponsored by Beijing Normal University and Beijing Institute of Technology with support from the Chinese Ministry of Education, the conference featured faculty developers from Australia, Norway and the United States.

Richard "Dick" Clark Jr., of Amherst, emeritus professor at the School of Education, died Tuesday, Aug. 11. He was 70.

After having been a 5th and 6th grade teacher in the Concord and Lexington, Mass., public schools and elementary school principal in Jefferson County, Colo., Clark came to the School of Education at UMass Amherst in 1968 for what he intended to be "a brief period of time." Thirty years later, having served the school as associate dean for program planning and development, chair of the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, special assistant to the Provost, and professor, he left to accept a position as the Dean of the College of Education at UMass Boston in 1997.

Clark was especially proud of the Math, English and Science Teacher Education Program (MESTEP) for master's level students in which he was deeply involved. MESTEP ran for 13 years in cooperation with Boston-area school systems.

Clark retired from the university in 2000. He had been a member of the School of Education's Dean's Leadership Council since its inception in 2007. He lived in Amherst with his wife, Casey.

There will be a memorial service for Clark on Friday, Aug. 14 at 1 p.m. at Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst.

An article by Robert Maloy, senior lecturer, and Sharon A. Edwards, clinical faculty, both of the School of Education’s Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, and Gordon Anderson, software engineer in the Department of Computer Science, has been published in the June 30 “Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse,” a web-based joint venture of the International Reading Association and National Council of Teachers of English. (www.literacycoachingonline.org)

Titled “Reading Coaching for Math Word Problems,” the article notes that students in elementary math classes are learning two distinct yet related languages- one of numbers and one of words - both of which are combined in math word problems. It suggests that pupils who struggle with language or math comprehension, or both, face challenges in attempting to decode math word problems. The article proposes strategies for teachers to use to support students in addressing the reading challenges found in math problems.

Emerita Professor Sonia Nieto (Ed.D. 1979) received an Honorary Degree from Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York, at the college’s Commencement ceremony on May 14, 2009.

Shelley B. Wepner, Dean and Professor, Manhattanville College’s School of Education, said that in selecting a recipient of an honorary degree, the College “takes great pride in choosing individuals who exemplify the college's four core values of academic excellence, development of the whole student, creation of a nurturing campus, and a commitment to service.”

Wepner added that the College is “honored to be able to recognize Sonia Nieto for her numerous achievements in education.”

Past recipients of honorary degrees from Manhattanville include Hillary Clinton, Elie Weisel, Maria Shriver, Tom Wolfe, and Jonathan Kozol.

A longtime champion of multicultural education dating back to her teaching days at the Bronx, New York, P.S. 25, the first fully bilingual school in the Northeast, Dr. Nieto is nationally recognized for her work in multicultural and bilingual education and curriculum reform. She has been awarded honorary degrees from Lesley University and Bridgewater State College. She is a recipient of the School of Education’s 2008 Award of Distinction, given to emeriti faculty, alumni or friends who have made significant contributions to the School, its students and their field.

“Self-Study Research Methodologies for Teacher Educators,” edited by Sally Galman, assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, and Cynthia A. Lassonde and Clare Kosnik, has been published by Sense Publishing.

Both Galman and Dr. Allan Feldman, professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum studies, contributed a chapter to the book.

Dr. Galman describes the book as a comprehensive text that delineates a range of research methodologies. The edited volume, with many chapters written by self-study scholars who are noted in the field for particular methodological and epistemological perspectives, helps fill the gap in the literature on self-study research methods. It provides readers with an opportunity to examine various methodologies which will not only help them deepen their understanding of research but also will allow them to select one that best suits their needs. Both new and experienced researchers will find this text valuable. It is available at Amazon.com.

Faculty in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences and the School of Education have been awarded a four-year, $796,809 Personnel Preparation Grant from the U.S. Department of Education to support speech-language pathology doctoral students focusing on special education.

	Participating faculty are (clockwise from top left) are Patricia Mercaitis, Mary Lynn Boscardin, Elena Zaretsky, Mary Andrianopoulos and Shelley Velleman.

The participating faculty are Mary Andrianopoulos, Elena Zaretsky, Shelley Velleman and Patricia Mercaitis in the Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) program in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, and Mary Lynn Boscardin of the Special Education concentration in the School of Education.

