Launch - Spring 2014

EDUCATION.PURDUE.EDU

LAUNCHING THE FUTURE IN EDUCATION

VOL. 4 , Spring 2014

STEM Road Map Charts a New Destination in US Education “Rarely do life’s challenges present themselves as multiple-choice questions,” says Carla C. Johnson, professor of science education and associate director, Center for Advancing the Teaching and Learning of STEM (CATALYST).

However, the reality in schools today is that content standards drive instruction. Across the US, teachers are being asked to implement new curriculum, standards, and strategies without the time, support, and resources to be successful.

That’s why Johnson is leading a new College of Education initiative to map the standards to an integrated STEM–based curriculum. The STEM Road Map will provide teachers with the critical tools needed to implement STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) within a climate of standards-based accountability.

Developed for grades K-12, this guide will include a mapping or sequencing of standards, as well as themes that can be included as anchors for integrated STEM. It will merge scientific inquiry, technological design, engineering design, and mathematical analysis, while purposefully making connections with language arts, social studies and 21st Century skills. Learning will be student-centered with a focus on collaboration in groups to address problems through critical thinking, and crossdisciplinary application—to align with the needs of the global economy.

The STEM Road Map will help teachers find ways to introduce STEM across grade levels and find overlapping points within the K-12 curriculum. There are plans underway to develop curriculum modules that align with the STEM Road Map for grades K-12 around five themes that will drive instruction through the use of problem- and project-based learning.

STEM Road Map collaborators from Purdue include (L to R) Tamara Moore (co-author) and Carla C. Johnson (editor, co-author). Erin Peters Burton (editor, co-author) is from George Mason University and Catherine Koehler (co-author) from Southern Connecticut State University.

The STEM Road Map specifically integrates themes from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), Common Core Mathematics and English/Language Arts Standards and the Framework for 21st Century Learning for each grade level.

As an example, the “Rollercoaster Challenge” asks fifth-grade students to create a prototype of a new rollercoaster. Students work collaboratively over several weeks to research existing rides, apply mathematical analysis, use engineering and technological design to create a blue print, and then build a small-scale model using readily available materials. In addition, they will develop a marketing plan using entrepreneurial and language arts skills and record an infomercial using language arts, visual arts, and communication skills to explain their model.

A network of STEM schools across the nation will help design, develop, and implement the STEM Road Map. Teachers, policymakers, and business/industry stakeholders, as well as disciplinary experts will be involved in the development of the framework.

The STEM Road Map is scheduled for national distribution in 2015. It is an initiative of CATALYST, a center jointly administered by the Colleges of Education and Science at Purdue.

Editors of the STEM Road Map are Johnson, with Lynn Bryan (see p. 6) of the College of Education, and Erin Peters-Burton, associate professor at George Mason University.

“The initiative can be game changing,” says Johnson. “The STEM Road Map will be a tool with the potential to transform the teaching and learning of science and mathematics education on a national level.”

From the Dean Tablets, smart phones, apps and the Internet make vast amounts of knowledge available at one’s fingertips, and have transformed the skills needed to be successful citizens in the 21st Century.

The core skills of the Industrial Age—memory and processing—have taken a back seat to skills where humans outperform computers—imagination, communication, teamwork, and problem solving.

The greatest challenge facing education is adapting a system developed for the Industrial Age into one compatible with the Information Age. That is recognized nationally in the repeated call for “more STEM education.”

We believe we are really hearing a call for systemic educational change. That is, adapting how and what we teach to make it relevant today.

Purdue’s College of Education is responding by exploring integrated STEM education. It is NOT just about including more STEM subjects in a student’s curriculum. It is about blending content areas and creating a rigorous and effective learning experience. In an integrated STEM classroom, subjects are taught within a context of real-world, collaborative applications where knowledge from multiple subjects is required to complete projects, helping students become both STEM confident and STEM competent.

Here at the College of Education we are making great strides both in researching and testing new educational ideas and applying those with the most promise to our teacher education programs. We are sharing that information with colleagues on campus, with our partnership schools in the local community and across the nation.

This issue of Launch highlights some of the work we are doing to improve the educational process for all students by transforming how teachers teach and how students learn.

Hail Purdue!

