James C. Kaufman, professor of educational psychology in the Neag School, is an expert in creativity and practices what he preaches. He’s published more than 35 books and more than 300 papers. He’s won countless awards, including Mensa’s research award.

In 2013, Neag School alumnus and current doctoral student Amit Savkar, also a UConn associate professor in residence of mathematics, began looking into the reasons why so many students were dropping out of or failing math classes early in their college career.
Savkar realized the placement exams students took for those courses did not account for the individual differences in knowledge gaps. In response, he developed a platform that would analyze the response of students’ incorrect answers to questions and provide students with adaptive instruction through targeted videos in the areas the program identified as knowledge gaps.

Sandra Chafouleas, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and Neag Endowed Professor of educational psychology and founder of the Collaboratory on School and Child Health (CSCH), spoke with Julie Bartucca of the UConn 360 podcast about ways parents can support their children’s well-being during this time, as well as about how to talk to kids about the upheaval going on in the U.S.

“I think we all suspected that we would find a relationship between the racism online in social media and student mental health,” says lead author Adam McCready, an assistant professor-in-residence with UConn’s Neag School of Education. “I think we may have been a little surprised that it was more salient, or held a stronger relationship, than in-person experiences.”

As a teenager in her hometown of Paraty, Brazil, Pauline Batista ’16 MA was enrolled in a rigorous five-year teacher- training high school and held multiple paid internships. “It was very hectic because I would leave my house at 7 in the morning and come back at 10 at night,” Batista says. “Your average 15-year-old is not dealing with all that. But for me, that was normal.”

“As science teacher educators committed to making science relevant to students’ lives and consequential in the pursuit of justice, we highlight how science intersects with society, especially how science is represented and made accessible through the media,” writes co-author Todd Campbell.

For college students of color who encounter online racism, the effect of racialized aggressions and assaults reaches far beyond any single social media feed and can lead to real and significant mental health impacts – even more significant than in-person experiences of racial discrimination, according to a recently published study from researchers at UConn and Boston College.

James C. Kaufman, professor of educational psychology in the Neag School, is an expert in creativity and practices what he preaches. He’s published more than 35 books and more than 300 papers. He’s won countless awards, including Mensa’s research award. He says researching past “3 Books” columns was “a bit intimidating, since they were generally filled with quality, intelligent nonfiction or literature. I unabashedly love genre fiction — I have grown to prefer entertainment over enlightenment.”

Nearly a year since the nation went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, just about everyone is struggling to maintain a semblance of normality. Parents of school-aged children have taken to social media and countless news stories have been written on the difficulties of balancing remote learning with remote working.

In 2013, Neag School alumnus and current educational psychology doctoral student Amit Savkar ’07 Ph.D., ’17 MA, also a UConn associate professor in residence of mathematics, began looking into the reasons why so many students were dropping out of or failing math classes early in their college career.