According to Andrianopoulos, the grant will help address a critical shortage of speech-language pathology Ph.D.s nationally and support the development of the next generation of research scientists and faculty. The grant will support between five and seven Speech-Language Pathology doctoral students planning to major in topics related to SLP with a minor in Special Education between 2009-13, she said. The doctoral students will conduct empirically-based research to assess the effectiveness of various remedial approaches to manage and educate individuals with communicative disabilities, including autism spectrum disorders.

It is the second such grant given to the group by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) in two years. Last year, they received a four-year, $799,602 award. According to Andrianopoulos, the faculty members have been awarded more than $2.3 million by the federal agency over the past five years. “These faculty were funded thanks to their significant contributions to the professions and empirical research,” she said.

Two previously awarded autism personnel preparation grants from DOE are supporting 48 master’s students in Speech-Language Pathology between 2005 and 2013.

“Both grants allow the SLP concentration in Communication Disorders to attract and recruit higher-caliber students to the department, and also to enhance its national reputation,” Andrianopoulos said. “In 2008, U.S. News and World Report ranked the Speech-Language Pathology program in the Department of Communication Disorders in the top 30 graduate programs in the country. Moreover, the Special Education concentration at UMass Amherst was ranked in the top 50 programs nationally.”

The autism training grants also provide strong support for the Communication Disorders Department’s service mission, she said, by increasing and improving clinical services for people with autism in the Center for Language, Speech and Hearing. The center is an on-campus graduate teaching clinic that provides assessment and treatment services for residents of the Pioneer Valley and New England. SLP faculty and grant-related supervisors also send their practicum students to carry out graduate internships in local area schools, early intervention programs and other acute care and rehabilitation agencies. “They also contribute to community awareness and support for families with children with autism spectrum disorders,” said Andrianopoulos.

In addition, she said, the autism training grants enhance and support the research focus within the Department of Communication Disorders with respect to neurodevelopmental communication and motor speech disorders as well as literacy development in children with autism spectrum disorders. Graduate students supported by the grant carry out cutting-edge research projects and as members of the autism community, including school systems, learn about their work and volunteer to assist in the research endeavors of the five faculty members.

The team of faculty also networks and collaborates with other autism specialists in the Pioneer Valley and across the state, as well as in other countries, including Greece, Morocco, India and South Africa, said Andrianopoulos.

Sally Galman, assistant professor, Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, will present in June a lecture at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, with her research partner, Renate Kosuch, professor of psychology at University of Cologne.

Called "Developing Critical Gender Competencies in the Classroom: Deconstructing Gender and Power," Dr. Galman summarizes the lecture: “ In seeking to develop communities of critique by explicitly putting gender on the classroom agenda, we sought to reframe and collaboratively deconstruct hegemonic gender norms but found that the student effects could vary: some students reacted with resistance to the material, some internalized only the most facile constructions of gender and identity and still others - as a (paradox) result of our explicit treatment of gender and power - reify their gender stereotypes instead of overcoming them. Based on these student reactions, we seek to discuss the development of non-imperative strategies.”

The conference is called "Challenging Education" and is the first annual Nordic conference on gender.

	Front, from left: Mary Lynn Boscardin and Rebecca Gajda. Back, from left, Michael Krezmien, Margaret Pierce and Carl Lashley

Professor Mary Lynn Boscardin and assistant professor Rebecca Gajda of the School of Education have been awarded a four-year, $799,860 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to help prepare future leaders in the field of special education.

Studies carried out with the Special Education Leadership Personnel Preparation grant will provide special education administrators and policymakers with the research that can be used in the design and delivery of scientifically-supported services for students with disabilities. Assistant professors Margaret Pierce and Michael Krezmien will also be involved in the project and Carl Lashley from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro is the grant evaluator.

The grant will focus on the special education leadership knowledge and skills required to deliver effective services to students with disabilities from diverse backgrounds and create effective linkages between general and special education administration research and practice, said Boscardin. Research generated from the grant will identify effective evidence-based practices that support collaborative and data informed decision-making special education leaders will need to confront the increasingly complex demands of the field.

