LAUNCH A Publication of Purdue University’s College of Education Volume 8, Fall 2016
CONTENTS 4 Enhancing classroom learning with African-
American history, culture
This summer, faculty member Chrystal Johnson led a four-week institute on incorporating African-American history into the classroom using literature and digital humanities.
6 College receives STEM research grants College of Education faculty will study STEM learning among preservice teachers and how kindergarteners learn about scientific concepts.
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7 Coding and engineering emerge as latest
STEM teaching trends
Faculty member Selcen Guzey shares trends in STEM education.
8 Magnify program provides small-group
counseling for local students
»» p. 6
»» p. 8
Learn more about the Magnify program, which serves at-risk students in the Lafayette area.
8 Alumna honored as 2016 Purdue Old Master In November, Phoebe Bailey will visit Purdue's campus as part of the Old Masters program, a long-standing Purdue tradition that unites distinguished alumni and inspires students to embody the value of the Boilermaker experience.
9 Holmes Scholar's work
has local and global impact
»» p. 9
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Ph.D. student Ileana Cortes Santiago was named Holmes Scholar of the Month for August 2016.
11 Faculty Honors and Awards
On the cover (clockwise from top): Undergrad Afton Goins works with a student during her study abroad trip in Honduras; Associate Dean for Learning Phil VanFossen talks to new College of Education students at iTeach 2016; the 2016 Students in Education Enhancing Diversity (S.E.E.D.) executive board; Associate Dean Jim Lehman with Janet Alsup, head of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction; a 2016 Become a Teacher Day participant poses with a campus statue of John Purdue; high school students at EXCITE! Camp 2016; and a participant in the 2016 Elizabeth Hopper Walk for Literacy.
DEAN’S MESSAGE Over the summer, the academic deans were challenged to think specifically about what academic excellence means in each of their colleges. The task provided an opportunity to reflect on the very core of our mission, and the discussion provided rich examples of how the College of Education demonstrates academic excellence. Our accreditation status – granted with no areas of improvement – is a clear indicator that our teacher education programs are among the best in the country. U.S. News and World Report has ranked our graduate programs in the top 20 percent of all U.S. colleges of education for the past eight years. You’ll read in these pages about examples of how our faculty are making discoveries to improve educational practice and training our students to implement this new knowledge in their own practice. The academic excellence of a college also is reflected by its students. I am delighted to tell you that after four years of declining enrollment – a trend seen across the country – our undergraduate enrollment has increased this year. While one year does not a trend make, it is certainly movement in the right direction. That enrollment of new students increased speaks not only to the college’s excellent reputation, but to the commitment and enthusiasm our students have for their chosen profession.
S.E.E.D. – Students in Education Enhancing Diversity – is one of our student organizations. As a fundraiser, they are selling the t-shirts featured here. The message? Inspire. Engage. Teach. That’s how our students perceive their mission and they are proud to wear this shirt. With the advocacy of our students and hard work of our recruitment staff, I am confident that we will build upon this accomplishment.
Our students are enthusiastic about their field of study and passionate about their chosen profession.
Graduate enrollment continues an upward trend and has increased 43 percent over the past five years. Much of that growth is attributed to the success of our online master’s degree programs in learning design and technology and special education. The percentage of student credit hours attained through online courses in
the College of Education is among the highest on campus. We are able to provide rigorous, high-quality curriculum for students all across the country. Perhaps the strongest affirmation of our excellent students is the demand from employers. 93.8 percent of our 2015 graduates reported being employed or continuing their education. School districts from Indiana and beyond attended our spring job fair. A recruiter from Texas said, “Purdue is a wonderful university. The College of Education is top-notch and its students are very well-prepared. We try to recruit the best teachers, and that’s why we’re here.” A local school administrator commented, “The quality of the candidates was outstanding. Well done, Purdue College of Education!” Our commitment to academic excellence coupled with success of our students and their passion for their profession are reasons why I can say with confidence that the College of Education at Purdue will continue to increase the number of students pursuing education as a career and changing the culture of education nationally. Hail Purdue!