Maryann Santos de Barona Dean of the College of Education

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Looking for Positive Results with Negative Numbers

by Amanda Hamon, Purdue Today Laura Bofferding, assistant professor of mathematics education, is on a quest to understand how young children learn mathematics—and how those insights might lead to more effective ways to teach.

Bofferding is looking at whether introducing children to negative numbers at a young age helps them better understand complicated mathematical concepts later in their education. She recently received a 2013-14 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship to support research on that topic. Here she responds to questions from Purdue Today correspondent Amanda Hamon: What are the fellowship’s details?

The fellowship supports academics who are doing significant, education-related research. Hundreds usually apply for this national award, and this year only 20 recipients were selected. It will release me from some of my teaching duties during the next two years, allowing me to focus on this time-intensive research. I’ll use that time to expand upon prior research on the benefits of playing linear board games for learning early mathematics concepts.

In this study, I am engaging children in a simple board game that requires them to count from –10 to 10. The idea is that young children are not normally exposed to negative numbers because that

concept is often considered too difficult. However, I’ll look at whether children who play the game improve their understanding of integer order, values, and operations compared to children who do control activities involving numbers.

What do you hope to learn from this study?

If the negative-numbers game does help children Laura Bofferding (Purdue University photo/Mark Simons) understand the order and values of negative numbers, hopefully it will help them develop a more robust understanding of number relationships, and addition and subtraction, and help them get a head start on learning more complicated mathematics concepts later down the road. Little is known about what specific experiences can help younger students start to make sense of these concepts, and this study is a step in that direction. So far my graduate student and I have collected data from 50 first graders and next year we will work with 50 kindergarteners from the local area. We are just starting to analyze our current data, and the results look promising.

Why did you decide to study the pedagogy of primary math?

Before I came to Purdue, I was a first-grade teacher in Las Vegas.

That job made me realize that there was a lot about the development of students’ mathematical understanding that I did not know. So much about teaching involves understanding how students learn, so I decided I wanted to go to graduate school to pursue those questions. I ended up receiving a master’s and PhD from Stanford, and then I came to Purdue.

What classes do you teach now?

I’m teaching a course for undergraduates called Mathematics in the Elementary School, which is a mathematics methods course for students training to become elementary teachers.

Our students take the course right before student teaching, so we try to involve elements that will help them with that part of their education.

Specifically, the undergraduates in the class participate in a pen-pal program that involves second- through fourth-grade students at a local elementary school. The undergraduates pose a mathematics problem via a letter to the students, the students answer the mathematics problem and then the undergraduates analyze the answers. This process continues until the undergraduates have posed several mathematics problems to the students. At the end of the class, the undergraduates provide the teachers with a report.

This program is helpful for our students because they’re able to work one-on-one with a student. It’s also helpful for the elementary students because they’re able to engage with our students and with mathematics in a different way. It’s a win-win for everyone.

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COLLEGE OF EDUCATION • EDUCATION.PURDUE.EDU

Undergraduate Research — Student Perspectives Research is often seen as the purview of graduate school, however undergraduates in the College of Education get an opportunity to work side by side with professors and graduate students through the URT (undergraduate research training) program taught by Youli Mantzicopoulos, professor of educational psychology. A two-semester course, it focuses on research methods to use when studying human behavior. Student selection is competitive based on academic achievement and interest in educational research. Open to any major, URT students provide smart, helpful assistance to ongoing research projects in the College of Education, while giving students a unique perspective on how scholars discover knowledge, process results, and interpret data.

Samara Reiter is a sophomore elementary education major from Fort Wayne, Indiana. “I have always wanted to be an elementary school teacher. Getting involved in Professor Bofferding’s (see p. 2) research on whether young children can comprehend negative numbers has given me a new perspective on how children’s minds work and how they learn.

I’ve also learned how experiments are structured, how important it is to collect good data as well as gained experience collecting data. There is a lot of cross-checking!” she said. “As a future teacher, I hope to keep up with advances in educational research.”

A sophomore mathematics education major from Carmel, Indiana, Jenna Beckley is working on an National Science Foundation funded research study on the teaching of algebra with Jill Newton an assistant professor of mathematics education. “There are several questions the research is trying to answer. One has to do with equity—algebra is considered a stepping stone to college and some students are tracked to learn algebra early, others never learn algebra. Some ESL (English as a second language) students are left behind and don’t learn algebra in school at all … yet language should not be a stumbling block. Another has to do with modeling standards from the Common Core. Also, we are looking at how people learn algebra and learn to teach algebra as pre-service teachers. The research has really opened my mind to how important algebra is to a young person’s future. Also, by listening to and analyzing interviews from case studies, it has helped me see how individuals teach and learn algebra differently. This experience will definitely make me a better teacher,” she explained.

