What counts as “good”? This question gets at the heart of engaging in productive conversations as we describe effective literacy instruction. We explore that inquiry in this episode with Rachael Gabriel and Sarah Woulfin, authors of Making Teacher Evaluation Work: A Guide for Literacy Teachers and Leaders (Heinemann, 2017).

In addition to becoming crucial for financial and social well-being, creativity has psychological benefits. James Kaufman from the University of Connecticut examined how creativity has a potential to contribute to past, present, and future meaning-making. Past-focused meaning making involves finding ways to successfully cope with challenging experiences, such as trauma, regret, or nostalgia-provoking events.

CSCH Program Manager Helene Marcy interviews CSCH Affiliate Jesse Mala about his research looking at the relationship between sport & physical activity and working memory and perceptions of school climate among youth living in poverty.

“Connecticut is far from the only state diverting school decisions to the local level. With few mandates coming from the federal government, most states are taking a similarly flexible approach to COVID mandates, leaving decisions up to individual districts,” said Sarah Woulfin, associate professor at UConn’s Neag School of Education.

Todd Campbell, one of the Neag instructors, tweeted that in the first session, forty participants recorded 112 data points from across the state in less than twenty minutes.

“In Connecticut, college students have been asked to step in as substitutes,” said Michele Femc-Bagwell, director of the teacher education program at the University of Connecticut. “The school has been getting requests to use fifth-year graduate students as substitute teachers. Heavy class loads and internship responsibilities, though, limit their availability to one day a week.”

“The biggest barrier to remote learning is having a good setup, that is, access to materials and technology…as well as resources such as uninterrupted space and time for learning,” said Sandra Chafouleas, professor of educational psychology and Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor at UConn.

“Principal preparation means getting staff ‘school-ready.’ While training programs often focus on knowledge, the University of Connecticut (UConn), with aid from The Wallace Foundation’s University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), has found that practical leadership activities over time are equally important,” says Richard Gonzales, an associate professor in residence and director of educational leadership preparation programs at the Neag School.

In the United States, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death — with more than 2,000 14- to 18-year-olds dying every year by suicide, and accounting for about one of every three injury-related deaths. That’s the equivalent of losing a large high school’s worth of teenagers to suicide, year after year. These numbers demand our attention.

In the months since Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were killed by police last spring, public outrage over anti-Black racism has inspired widespread protests, conversations and calls for reform. It is a movement with origins both recent and centuries old, and continues to spark in protest, as in the recent case of Jacob Blake, a black man shot by police in Kenosha, Wis. For students at the University of Connecticut, a new course will introduce them to the foundational history of systemic and anti-Black racism in the U.S. that underlies the current movement.