Maryann Santos Dean
Take a look at our new website!
Launched this summer, our new website is designed to showcase the strength of Purdue's College of Education. The result of a year's worth of research, this fresh, vibrant new website will help people outside the college understand who we are. Mobile-responsive and organized with our audiences in mind, the new site reflects who we are and what we can do for our students, faculty, staff, alumni and other stakeholders.
www.education.purdue.edu
Our dynamic new website is designed to attract new students, faculty, and staff to the College of Education.
Enhancing classroom learning with African-American history, culture by Kathy Mayer
Associate Professor Chrystal Johnson was co-director of "From Plessy to Brown: The African American Freedom Struggle in the Twentieth Century," a four-week institute that brought twenty high school teachers to Purdue to learn about incorporating AfricanAmerican history into their classrooms.
Twenty teachers from 11 states arrived at Purdue University in July, eager to learn new ways to bring more African-American history and culture to their classrooms. After a month of presentations, reading, films, field trips and technology training, they headed home energized and ready to implement dynamic lesson plans for the fall. “We learned content, pedagogy and technology, and we could see all the pieces come together,” says Yvonne Anderson, an eighth grade social studies teacher at Cooper Middle School in Austell, Georgia, who participated in “From Plessy to Brown: The African American Freedom Struggle in the Twentieth Century.”
Six Decades of History
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The 1896 U.S. Supreme Court ruling—Homer A. Plessy v. John H. Ferguson—allowed racial segregation under “separate but equal” conditions. It was overruled in 1954 by Brown v. Board of Education, which brought integration to public schools.
The summer institute began with a week exploring the progressive era, social reform and African-American history from 1895 to 1920, then a week on African-American arts, letters and activism in the 1920s and into 1930s. The third week covered economic decline, recovery from the Great
By exploring topics like the early social activism of Black institutions, African-American migration to cities, and the influence and impact of AfricanAmerican writers and arts on civil rights organizing, teachers can make African-American history and culture more accessible to their students. Neil Bynum Co-Director, "From Plessy to Brown"
Depression and World War II, with the final week taking the history lessons to the 1960s. Associate Professor Chrystal Johnson and Neil Bynum, associate professor of history, spent a year planning and preparing for the summer institute, which was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. “We met every Friday,” Johnson says.
Tapping Technology
Incorporating technology to meet the learning styles of today’s students, use the expanded availability of information and combine media was paramount, says Johnson. She demonstrated how to use geospatial information systems to present spatial and geographic data. “We blended the content with digital mapping to show migration patterns, what northern cities they went to and lynching sites,” she says. “Teachers left with a unit overview that many are continuing to work on.”
Multi-Disciplinary, Intensive Study
Yvonne Anderson of Austell, Ga., listens as Chrystal Johnson lectures during the "From Plessy to Brown" summer institute.
A hefty syllabus packed their days, with themed presentations by Johnson, Bynum and guest professors. Films and music were incorporated, as well as field trips— to Chicago’s DuSable Museum of African American History and Louisville’s Muhammad Ali Center. An extensive reading list included The Red Record by Ida B. WellsBarnett, The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Typewriter” by Dorothy West from Double-Take: A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology, “The Gilded Six Bits” by Zora Neale Hurston and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, among others. “By exploring topics like the early social activism of Black institutions, African-American migration to cities, and the influence and impact of African-American writers and arts on civil rights organizing, teachers can make African-American history and culture more accessible to their students,” Bynum says. “When I arrived at Purdue, there were things I thought I knew,” Anderson says. “When I stepped away from those four weeks, there were things I definitely knew.”
The institute also emphasized using backward design in lesson planning, which first outlines the unit’s goals, then identifies how the learning will be assessed, and, finally, choice of appropriate instructional materials to achieve the goals.