The grant will also focus on the interactions between federal and state policy with government agencies and the public schools.

Graduate students supported by the grant will undertake cutting-edge research projects as part of a team and will be expected to make national and international presentations as well as disseminate their work in refereed publications.

The funding will support a combination of 10 post-master’s and doctoral students in Special Education Administration from 2009-13. Some $3 million in Special Education Leadership Personnel Preparation grants received over the past 10 years have supported 35 graduate students. “These grants help attract highly sought after students to the department and also enhance the national reputation of the program,” said Boscardin.

Boscardin, Pierce and Krezmien are in the Department of Student Development and Pupil Personnel Services, while Gajda is a member of the Educational Policy, Research and Administration Department.

Ronald K. Hambleton, Distinguished University Professor and professor in the School of Education’s Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, was recently inducted as an Inaugural Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Dr. Hambleton is executive director of the School of Education’s Center for Educational Assessment which conducts research and provides training in the areas of psychometrics, research methods, and educational statistics to promote fair, useful, and efficient educational assessment practices.

He earned his B.A. degree (with Honors) in 1966 from the University of Waterloo in Canada with majors in mathematics and psychology, and an M.A. in 1968 and Ph.D. in 1969 from the University of Toronto with specialties in psychometric methods and statistics. He is a Fellow of Divisions 5 and 15 of the American Psychological Association (APA) and an active member in the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), the International Test Commission (ITC) and the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP).

The AERA Inaugural Fellows comprise AERA past presidents and scholars who had been selected to receive the AERA Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award and AERA members who had been inducted into other research organizations through 2006.

It is the AERA’s expectation that Fellows will be visibly engaged in important AERA programs and activities and that they will serve as models and mentors to the next generations of scholars in the field.

The AERA is the national interdisciplinary research association for approximately 25,000 scholars who undertake research in education. Founded in 1916 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., AERA aims to advance knowledge about education, to encourage scholarly inquiry related to education, and to promote the use of research to improve education and serve the public good.

Stephen G. Sireci, professor of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, is one of 44 scholars selected as fellows by the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

The designation honors exceptional scientific or scholarly contributions to education research or significant contributions to the field through the development of research opportunities and settings. AERA Fellows are known both nationally and internationally for their outstanding contributions to education research.

Sireci and the other new fellows will be inducted April 14 during the AERA’s annual meeting in San Diego.

A member of the faculty since 1995, Sireci is co-director of the Center for Educational Assessment.

The AERA is the national interdisciplinary research association for approximately 25,000 scholars who undertake research in education. Founded in 1916 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., AERA aims to advance knowledge about education, to encourage scholarly inquiry related to education, and to promote the use of research to improve education and serve the public good.

Critical Multicultural Analysis of Children’s Literature: Mirrors, Windows and Doors by Dr. Maria José Botelho and Dr. Masha Kabakow Rudman, both of the School of Education’s Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, Language, Literacy and Culture concentration, has been published by Routledge.

The book, which “brings a critical lens to children’s literature,” prepares teachers, teacher educators, and researchers of children’s literature to analyze the ideological dimensions of reading and studying literature.

SOE Professor Emerita Sonia Nieto says in the book’s Forward: "Children’s literature is a contested terrain, as is multicultural education. Taken together, they pose a formidable challenge to both classroom teachers and academics…. Rather than deny the inherent conflicts and tensions in the field, in Critical Multicultural Analysis of Children’s Literature: Mirrors, Windows, and Doors, Maria José Botelho and Masha Kabakow Rudman confront, deconstruct, and reconstruct these terrains by proposing a reframing of the field…. Surely all of us – children, teachers, and academics – can benefit from this more expansive understanding of what it means to read books."

Note that Dr. Botelho’s father and sister are pictured on the book’s cover. When asking her family for permission to use the photo, Dr. Botelho said she described the book to her sister this way: “Critical multicultural analysis of children's literature offers mirrors for readers to locate themselves in texts and images, as well as unveils how language use reflects power…. The open window with your young image reminds us that literature offers us vistas of how society is organized. Our house [in the Azores] and its burgundy door reminds us that the door is an entry point for social participation. The carpet of flower petals and leaves created by Papá signifies the sacredness of human life and the possibility at hand for social transformation."