A sophomore elementary education and special education major from Lindenhurst, Illinois, Lexie Costa, worked with Yan Ping Xin, an associate professor of special education, on “Nurturing Multiplicative Reasoning in Students with Learning Disabilities.“ The purpose of this research project was to develop a computerized intelligent-tutor system for students with learning difficulties in math in order to help eliminate the learning gap between individuals with intellectual disabilities and normally achieving students. “I was able to learn how a computer program is developed and how I can integrate technology into my future classroom. This research project was extremely rewarding and I am incredibly thankful for having been given this opportunity as a DeVito Scholar.” (See sidebar) Kasey Kaisershot, an elementary education major from Normal, Illinois who is also a DeVito Scholar, described her experience on a project to collect and categorize personal narratives of grief, “I was fortunate to work with Heather Servaty-Seib, associate professor of counseling and development, to organize personal narratives written by people who experienced a loss in their family while in college. The goal was to arrange the collection into a book so that, when published, readers could better understand grief and know they are not alone. We hope it will help the readers heal by discovering healthy ways to work with their grief based on others’ experiences. Through working on this project, I have gained insight into what grief is and how people respond to it. I admit that I cried several times while reading these touching narratives, but it has helped me become more sensitive to the idea that grief does not have a timeline and that everyone heals at different times and in different ways. This better understanding of grief will be very helpful to me when I am a teacher so that I can help my students. But perhaps the most important thing I learned through this project was to not take my friends, family, and loved ones for granted and to show them I appreciate them, because my time with them is short. I feel very blessed to have had this experience so early in my college career.”

Alfred DeVito, Professor of Science Education Earth science educator Alfred DeVito was fond of starting a class or a conversation with a pithy quote. Some were from a famous thinker. Some he made up. Some were adapted from other quotes, like: You can’t have your paradise and pollute it too. No wonder hundreds of students loved his classes.

DeVito passed away in January at the age of 91 and his presence here at the college would be dearly missed, if it wasn’t for the fact that he left traces of his genius everywhere.

Janet Robinson is advisor to the DeVito Scholar program and when she talks about her friend and mentor, she starts by showing her necklace, a bracelet, some abstract paintings on her office walls … all original creations by Alfred DeVito. His books are on her shelves and many are available in the college resource center.

As an education professor, DeVito won numerous awards for creative and effective teaching including the National Bronze Medal for Professor of the Year award given by the Carnegie Foundation Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

He retired from teaching in 1988.

But perhaps the most important legacies Alfred DeVito left behind are the dozens of science teachers who are still active in the profession and the scholarship program named in his honor. Each year a cadre of high-achieving, first-year education students are selected as DeVito Scholars. In addition to a scholarship they participate in a weekly seminar that emphasizes educational research. In their second semester, they are offered an opportunity to be paired with a College of Education professor as an undergraduate research assistant (see p. 4). At the end of each year, the DeVito Scholars make research presentations. Until last year, their audience included DeVito himself listening intently and ready with a question or helpful comment. Now his legacy will live on in their work as teachers and scholars.

If you were one of the thousands of students and colleagues influenced by Alfred DeVito and would like to share a memory, we welcome you to post it on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ CollegeofEducationPurdue

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Making Educational Change Happen at the University Level Since Purdue has been training teachers since 1908, it is understandable that people think about the College of Education in terms of exemplary teacher preparation. Yet the field of educational studies and the research our faculty members have done—and are doing—addresses learning at all ages and grade levels. That is why you will find faculty in the College of Education collaborating on major projects across the Purdue campus that are designed to make learning at the university level as effective and relevant as possible.

New research on how people learn best, what motivates students to learn, and how group dynamics can benefit learning have come at a time when the availability of new media, serious game technology, and one-to-one technology has made student-centered learning and projectbased learning more accessible than ever before.

Two projects outlined in Purdue President Mitch Daniels’ top priorities for the university are benefitting from the expertise of faculty members in the College of Education. The Purdue Polytechnic Initiative (PPI) and the IMPACT program are both focused on transforming the classroom experience of Purdue students and both projects are examples of how the impact of Education faculty is felt throughout the campus community.

