“We want to empower the students to see the tremendous strengths they bring as member of the UConn community,” says Kenny Nienhusser, director of UConn’s La Comunidad Intelectual (LCI) learning community and a faculty member in the Higher Education and Student Affairs program. “They want a space on campus where they can reside on the same floor with people that understand them and provide them with the support they are looking for. It’s really a beautiful learning community that is a vibrant hub of happenings in the evenings and in the day when we have our seminar classes.”
The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) is pleased to announce the 2021 NAGC Distinguished Scholar. Each year, the association recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions to the field of gifted education and to the development of the organization for more than 10 years and a record of ongoing scholarly productivity. This year’s recipient is E. Jean Gubbins, Ph.D., Professor, University of Connecticut.
September is National Literacy Month and Deaf Awareness Month. To celebrate both occasions, we spoke with two IES-funded principal investigators about their intervention aimed at increasing the writing and language skills of students who are deaf or hard of hearing through teacher professional development targeting writing instruction and use of multilingual strategies. Together with their team, Dr. Kimberly Wolbers (University of Tennessee) and Dr. Hannah Dostal (University of Connecticut) developed Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI) and tested SIWI for efficacy. The team is now analyzing effects of SIWI on both student and teacher outcomes in the D/HH space.
When a doctoral program in education introduced a comprehensive funding package that covered tuition, it led to an increase in the number of applicants. The increase in the share of Black applicants and enrollees was particularly notable. That’s according to a new study published in AERA Open, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal of the American Educational Research Association. We did the study with co-authors Chris Bennett, Kenny Nienhusser and Milagros Castillo-Montoya.
Dr James Kaufman is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut and the author/editor of more than 50 books, including Creativity 101 and the Cambridge Handbook of Creativity with Robert Sternberg. In this podcast, the host and guest talk about the connection between mental health and creativity, a topic that endlessly fascinates the host.
Michael Fenn ’19 (CLAS), ’21 MA, a native of East Lyme, Connecticut, grew up around many family members who served as teachers, including his father, grandmother, mother, and two of his sisters. After completing his undergraduate degree in general science at UConn in 2019, Forsyth went on to earn his master’s degree in curriculum and instruction through the 11-month Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates (TCPCG) at the Neag School of Education. He is now a middle school science teacher for Manchester (Connecticut) Public Schools.
On Sept. 25, UConn students gathered in the Student Union Ballroom, intent on hearing the ideas of their peers and staff members presented in a formal setting.
Saturday’s event was the first in-person TEDxUConn event since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It featured talks from three speakers from the UConn community: one graduate student, one undergraduate and one staff member. The talks were connected by the theme of “the courage to persist.”
The Connecticut Noyce Math Teacher Leaders (MTL) Program aims to support the development and retention of exceptional math educators in Connecticut’s highest-needs school districts — while also building these districts’ future leadership capacity in math education.
Lauded by critics for its crucial look at justice in the United States, This is My America by author Kim Johnson has been recognized as the 2021 recipient of the Malka Penn Award for Human Rights in Children’s Literature, presented by Dodd Human Rights Impact at UConn.
“Kim Johnson has delivered a gripping story that tackles the human rights issues of historical racism, corruption, police brutality, and incarceration at a critical moment in our society,” says Glenn Mitoma, director of Dodd Human Rights Impact and a Neag School faculty member.
Preston Green doesn’t think a decision for the plaintiffs would immediately lead to churches or other religious organizations running charter schools, but added, “You’re really, really close.”
“This is about dominoes falling and it’s a deliberative legal strategy,” he said. “They don’t need to do it right away. They just need to establish a true line where they can make these legal arguments.”