Feedback, Evaluations to Follow
In the coming year, Johnson will visit participants’ classrooms to see unit plans that have been developed and how K-12 students respond to them. In Austell, Georgia, Yvonne Anderson will be ready. “The depth and breadth of information and resources we came away with were intense,” she says. “I feel empowered and equipped to implement what I learned. I’m rolling with it.”
Johnson’s research wide-ranging
When it comes to social studies education and African-American history, Chrystal Johnson researches numerous key topics. Among her studies, publications and presentations are culturally relevant character education, moral development and civic engagement. Recently she has focused on Black youth activism and bridging cultural gulfs. In a study of Black youth ages 12 to 15, Johnson found that youth with high racial identity expressed higher levels of civic engagement in their communities. More important, these youth recognized that solutions to community problems were solved by community members rather than government officials (local, state, or federal). Looking at cultural gulfs—differences in norms, values, beliefs and practices by distinct groups, she believes marginalized youth must find their voices within their schools and communities, and combine academic learning and civic engagement to achieve individual and community successes.
Twenty teachers came to Purdue this summer for the "From Plessy to Brown" summer institute.
Raised in Stuarts Draft, Va., Johnson completed her undergraduate studies at Howard University and graduate work at the University of Virginia. She joined the Purdue faculty in 2005.
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College receives $2 million to study STEM teacher education Jimmy Minogue, Jessica Schenkel (BA '13) and Arielle Mucha (BA '12) are the SLED Teacher Leaders for Klondike Elementary in Lafayette.
SLED program challenges 5,000 students statewide The Science Learning Through Engineering Design (SLED) program, intended to help teachers incorporate principles of engineering design into their classrooms, began in 2010. Initially funded by a seven-year, $6.7 million grant, the program has now impacted more than 32 schools, 300 teachers, 125 preservice teachers and 5,000 students. As a result of the program, Lafayette Sunnyside Intermediate School has been recognized as one of Indiana's STEM Certified Schools. The program has entered a no-cost extension that allows SLED researchers to disseminate their research at additional school corporations and districts throughout Indiana. “The no-cost extension also allows us to help our master teachers become leaders,” said Brenda Capobianco, co-primary investigator of the SLED project. “This summer, we rolled out a SLED Teacher Leader Academy that allows teachers who have been in the program for multiple years to become teacher leaders for their schools or school corporations.”
What college learning experiences create great future STEM teachers? That's what Brenda Capobianco and a team of Purdue faculty members are asking in a new project funded by a $2 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. The project is called UPDATE ("Using Principles of Design to Advance Teacher Education"). Capobianco is the primary investigator on the grant. Co-primary investigators from the College of Education are faculty members David Eichinger, Selcen Guzey, Sanjay Rebello and Minjung Ryu. Faculty from the colleges of Education, Engineering and Science will work directly with 240 undergraduate students studying elementary education over five years to broaden the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) learning landscape by integrating
Our findings will help faculty understand how preservice elementary teachers learn STEM concepts and devise creative new ways to integrate these principles into their teaching. Brenda Capobianco Principal Investigator Professor of Science Education
engineering design principles across five required undergraduate science courses. The intent is to establish a new generation of Brenda Capobianco is high-quality, the principal investigator exemplary of UPDATE, a $2 million grant from the National elementary Science Foundation. STEM educators while redesigning an existing elementary science teacher preparation model. UPDATE will build upon the success of the SLED program (see sidebar). “Little is known about how STEM faculty bridge their ideas and instructional expertise to create a new model for elementary science teacher preparation. That’s what makes this project important,” Capobianco said. “Our findings will help science and education faculty understand how preservice elementary teachers learn STEM concepts and devise creative new ways to integrate these principles and practices into their teaching.” “The College of Education is proud to lead this transformative project,” said Dean Maryann Santos. “Because it focuses on creating better teachers, the project will ultimately advance STEM learning among K-6 students.”