Purdue Polytechnic — A New Model for Higher Ed The new Purdue Polytechnic Initiative in the College of Technology is proving to be a research dream-come-true for College of Education faculty member Marisa Exter, assistant professor of learning design and technology. Exeter is one of 16 cross-disciplinary Pioneer Faculty Fellows who are exploring a completely new curriculum for students interested in technology careers.

“This is an amazing opportunity to explore the kinds of approaches that educational research has been recommending for years but are often difficult to put into place, especially beyond the singlecourse level,” Exter explained.

“PPI will recreate what working on projects is like outside the gates of academia,” says Exter. “Students must work in cross-disciplinary teams, come up with new ideas, communicate with teammates and clients, and actually develop their ideas into real-world projects, with faculty acting as coaches and mentors. To do this, they will need to develop life-long learning skills like autonomy and interpersonal communication so that they can discover what they need to succeed and make things happen— just like professionals do in the workplace.”

The goal of the Purdue Polytechnic Initiative is to radically reform the college by taking a state-of-the-art approach to how learning occurs. The students will be engaged in a combination of student-driven, The approach to undergraduate education in “PPI will give students all the problem-based learning experiences and the PPI will focus on helping students learn autonomy they can handle and rich engagement with real-world topics. by doing. They will be doing many things: Rather than compartmentalizing learning encourage them to focus on their projects, research, collaboration, taking by subject area, learning will occur as own passions as they create their risks and even, occasionally, failing. “We will students attempt to answer open-ended provide them with a safe environment to deindividualized pathway questions that require multiple diciplines velop their skills. PPI will give students all the to a degree.” and collaboration with others who have autonomy they can handle and encourage different skills and perspectives than their own. Everything they them to focus on their own passions as they create their individuallearn will be learned in context, integrated, and applied to a ized pathways to a degree,” she continued. problem. It is expected that this approach will more fully challenge students to think convergently, develop independence, and flex Exter has been asked to take the lead on developing an assessment their creativity. Before graduation plan for the program. Her team will attempt to answer the basic students will have practiced the full questions: Is this working? What are the students learning? How cycle of innovation and entreprecan it be improved? neurship several times over.

“Ideally, we will continue to iterate on the design, learning from Exter was drawn to the initiative the students as we go,” said Exter. “What we do the first year might because of her own research that not be sustainable at a larger scale, but I think we will learn a lot included surveying IT professionals and continuously improve the program.” to find out what they would consider “the ideal college education” for If the Polytechnic curriculum is successful, this curriculum will be someone in their field. Now Exter adopted in the College of Technology and may be considered by can put that research into action. other colleges on campus. If the PPI meets its goals, students will be more successful in finding the most desirable jobs: those that allow them to be innovators and leaders in their fields.

Marisa Exter is leading assessment in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute

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COLLEGE OF EDUCATION • EDUCATION.PURDUE.EDU One IMPACT strategy is to break a large lecture hall course into dozens of learning groups. Here Mike Yough, clinical assistant professor of educational studies, questions students in an IMPACT classroom.

Teaching Assistant Mauricio Herron (background) works with another group.

Transforming the University with IMPACT-ful Instruction The IMPACT initiative has the potential to be felt across campuses around the world. The goal of IMPACT (Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation) is no small task: to transform how all large courses at Purdue are taught.

professor from the equation. Rather, it increases the opportunity for creative and fulfilling teaching and learning.

IMPACT places the emphasis on creating learning environments that support students’ sense of autonomy and are places where curiosity, exploration and competency can flourish. Since 2011, more than 90 courses have been redesigned and Purdue is on track to reach a target of 300 courses by 2016-17.

Some professors are using an inverted—or flipped—classroom where students independently watch video lectures in 20 minute segments rather than attending a lecture. Students can watch lectures as often as needed at times and places that better suit their learning style. Classroom sessions can be used for active and/or collaborative learning, labs, and practice problems with teaching assistants and professors to offer guidance.

Chantal Levesque-Bristol, professor of educational psychology and research meth“The purpose is to reinvent odology studies and director of the Center professors in large classrooms are using techlecture courses so they are Many for Instructional Excellence, has a leadership nology to increase student engagement and create structured in a way that is a more student-centered learning environment. role in this campus-wide collaboration that also includes: The Office of the Provost, Popular interactive technology includes: more in-tune with how Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), students learn best.”

