2013 GSEAP Research Symposium
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Fairfield University DiMenna-Nyselius Library
Multimedia Room 101
Are you interested in what research is being done by the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions' professors? Would you like to gain insight and information on important trends within your field? Would you like to have the opportunity to network with GSEAP students and faculty? If you answered YES to any of these questions, plan on attending part or all of this symposium.
Schedule
10 a.m. Coffee and networking
10:20 a.m.-10:50 a.m. - Dr. Anne Campbell and Dr. David Zera
Changing Roles of TESOL and Special Education Teachers: Voices from the Field
Drs. Campbell and Zera will report preliminary findings from interviews conducted with area teachers. The purpose of the study was to learn how changes in practice such as mainstreaming of all students, Tier I responsibilities, the use of data teams, and co-teaching resulting from the implementation of SRBI have affected their roles as teachers. Topics of interest were challenges facing ELLs and ELLs with special needs and areas they thought most needed to be addressed with respect to professional development designed to help them meet the changes and challenges and better serve these students.
11 a.m.-11:30 a.m. - Dr. Susan Franzosa
Higher Education in Global Perspective: Is there a future for the university?
This paper explores how American university traditions defining teaching and learning, research, scholarship, and public service are changing in relation to international, social, technological, and political demands and global imperatives.
11:40 a.m.-12:10 p.m. - Dr. Diana Hulse and Peter J. McDermott
Cops, Counselors, and Conversation
The purpose of this session is to describe the continuing collaboration between the disciplines of counselor education and law enforcement. Through this successful partnership, counselors are sharing their interpersonal, feedback, and group management skills with police officers. McDermott and Hulse have published three articles in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, one article in Counseling Today, and designed and presented training workshops for first-line supervision classes at the CT Police Academy. Their work has caught the attention of law enforcement personnel across the U.S. Currently, Hulse and McDermott are completing a handbook for police academy instructors, The Ultimate Cop in the 21st Century.
12:15 p.m.-12:55 p.m. - Intersession and Poster Presentation
Dr. Bogusia Skudrzyk, Jennifer Badeau, Robin Johnson, Fabricia Lincoln, Kathleen Maloney, Janet Raschella and Sheila Reardon
Multicultural Stories that can Heal- the what, how, and why of story telling and narrative therapy
Presenters will describe a conceptual model for using multicultural stories as an instrument of healing and promoting wellness. First, a research summary relevant to storytelling and the use of narrative therapy will be offered. Second, examples of how stories can be used to foster healing and wellness will be provided. Third, presenters will discuss how they conceptualize about clients, based on their unique professional identity, most of all, through mutual story sharing, relevant to case conceptualization, participants will share how they complement each other, learn from each other and with each other, and in the process illuminate the stories that students and clients share on the path of healing and restoring wellness.
1 p.m.-1:30 p.m. - Dr. Marsha Alibrandi
How Geography and GIS improved Reading scores on standardized tests
This case study was conducted with 1,425 middle school students in Palm Beach County, Florida, a "majority minority" school district, the nation's 11th largest. Data from an experimental group in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) elective (256) and a comparable control group without GIS instruction (1,169), yielded increased standardized test scores in the GIS treatment group. Quantitative analyses on the standardized test scores indicated that inclusion of GIS in middle school curriculum had a significant effect on student achievement on high stakes Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT) reading scores. The most significant increases were found among English language learners (ELLs).
1:40 p.m.-2:10 p.m. - Dr. Bryan Ripley Crandall
"Writing is the best thing to do in life": Perspectives on writing from Somali-born male youth with limited and interrupted formal education
This presentation presents perspectives on writing in and out of school from four, Somali-born male English language learners with limited and/or interrupted formal education, SIFEs (Decapua & Marshall, 2010; DelliCarpini, 2008; Fu, 2007). The study is a response to a call for more youth-centered scholarship to highlight the agentive literacy practices of adolescents (Alvermann, 2009; Moje, 2002). Here, four young men report on motivations to write, contexts for writing, and influences for their writing in and out of mainstream English classrooms. The primary question asked was, "What do the perspectives of Somali-born male youth with limited and interrupted formal education suggest for writing instruction in secondary schools?" Additional questions used to guide this paper were, "For what purposes do the young men write? What are the contexts in which they write? What tools do they use to compose?" The presentation will highlight the importance of writing for an American audience, composing to historicize their lives, practicing to be college and career ready, and communicating in genres that matter to them.
2:15 p.m.-2:45 p.m. - Dr. Evelyn Bilias Lolis, Mollie Kimmel and Stacie Miles
Exploring Behavioral Supports: An investigation of factors influencing the selection of evidenced based interventions (EBI) in schools.
Schools provide a pivotal platform for promoting and supporting the socio-emotional and behavioral welfare of children. School-based mental health practitioners are extensively trained to dispense therapeutic interventions for a myriad of problem behavior in schools. This presentation will discuss a current study exploring the selection factors that influence practitioner choice in implementing evidence-based interventions (EBI) for the treatment of socio-emotional and behavioral difficulties in schools. Relevance for school-based psychological practice will be discussed.
2:50 p.m.-3:20 p.m. - Dr. Stephanie Burrell Storms
"It just opened my eyes": The long-term influence of action research on teacher candidates' practice.
In this presentation, I illustrate how conducting research while enrolled in a graduate action research course influenced teachers' classroom practice. Through nine individual interviews and an analysis of their final reports, I explored the changes they made to their practice since completing the action research course. Findings indicate that the teachers' changed their practice in order to incorporate the voices of key stakeholders (e.g., students, parents, and colleagues) into the teaching and learning process and incorporate students interests into the curriculum more often than before enrolling in the action research course. The findings reflect the working principles of action research and the pedagogy used in the course. Implications for teaching action research courses are discussed.
3:30 p.m.-4 p.m. - Dr. Wendy Kohli
Feminism and Educational Research
Feminist theory has come a long way from its nascent beginnings - no longer can it be classified as "liberal," "socialist," or "radical." It has shaped and evolved to take on multiple meanings and forms, each distinct in its own perspective and theory. In Feminisms and Educational Research, the authors explore the various forms of feminisms, tracing their history and their relation to gendered knowledge and identity. Unlike other books on feminism, the authors do not attempt to push that a particular theory is more correct than another, but rather they give a complete overview of each of the forms of feminism. The authors then couple the philosophical and theoretical ideas of western feminisms with the aims and conduct of educational research, exploring how they interact and influence each other. Focusing on more recent feminists, both in education and related disciplines, the book highlights illustrative examples from research to form a basis of understanding how the different feminisms have changed education.
This symposium is free and open to students and the public. Attend as many presentations as your schedule allows.
RSVP highly recommended to gseapresearch1@gmail.com
For further information, please contact Stacie Miles at gseapresearch1@gmail.com