Teacher leaders provide professional development for teachers at their designated schools, introducing other teachers to the notion of engineering design and encouraging them to implement design tasks. Learn more about the SLED program and find classroom activities and lesson plans: https://stemedhub.org/groups/sled.
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A group of talented Purdue faculty are partnering on the UPDATE grant.
College of Education faculty partner on $2.64 million grant “Sensing Science through Modeling: Developing Kindergarten Students' Understanding of Matter and Its Changes” is a $2.64 million grant awarded to Professors Lynn Bryan and Ala Samarapungavan in partnership with Concord Consortium (principal investigator). Bryan will serve as principal investigator for the Purdue portion of the grant. Purdue is directly responsible for $875,000 of the $2.64 million grant. The project team will explore young children’s learning of physical science concepts involving matter and its changes in the context of modelcentered, inquiry-based instruction that involves the use of dynamic technology-based visualizations. They will investigate how kindergarteners understand and use models to explain scientific concepts including states of matter and phase changes (i.e., melting, freezing, evaporating and condensing).
Lynn Bryan and Ala Samarapungavan were recently awarded a grant in partnership with Concord Consortium.
"Addressing fundamental science content very early in students’ learning holds the potential to provide a strong foundation for future science learning. Specifically, we believe that when students build an understanding of particulate models through inquiry-based explorations of the states of matter, they will have a stronger conceptual foundation for understanding and modeling other physical phenomena such as heat,
temperature, and sound later in their science education" said Bryan. This project builds upon work done in Modeling in Primary Grades (MPG): Science Learning through Content-Rich Inquiry, a project by Samarapungavan and Bryan that was funded by the National Science Foundation from 2012 to 2016. The new project will lead to researchbased curriculum for early science instruction. Researchers will develop measures of young children’s conceptual understanding of key physical science concepts, as well as their understanding of models and modeling. Researchers will pilot this curriculum with more than 300 students at four sites in Indiana and four sites in Massachusetts and investigate associated student learning. Partner schools serve demographically diverse students, and this project will increase the access kindergarten students have to high-quality instruction in the physical sciences. "There is a strong need for compelling science learning in the early grades," said Maryann Santos, dean of the College of Education. "The approaches used in this project could affect countless students nationally, providing a solid basis for learning to students across the elementary years."
This project could affect countless students nationally, providing a solid basis for learning to students across the elementary years. Maryann Santos Dean College of Education
Coding and engineering emerge as latest STEM teaching trends Assistant Professor Selcen Guzey says that the biggest trends in STEM education today are teaching computer coding in K-12 classrooms and integrating engineering into science education.
Assistant Professor Selcen Guzey
"The whole idea is helping students to learn computational thinking and problemsolving," she said.
Guzey said both trends are a result of changing education standards. Computer science and engineering education are now both in national and state standards. The Indiana Department of Education developed new science education standards that were adopted in April 2016, and all Indiana K-12 science teachers have been asked to start using the new standards in Fall 2017. Guzey said that learning about engineering teaches students a valuable lesson about dealing with failure. "For many students, when the first design doesn't work, they shut down and don't want to work anymore," Guzey said. "You have to explain that it's good that the first design didn't work, because now the student can improve it. Experiencing failure can really help them." Computer coding is becoming part of the curriculum for students in kindergarten. From drag and drop coding apps to writing programs at a basic level in later grades, the idea is to expand students' view of technology.
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Magnify program offers small-group counseling for local youth Helping others has been a theme in Purdue alumni Anne and Bill Goldstein's lives. Anne and Bill have volunteered with The Night Ministry, a Chicago organization that provides social services, medical treatment, meals and shelter for homeless youth. Anne (BS '62) also has volunteered with the Evanston Shelter for Battered Women and the National Runaway Switchboard.