Libraries, Discovery Learning Research • Hotseat—an online chat room technology where Center (DLRC), and Purdue Extended Campus (PEC). students can interact with professors, teaching assistants, and classmates to have questions answered and examples explained.

Large lecture courses are, statistically, the ones where students per• Mixable—a Facebook-based, social media platform where students form the poorest. According to Levesque-Bristol, “The purpose is to in a particular course can meet to share problems, information, helpreinvent lecture courses so they are structured in a way that is more ful links, and participate in discussions outside of class time. in-tune with how students learn best. Research has shown that when students have autonomy to learn in their own way, at a pace and “We are starting to record a lot of success stories. IMPACT faculty time that works for them, and can join their classmates in collaboraare becoming our strongest advocates and recruit other faculty. It tive, active, learning sessions—they tend to enjoy the courses more, allows (faculty) to get to know students better and reach out. But it persist more, and do better on assessments of learning. After two relies on faculty passion ... that’s when it is really transformational,” years of implementation, results are consistent with the research.”

Levesque-Bristol stated.

Levesque-Bristol reports, “When the general chemistry course was redesigned by professors who had been trained in IMPACT, students scored significantly higher on the American Chemical Society national standardized exams than previous cohorts.” In other IMPACT courses, the number of students who withdraw or receive a grade of D or F have decreased by up to 50% without compromising rigor.

Although IMPACT methods are focused on student-centered learning, faculty also find the new environment rewarding: Where students find learning more effective and lasting, professors find teaching more satisfying, productive and engaging.

Redesigning a course through IMPACT is not a one-size-fits-all formula, nor does it remove the skills and talents of the individual

Chantal Levesque-Bristol (right) and her Center for Instructional Excellence team

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Modeling Science in the Primary Grades (MPG): Examining Methods for Early Science Learning The children’s eyes grow wide as vials of chocolate chips, sand, fruit juice and mysterious blue and green syrups are passed out to their tables.

“You are the best teacher ever,” a little girl exclaims as her teacher begins to introduce their first activity.

In another classroom, students curl up into little wiggling balls as they squeeze themselves into the confines of a taped off “jar” outlined on the floor, while modeling the arrangement of particles in solid matter.

The second graders and their teachers are part of a project designed to help young students begin to think about matter by constructing models of nature.

In the project titled “Modeling in the Primary Grades” (MPG), Samarapungavan is joined by College of Education colleagues Lynn Bryan (see below),Yukiko Maeda, assistant professor of educational psychology and research methods, and Andrew Hirsch, professor of physics.

“This model-based approach helps young learners to visualize the invisible, to think about the structure of things in the world and their behavior, and to explain how and why things happen. ”

Ala Samarapungavan, professor of educational studies, is the principal investigator on the project that explores what it means to take a modeling approach to teaching science in the early grades. Samarapungavan states, “Models are a fundamental component of human thought. They are the tools with which we think about the world.”

Ala Samarapungavan

be easily grasped—maps, globes, charts, graphs, diagrams, and mathematical equations are some examples.

Science uses models to help visualize concepts that are on a scale that can not

The key questions driving the research are these: Do students develop a scientific approach to thinking about the world around them? Are they building coherent knowledge of core science concepts that they can use to explain the world? How can teachers help students think about and understand challenging scientific ideas such as the notion that the material world is composed of tiny invisible particles?

A hallmark of the MPG project is that young students are encouraged to devise, share, evaluate, and revise their own scientific models of the things they investigate using words, drawings, and physical enactment or “embodiment.” This model-based approach helps young learners to visualize the invisible, to think about the structure of things in the

world and their behavior, and to explain how and why things happen. Children use models to make predictions about what will happen in the future, to map their models to observations or data, and to evaluate and revise their models as they investigate everyday phenomena.

This approach integrates language and literacy as children communicate, compare ideas, and revise their models as they work to develop a shared understanding of science.

Bryan, who leads MPG’s professional development for teachers and the design of modeling activities for students, said, “In MPG, we don’t develop new curriculum for the schools we work in; we develop a modeling perspective for the current science curriculum. Then, we provide professional development so that the teachers can develop and refine their teaching of the modeling-based instruction.”

