It’s easy to add a bit of education to your family vacation. Museums have upped the wow factor in recent years, creating galleries and programs that engage the mind and imagination. “These are cool places where you get to see things that aren’t in your everyday life,” says Lynn Dierking, a science and math education professor at Oregon State University and co-author of Museum Experience Revisited.
The Chalkboard Project’s vision is to see Oregon’s schools among the top ten in the nation as measured by student achievement. The report, “Better Schools, Better Oregon: The Conditions of K-12 Education,” is Chalkboard’s regular report on the state of education and progress toward becoming a top-ten state. The report draws upon national and state-level data as well as local district data.
This is the first time the report also highlights what’s working in Oregon and draws from promising outcomes in Chalkboard’s CLASS districts.
“While the news in the report is disappointing, Oregonians should remain hopeful,” said Sue Hildick, Chalkboard Project President. “The state is beginning to turn the lessons from CLASS into statewide policy through mentoring for new teachers, meaningful performance evaluations, teacher leadership opportunities, and professional development for educators to meet the needs of all Oregon students. We do believe that these investments in great teaching will turn the tide for Oregon.”
The Lifelong STEM Learning Campus-wide Seminar Series and Discussion Forum 2012-2013 continues on Tuesday, June 11th with a seminar led by Dr. John H. Falk entitled “Investigating Lifelong Science Learning.”
The seminar takes place from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. and can viewed in Kidder 202, via Polycom to Cascades Campus Cascade Hall 112, and streaming online at live.oregonstate.edu.
Seminar Synopsis:
When do people learn science? Why do people learn science? Where do people learn science? In this talk derived from an NSF Distinguished Lecture, Dr. John H. Falk will present a brief overview of the growing understanding of how the public learns science across their lifetime. Dr. Falk will summarize two recent large-scale research studies. The first study sought to determine the relative contributions to public science understanding made by key sources of science education – schooling, free-choice learning and the workplace. The second study attempted to better understand the functioning of the infrastructure that supports public science education in the United Kingdom by using community ecology frameworks. The seminar will conclude with some thoughts and discussion about the implications of these findings for conducting science education research in the future.
Derr started her academic career as a student specialist and counselor at Clackamas Community College in 1980. Mt. Hood hired her in 1987 to coordinate disability services and eventually promoted her to vice president for student development and services. While at Mt. Hood, she earned a doctorate of education from Oregon State University. (see also Portland Tribune)
The Center for Latino/a Studies and Engagement (CL@SE) announced FIESTAS (Families Involved in Education: Sociocultural Teaching and STEM) as one of two winning research project proposals of the 2013 Faculty Summer Stipends for Engaged Research.
Families Involved in Education: Sociocultural Teaching and STEM (FIESTAS)
FIESTAS is a collaboration between OSU’s College of Education, 4H Youth Development, and the Science and Math Investigative Learning Experiences (SMILE) program. The primary focus of the 4-H STEM program is to enhance the participation and knowledge of STEM related topics of Latino and underrepresented youth in the 3rd to 5th grades. Because of the changing demographics and increasing diversity of the K-12 population, which do not align with preservice teacher (PST) demographics, we believe that engagement with youth in culturally and linguistically contexts is needed. This project transforms the ways that preservice teachers practice STEM and empower youth within community-based and authentic learning contexts.
The present study seeks to understand: (a) How do PSTs position themselves in relation to content, children, and families? (b) How do teacher preparation courses disrupt the commonplace to transform views of teaching and learning? (c) And, how do PSTs engage in praxis in which they apply and enact education concepts in community settings? Data collection and analysis focuses on preservice teachers’ reflections: before and after their participation in Family Math and Science Nights and throughout the term in which they engage with youth in the afterschool 4H program in an ongoing way during the course.
Kathryn Ciechanowski (co-PI), ESOL/Bilingual Programs, College of Education
SueAnn Bottoms (co-PI), Elementary Science Education, College of Education
Ana Lucia Fonseca, Program Lead, 4H STEM afterschool program
Jenny de la Hoz, PhD student in Science Education, College of Education
The Charles Carpenter lectureship provides a time where students, graduates, and educational leaders can come together to learn about current trends in community colleges and to network with other professionals.
May 10, 2013
7:00 p.m.
Furman Hall, room 101
Rick Wagoner, Ph.D
Research Design and Consideration for Community College Issues: An Exposition of Two Studies
Rick Wagoner is an Assistant Professor in the Higher Education and Organizational Change Division of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His research and scholarship centers on community colleges and addresses them from multiple perspectives including theoretical and scholarly, practitioner oriented, and policy. He is particularly concerned with faculty work and professional identity, colleges as organizations, and the transfer function from the perspectives of individual students, institutions, and state-level policies. Professor Wagoner’s interest in community colleges is deeply grounded in his own experience as he graduated with an AS degree from the College of Eastern Utah in Price, Utah and has worked as an administrator and adjunct professor at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona.
Learn more about the Charles Carpenter Lecture series here.
Deborah Rubel (pictured on the right), Ph.D, Associate Professor of Counseling in the College of Education, is the recipient of the 2012 Outstanding Article Award published in the Journal for Specialists in Group Work (JSGW) for “Application of Focal Conflict Theory to Psychoeducational Groups: Implications for Process, Content, and Leadership.” She and co-author, Julia Champe, Ph.D of Southern Illinois University, accepted the award at the American Counseling Association National Conference in Cincinnati, OH on March 22. This is Deborah’s second time receiving the award – the first being in 2008 for “An Exploratory Study of Expert Group Leadership” co-written with William B. Kline, Ph.D of Western Kentucky University.
All articles published in JSGW during any given year are eligible for this award, and it is awarded based on an editorial board vote regarding potential to positively impact the field of group work.