Violet Jiménez Sims, associate director of teacher education for School-University Partnership at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education, agrees that this year is certainly different. Over the summer, UConn met with partner districts to map out clinical placements. The first thing they learned: not everyone’s definition of hybrid is the same.
“Some were pivoting from in-person to virtual learning and grappling with how many individuals would be allowed in classrooms,” Sims said.
“My friend, David K. Cohen, died on September 23. A prolific scholar of teaching, learning, educational reform, and social policy, David was a renowned writer and beloved teacher and mentor,” says Neag Endowed Professor of Teacher Education Suzanne Wilson. “Many have studied teaching and educational policy. But David’s work was special for reasons that enriched my life and education scholarship.”
“Our number-one goal is to enhance the quality of life of those with developmental disabilities and that of their families,” says early childhood intervention expert Dr. Mary Beth Bruder, the UCEDD’s director and professor of public health sciences and pediatrics at the UConn School of Medicine and Neag School of Education. “A qualified workforce to help accomplish this goal is critical for all of society.”
On September 22, the Duke University Talent Identification Program (Duke TIP) welcomed Dr. Del Siegle, who is a professor in the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education and the director of the National Center for Research on Gifted Education (NCRGE), to deliver a presentation entitled “Report from the NCRGE: Problems and Promising Practices in Gifted Education.”
D.C. turned to the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM), used in more than 4,000 schools nationwide, and internationally. Joseph Renzulli and Sally Reis, professors at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education, created their model to help diversify accelerated classes and gifted programs by encouraging school systems to broaden their concept of giftedness and ferret out student potential beyond what’s measured by standardized tests. The method assesses qualities such as motivation, curiosity, empathy, creativity and self-regulation, and exposes young students to a wide range of enriching experiences to discover what excites them.
“The process of being creative does a whole bunch of really good things for us,” physically and mentally, said James C. Kaufman, professor of educational psychology at the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. Kaufman, who has written extensively about creativity, said there are many reasons why a stimulating hobby can help us. The first is pretty simple: It’s fun.
On Oct. 7, the University of Connecticut’s Women and Philanthropy Network hosted an event centered around the conversations of six panelists and how their different groups and backgrounds affect them in their areas of expertise. The discussion was moderated by Manisha Sinha, the Draper Chair in American history at UConn, and included panelists Socheth McCutcheon (UConn Law ‘06), Meghana Shah (UConn Law ‘04), Chauntay Mickens (UConn CLAS ‘10), Amy Lin-Meyerson (UConn Law ‘94) and Luz Burgos-Lopez (Neag School of Education).
The panel discussion will center on S. 4360: Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act. Introduced by Senator Murphy, S. 4360 is a bill to reduce police presence and increase resources for counseling in schools, with aims “to divert Federal funding away from supporting the presence of police in schools and toward evidence-based and trauma informed services that address the needs of marginalized students and improve academic outcomes” in order to “create safe and inclusive schools for all students.
In-person, hybrid, remote, and/or homeschool – the options for K- through-12 schooling during the pandemic are complicated, each with their own pros and cons. UConn Today asked psychologist Sandra Chafouleas, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and Neag Endowed Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and co-director of the UConn Collaboratory on School and Child Health, about the importance of social and emotional health for children and their caregivers, particularly this year.
Kathleen Lynch, a professor at UConn’d Nead School of Education, noted that research on the summer slide — and how it affects different groups of students — remains mixed. “I do think some caution is warranted in making projections about COVID learning losses extrapolating from summer learning loss studies,” she said.