Bowers is now the program's director. Currently offered at Lafayette's Oakland High School, Magnify is also available to schools across Lafayette on an asneeded basis. "We work with guidance counselors to identify at-risk students," said Bowers. "The program offers a smallgroup counseling atmosphere that helps participants feel connected to their classmates and see what's possible for them.” Bowers said that many of the students have lived near Purdue for their whole lives, but have never visited campus. Magnify allows them to visit a major university and see that it's within their reach.
Purdue alumni Anne and Bill Goldstein support the College of Education's Magnify program.
It is no surprise that they support Magnify, a College of Education program that provides small-group counseling for area teens. Magnify was created more than ten years ago by Jean Peterson, professor emerita. Assistant Professor Hannah
Magnify is a service-learning experience for graduate students in school counseling and counseling psychology. Graduate students facilitate the small groups and develop their skills as counselors. "The counseling experience creates an opportunity for participants to grow together when they realize that their peers are dealing with similar issues," Bowers said.
The Goldsteins have chosen to support the Magnify program because it appeals to their sense of helping others. “Magnify lets students socialize, grow and learn,” Anne said. “The program provides for their critical needs that aren’t being met at home or anywhere else – that’s why I think Magnify is so important.” “Helping other people has always been my reward, because I always had help and a sense of connection at home and at school,” Anne said. “I always had food, shelter and a caring family. That's the core of it for me. Because I have always been so fortunate, I want to give back to others.”
College of Education undergrad Jasmine Hawthorne gives a campus tour during Magnify 2016.
Alumna honored as 2016 Purdue Old Master
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Phoebe Lydia Bailey (MS ‘72 COE; PhD ’79, CLA) has been named one of Purdue’s 2016 Old Masters. Old Masters is Phoebe Bailey will be a long-standing part of Purdue's Old Purdue tradition Masters program. that unites distinguished alumni and inspires students to embody the value of the Boilermaker experience.
In August, Phoebe retired from the Boys
and Girls Clubs of America, where she served as National Director of Educational Foundations and Academic Innovations. Phoebe spent 35 years as an English teacher and five years as a high school administrator. She was recognized by DeKalb County School System as Teacher of the Year and by Spelman College with the Apple Award for outstanding service in education. Phoebe served as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council for the College of Education from 2004-2009. Her active participation in the Dean’s Advisory Council lent a valuable
perspective for diversity initiatives, focusing on student scholarships and programs for underrepresented or first-generation college students to gain access and achieve. Phoebe was vital in establishing the criteria for the Dean’s Advisory Council Scholarship, which provides full in-state tuition to an undergraduate student. The founder and chief executive officer of Vision in Action USA, Phoebe describes the context of her work as a life devoted to “a world where excellence in education is grounded in the joy of discovery.”
Holmes Scholar's work has local and global impact Doctoral student Ileana Cortes Santiago shares the College of Education's passion for social justice and diversity.
Originally from Puerto Rico, Cortes Santiago is a doctoral student in literacy and language and a recipient of Purdue’s prestigious Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship. Ileana's dissertation focuses on educators' and Latino/Latina families' communitybased initiatives. In August, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) named Ileana the Holmes Scholar of the Month. The Holmes Scholars program supports doctoral students from underrepresented backgrounds who are pursuing careers in education. Ph.D. student Ileana Cortes Santiago was named AACTE Holmes Scholar of the Month in August.
Creating Connection
"El mundo es tan pequeño,” she says. “The world, it's small. And so is Purdue: it’s a large university, but once you begin meeting people, you have an amazing network that leads you to more and more opportunities.
I’ve found that if you're working with people who you trust, and who are invested in the cause, it just works out.” Ileana incorporates the people she knows in her projects as frequently as she can. She is always thinking about who might benefit from being a part of the project – from other academics, to the Girl Scouts in the troop she volunteers with, to the families she works with. Ileana says that her best connections have come from other graduate students she has met at Purdue.