Although currently in its pilot phase, MPG’s early results are promising. Data from the first year of implementation show significant gains in students’ ability to use particulate models to explain differences in the behavior of solids, liquids and gases, as well as to explain phase transitions such as melting or evaporating. These results are exciting because a large body of educational research suggests that even much older students (in middle and high school) have considerable difficulty with understanding these concepts.

CATALYST for Change — Lilly Supports Initiative for Teacher Education STEM Specialization The Lilly Foundation awarded a $250K grant to the College of Education and the Center for Advancing the Teaching and Learning of STEM (CATALYST), to design a specialization program to prepare pre-service teachers in integrated STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). This grant will help the college transform STEM teacher education as it exists today—from teaching in demarcated subject areas to a model in which educators teach K-12 science and mathematics through the integration of content and practices of scientific inquiry, technological design, engineering design, and mathematical Lynn Bryan analysis.

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This will be the first teacher-education specialization program of its kind in Indiana, and it will fill a critical need as the state moves toward implementing engineering and technology design into Indiana’s STEM-related standards and core curriculum.

teaching STEM concepts in K-12 classrooms will allow preservice elementary and secondary teachers to collaborate with each other across the STEM disciplines while learning how to integrate STEM concepts and practices into K-12 curriculum.

According to lead investigator, Lynn Bryan, Director of CATALYST and professor of science education, “Our vision is to strengthen Indiana’s future by preparing integrated STEM endorsed teacher leaders, as well as preparing all Purdue elementary and secondary STEM teachers in pedagogical approaches to STEM integration.” Unique to this vision is the development of a teacher education specialization program in which teachers will develop the knowledge and skills for teaching science and/or mathematics through the integration of engineering/technology design for solving authentic problems in culturally and socially relevant contexts. This innovative approach to

Purdue’s plan will exceed both state and national standards, producing cadres of STEM educators who prepare young Hoosiers who can solve problems, understand technology, value cultural diversity and work effectively in interdisciplinary teams.

The Integrated STEM Teacher Education Program will position Indiana as a national leader in this emerging field, building upon Purdue University’s strong foundation of education and STEM courses, while also leveraging existing programmatic strengths.

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION • EDUCATION.PURDUE.EDU

Faculty and Alumni Recognition

Richardson

Dolby

Yadav

Eichinger

Jennifer Richardson, associate professor in learning design and technology, is receiving a faculty fellowship to study in a second discipline for the 2014-15 academic year from Purdue’s Office of the Provost. She specializes in online learning and will study social network theories in order to apply them to the context of online learning.

Nadine Dolby, professor of curriculum studies and Aman Yadav, associate professor of educational psychology, have been named University Faculty Scholars.

The University Faculty Scholars Program recognizes outstanding faculty who are on an accelerated path for academic distinction.

Dolby’s essay, “Developing Empathy through Service-Learning: Finding Friends, Hope, and Community at a Local High School,” was recently published in the online journal, Community Works. Yadav was also named a Dean’s Fellow which provides leadership opportunities and administrative experience.

David Eichinger, associate professor of biology education, and Science K-12 Outreach received an Improving Teacher Quality grant from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education. He and K-12 Outreach are partnering with the Gary School Corporation.

Melanie Shoffner, associate professor of English instruction, was elected Vice Chair of the National Council for Teachers of English Conference on English Education. Next year she will move to the Chair position.

Shoffner

Trish Morita-Mullaney, visiting assistant professor of literacy and language, has been elected Vice President of the Indiana Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (INTESOL) for 2014. She and doctoral candidate April Burke were also featured presenters at the recent annual INTESOL meeting.

Chris Slaten, assistant professor in counseling and development, has received the Exemplary School Counselor Award from the Indiana School Counselor Association.

Teresa Taber Doughty, associate dean of learning and professor of special education, David Eichinger, (left), Peg Ertmer, professor of learning design and technology, and Bob Sabol, professor of art education, have been selected by their peers for induction into the Purdue University Book of Great Teachers.

Carole Ames, (PhD ‘76) Psychological Sciences, has been awarded a Distinguished Woman Scholar Award from the Purdue University Butler Center for Leadership Excellence. Ames is Dean Emeritus College of Education and a professor of educational psychology at Michigan State University.