Community Engagement
Cortes Santiago is engaged throughout the Lafayette community. She works with the social media group Latino Family Network of Lafayette. She said, "Working with families has been such an enriching and rewarding experience. I'm not sure if I can do anything but that for the rest of my life." Her engagement work also extends internationally. In May, she spent three weeks in Nigeria volunteering and collaborating with a colleague and friend, Genevieve Aglazor (Ph.D. '12). They developed a comprehensive educational program for teachers, secondary students, and families and co-led a roundtable discussion on gender and leadership.
Recent Publications
Ileana Cortes Santiago poses with students at Foresight Schools in Nigeria.
In May, she published a chapter in Recontextualized, a book about incorporating music in the language arts classroom. Her chapter is about how teachers can use music to incorporate social justice and multiculturalism into the classroom, while also facilitating English language learners to participate more actively. A recent article in Gender and Education, co-authored with fellow graduate students Nastaran Karimi and Zaira Arvelo Alicea (PhD '15), is about the challenges that women of color face while teaching in predominantly white institutions.
Professor says printed books are here to stay A variety of books can be found online, turning tablets into the younger generation's version of a library. But Melanie Kuhn, the College of Education's Jean Adamson Stanley professor in literacy, Melanie Kuhn is the Jean Adamson says that reading Stanley Professor electronically may in Literacy. not be the best for comprehension. She cites two recent studies, one in Europe and another in the US, that suggest that reading on paper offers advantages over digital reading. “At the most basic level, comprehension is better when you’re reading actual books or reading via paper,” Kuhn says. “I think we’re generally more distracted the way we read online, perhaps reading one thing and then clicking onto something else.” Kuhn says that many of the undergraduates she teaches prefer books over electronic texts, even though they've grown up with a range of technology at their disposal. She explains that books allow them to hold something with a spine, smell the pages, and even enjoy the bookstore experience of browsing titles by subject matter. "I don't think traditional reading sources are going to be replaced any time in the near future," she says. "Whenever a new technology platform comes along, someone declares books dead. That’s simply not true. They survived the radio and television. You can’t game with the rest of the world through a book, but you can find yourself in a different world through a book.”
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REED WINS INAUGURAL STAFF ENGAGEMENT AWARD
Dorothy Reed, assistant dean for engagement, has won the inaugural Staff Engagement Award from Purdue’s Office of Engagement. This award honors a staff member whose scholarship and community partnerships have had a positive impact beyond campus. Reed's portfolio of engagement activities includes work with Food Finders Food Bank and the Community Schools of Frankfort.
Wilella Burgess is managing director of Purdue's Discovery Learning Research Center (DLRC), which will join the College of Education later this year.
Discovery Learning Research Center's research and evaluation team to join College of Education In January 2017, the research and evaluation team from the Discovery Learning Research Center (DLRC) will join Purdue's College of Education. The center will be led by Jim Lehman, associate dean for research and faculty development, and Wilella Burgess, managing director. The team conducts original research and supports research and engagement projects through their expertise in educational theory, program evaluation and project management. Known by federal agencies for conducting rigorous research and evaluation, this team collaborates with faculty in all colleges across campus to develop effective proposals and improve projects. They have worked with more than 125 Purdue faculty partners in the past year. The move will foster closer collaborations within the College of Education, expand the center's pool of education research and evaluation expertise and enable enhanced graduate training opportunities. “Scholarship driven by this team propels Purdue into the national conversation surrounding evidence-based education reform," said Maryann Santos, dean of the College of Education. “This move will allow the college to recommit to being a leader in educational assessment.”
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NEW DEPARTMENT HEAD Janet Alsup
Department Head, Curriculum and Instruction Janet Alsup, professor of English education, became head of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction on July 1.
ASSOCIATE DEAN CHANGES Phil VanFossen
Interim Associate Dean for Learning Professor Phil VanFossen assumed the role of interim associate dean for learning in August. Prior to this role, Phil served as head of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction for six years.
Carla Johnson
Associate Dean for Engagement and Global Partnerships Carla Johnson has transitioned to the role of Associate Dean for Engagement and Global Partnerships. This half-time appointment will allow her to focus on managing a growing portfolio of funded projects and engagement initiatives, which includes the $5.25 million Army Education Outreach Program (AEOP) grant, the STEM Road Map and the Indiana STEM Education conference.