Bill Watson, associate professor of learning design and technology and Director of the Purdue Center for Serious Games and Learning in Virtual Environments was a featured speaker at the 2014 Purdue TEDx Conference “Daring Greatly.” He described his work with “badges” and video game learning systems that could create revolutionary reform of the A-F grading system and traditional education.

Carla C. Johnson, professor of science education, associate director, Center for Advancing the Teaching and Learning of STEM (CATALYST), has been named Associate Dean for Engagement and Global Affairs, beginning July 1, 2014. She plans to continue her work building STEM partnerships and will be representing the college’s global interests, including serving on the Colombia Master Plan Steering Committee.

Morita-Mullaney

Slaten

Taber Doughty

Ertmer

Ames

Watson

Johnson

Winter Commencement 2013 Nearly 100 graduate and undergraduate students from the College of Education participated in commencement on a snowy December 18th.

Proud graduates of the online master’s program in Learning Design and Technology (LDT) (right), who had become “virtual” friends over the course of their studies, agreed to decorate their caps with the LDT logo and travel from far and wide to meet up with each other in the “real” world in West Lafayette for the commencement ceremony.

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Sidney Moon Announces Retirement

Inside this issue of Launch : An avid hiker, Sidney Moon plans to spend time at the home she shares with her husband Doug in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Sidney Moon, Associate Dean for Learning and Engagement, will be retiring from the College of Education this Spring. Described by her colleagues as “highly creative, nurturing, and innovative,” her contributions to the college and Purdue have been inestimable.

Sidney is a College of Education alumna (MA’87, PhD’91) and her name has been affiliated with the college’s gifted and creative studies program for her entire career with Purdue. Perhaps her most visible contribution is her leadership of the Gifted Education Resource Institute (GERI). GERI, founded by Sidney’s major professor and mentor, John Feldhusen, is known worldwide for its enrichment programs that help high-ability children explore and develop their talents. Sidney assumed leadership of GERI upon Feldhusen’s retirement. GERI programs like Super Saturday and the Super Summer camp flourished under her guidance.

In 2013 the National Association for Gifted Children recognized Sidney’s passion and commitment for addressing the needs of high-ability students and their families with the Distinguished Service Award.

When Sidney moved into administration, she was succeeded as GERI director by Marcia Gentry, professor of gifted, creative, and talented studies. She describes Sidney as “A Boilermaker through and through.

Everyone in our field of gifted education respects Sidney, her work, her thoughtfulness, and her devotion to the field. She is a model for young scholars, always willing to become involved in new initiatives and to take the time to mentor a new graduate student or assistant professor. Her advice is honest, sage, and always given with her mentee’s best interest in mind. Sidney is a generous scholar, thoughtful and kind, honest and nurturing, genuine and selfless.”

Page 1: STEM Road Map: a Guide for Teachers Page 2: Positive Results with Negative Numbers Page 3: Undergraduates Engage in Research Page 4: Polytechnic Unites Disciplines in Higher Ed Page 5: IMPACT Transforms the Big Lecture Page 6: Second-Graders Learn to Model Science Lilly Supports STEM Specialization

In the administrative phase of her extraordinary career, Sidney led the college through an intensive and successful accreditation process, guided the development of two college strategic plans and organized the new Department of Academic Services which saved resources and increased synergies and cooperation.

Assistant Dean for Engagement, Dorothy Reed, said that working with Sidney has been one of the best experiences she has had in her career.

“Sidney is a visionary who looks at the big picture and sees what impact plans may have. She also is a master at bringing groups together and getting the best out of everyone. She conducts meetings by listening intently, refining ideas, and helping to merge the concepts being expressed by individuals into one shared idea.”

T.J. Oaks, Assistant Dean for Teacher Education and Office of Professional Preparation and Licensure Director, added, “She is wonderfully creative at pulling together disparate pieces and making something good happen. When she led our accreditation review, she helped us pinpoint weaknesses and develop a specific, practical plan to improve. We subsequently passed both the state and NCATE reviews with flying colors.

They could find no additional areas for improvement …that is very rare!”

Dean Maryann Santos de Barona commented, “We will all miss Sidney’s collaborative style, wise counsel, kind nature, superior ability, and friendship. The college can no longer contain her quest to explore the wider world.”

The college will host a reception for Sidney Moon in the Purdue Memorial Union Anniversary Drawing Room on May 1, 3:30 to 5 PM.

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