Jim Lehman
Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development Jim Lehman has assumed the role of Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development. He is returning to a fulltime position within the college after spending a year directing the Discovery Learning Research Center. The center is closing in December 2016, and its nationally recognized research and evaluation team will then join the College of Education (see sidebar).
NEW FACULTY
We welcome these new faculty members to the College of Education.
Theodore Bartholomew Assistant Professor Counseling Psychology
Brenda Downing Continuing Lecturer Educational Psychology
Nancy Davis Visiting Faculty School Counseling
Brittany Gundel Clinical Assistant Professor Counseling Psychology
Angela Holtsclaw Clinical Instructor Special Education
Shea Kerkhoff Visiting Faculty English Education
Kristen Seward Clinical Assistant Professor Gifted Education
Christy Wessel Powell Visiting Faculty Literacy and Language
AWARDS AND HONORS Rachael Kenney Associate Professor Rachael Kenney has been selected as a fellow of the Purdue University Teaching Academy. The Teaching Academy strives to bring together Purdue's best teaching faculty to create a collective voice for teaching and learning on campus. Melanie Kuhn Melanie Kuhn, the college's Jean Adamson Stanley Professor in Literacy, has been invited to serve on the Literacy Research Panel of the International Research Panel for a three-year appointment. Trish Morita-Mullaney Assistant Professor Trish Morita-Mullaney was recognized as one of TESOL’s 30 Up and Coming, which recognizes emerging leaders in research, teaching, publishing and leadership in the field of English language teaching. Nielsen Pereira and Enyi Jen Assistant Professor Nielsen Pereira and Postdoctoral Researcher Enyi Jen received Mensa 2016 Awards for Excellence in Research. Their work features high-potential underrepresented and international populations and STEM. Alberto Rodriguez Alberto Rodriguez, Mary Endres Chair of Elementary Teacher Education, is vice-chair of the Purdue University Faculty Senate, the governing body of Purdue's faculty. He will be chair next year. Maryann Santos Maryann Santos, dean of the College of Education, was elected to the Executive Committee of the Consortium of University and Research Institutions (CURI), an integral part of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). CURI is comprised of schools and colleges of education and research institutions committed to producing knowledge about education and fostering the expertise of the next generation of education scientists and scholars. She is also the chair of the United Way of Greater Lafayette’s 2016 Community Campaign. Carol Werhan Carol Werhan, assistant clinical professor of family and consumer science, is one of five finalists for the title of Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) Postsecondary Teacher of the Year. The national winner will be announced at the ACTE Awards Banquet on November 30.
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Non-Profit Organization US Postage PAID Purdue University Beering Hall of Liberal Arts and Education 100 N. University Street West Lafayette, IN 47907 education.purdue.edu
Bill Watson: Parents, give video games a chance reprinted from the Journal and Courier
Looking back at the 1980s, faculty member Bill Watson thinks fondly of educational games like "Oregon Trail" and "Math Blaster," but he said there are better options for today's youth. Games like "Minecraft" have had a wave of popularity among today's pop culture, and Watson said parents should be happy about that. "'Minecraft' is a great game because while playing, you are able to build and create, but there is problem-solving that goes into it," he said. Watson said games that require strategy, thinking and reflection are the best options compared to “twitch” games in which players essentially “run over to something and blast it.” Watson also said that in today's "maker generation," it is easier for kids more than ever before to create their own video games. He cited the American Pediatric Association’s standard of two hours of screen time or less for children and said that stressed parents should make efficient use of the time.
Associate Professor Bill Watson is the director of Purdue's Center for Serious Games and Learning in Virtual Environments.
“If you’re giving them screen time, it would be highly, highly engaging to create something,” Watson said. “So why not have the screen time devoted to educational purposes?”
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