February 2021
THE COLLEGE INSIDER
NEWS ABOUT FACULTY, STAFF, AND STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
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JD Lopez named 2021 Emerging Scholar
This is a huge accomplishment as only 15 scholars out of several hundred nominees are receiving this recognition.
"In recommending Lopez as an Emerging Scholar, Drs. Jenny J. Lee, Nolan L. Cabrera and Regina Deil-Amen praised Lopez as "one of the most unique and dedicated scholars who has been a pleasure to call a colleague. He unapologetically does his work with and for Native communities, bridging the frequently divergent areas of higher education scholarship and tribal engagement," they said."
We are so proud and honored to call Lopez a faculty member of the college. Visit bit.ly/367gaAD to learn more about his life and dedication to higher education.
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Nolan Cabrera writes 2020 most-read article in The Review of Higher Education
Congratulations to Associate Professor Nolan Cabrera, whose article, Where’s the racial theory in Critical Race Theory?, was the most-read article in The Review of Higher Education in 2020. In the article, Cabrera demonstrates through a critical literature review that Critical Race Theory is generally applied as a theoretical framework in higher education scholarship. As a constructive criticism, he offers a critical theory of racism, hegemonic Whiteness, as an additional tenet of CRT and later applies hegemonic Whiteness to CRT, demonstrating how this theory of racism helps CRT work through several of its conceptual tensions.
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David Yaden named Literacy Research Association president-elect for 2020-2021
Professor David Yaden is the incoming 2020-2021 president-elect of the Literacy Research Association—a 1,500-member international association of literacy researchers. He was the associate conference chair for LRA’s 70th Annual Meeting, which was held virtually for the first time between November 30 – December 5, 2020, with over 1,000 attendees.
Yaden will be the conference chair for the 71st Annual Meeting tentatively to be held in Atlanta, Georgia. The theme for the 71st conference is Widening the Angles of Literacy Research: Honoring Untold Stories Using Contrapuntal Approaches, which is meant to encourage the LRA research community to counter the “misrecognition” that so often occurs when describing a research population by only static variables, such as race, ethnicity, income, gender, occupation, and test scores. Thus, by taking “wide angle views” or “contrapuntal” approaches, which illuminate all the various stories that give insight into any person’s, families’, or communities’ multimodal literacy behaviors, greater insight is provided as to how to enhance the potentialities toward more equitable, inclusive and just participation in society for all persons.
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US-China COVID-19 research by Jenny Lee and John Haupt featured in Science Magazine
“For scientists, advancing knowledge and improving the human condition, in this case, overcoming COVID-19, appears to be the greater goal,” Lee says."
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Cooper Center making big strides on Capital Campaign for long-awaited facilities upgrade
At the end of the fall semester, the Cooper Center for Environmental Learning kicked off a $500K Capital Campaign to help raise funds for long-awaited (nearly half a century!) upgrades to the center’s facilities. Just a few months in and they’re already 70% of the way toward their goal with $275K raised and $70K in matching funds waiting to be met!
Upgrades to the Cooper Center’s facilities are about making the center more welcoming and comfortable to more kids and families for decades to come. Please help spread the word!
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Scholarship season is here!
Hey Wildcats! Did you know 97.5% of College of Education undergrads who applied for scholarships over the last three years were awarded?
Scholarship season is here and there are some important details and deadlines coming up to be aware of. February 26 is the deadline for undergraduate students and February 19 is the deadline for graduate students to submit scholarship applications through Scholarship Universe.
HOW TO APPLY:
Step 2: Answer ALL new questions by clicking on the gray bar at the top that says “You still have outstanding questions…” and review all previously answered questions if you haven’t done so in a while. This step may take 10-20 minutes if you have never created a profile before. Your answers are used to match you to UAZ and non-UAZ scholarships that you are eligible to apply for year round.
Step 3: Once you have completed your questions, go to the Scholarship tile and select COE scholarships that you choose to apply to. Next, click on the application link and fill out the application. Your application will be automatically attached to all the COE scholarships that you are matched with.
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Next College Council on February 4
It has been a busy 2020-2021 year. Complex issues have impacted the health and wellness of students, staff, and faculty in the College of Education. As a resource for navigating these complex issues, College Council is the forum for deliberation and consultation with the dean. With this in mind, it is important for College Council to report on its monthly activities.
The primary topics discussed this year have been our new COVID world and how to support students, staff, and faculty who have been working from home. In January, members of the Dean’s Undergraduate Advisory Board shared student perspectives on how we are doing as a college. From this discussion, College Council is planning to review the College of Education bylaws and recommend adding an undergraduate student representative to College Council.
For spring, the primary focus of College Council is to support the COE Strategic Plan and the four Strategic Action Planning Groups. Additionally, any student, staff, or faculty can attend the first 15-minutes of College Council meetings to share their perspective on issues impacting the college community. There is also an anonymous Qualtrics survey where anyone can pose a comment for College Council members to review during this 15-minute period: https://uarizona.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_d7mNZK9EQlLW7qd.
The next College Council meeting is February 4, 2021 from 1-2:30 p.m. Please reach out to College Council Chair Michael Hartley at mthartley@arizona.edu if you would like to attend the 15-minute open forum. Your voice matters.
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Apply for We the People
Calling all K-12 educators! Worlds of Words is hosting “We the People”: Migrant Waves in the Making of America - a two-week virtual National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute from June 21 to July 2! Through the program, co-directed by WOW Director Kathy Short, TLS Associate Professor Carol Brochin, and TLS Assistant Professor Leah Durán, you will engage with literature and historical records to explore the contributions of underrepresented groups to U.S. history. Interact with visiting scholars and authors to learn from their processes of research. Visit wethepeople.coe.arizona.edu to learn more and apply. Applications are due March 1, 2021.
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Borderlands Education Center presents monthly teacher collaboratives for regional teachers
The college’s Borderlands Education Center is proud to present monthly teacher collaboratives for regional teachers as part of the Sin Fronteras Professional Learning Community. This free programming supports new teacher induction and professional development for K-12 educators and includes CEU credits. Two of the workshops will be led by Eric Meyer, Sin Fronteras director and Secondary Education, M.Ed., program coordinator.
The workshops will be held on the following Saturdays during the Spring 2021 semester:
February 20, 2021
March 13, 2021
April 17, 2021
Below are the workshops part of the series:
Mindfulness in Motion: From the Mat to the Classroom (9 – 10 a.m.)
Now more than ever, students and teachers are experiencing a wide range of emerging mental and physical challenges. Throughout this series, participants can expect 50-minute sessions that tap into individual strength and stamina - both mentally and physically. Sessions will emphasize transferring methods of mindfulness and yoga into authentic experiences for teachers and students. Develop confidence and mental stability that translates to life off the mat and into classroom practice while increasing range of motion throughout your entire body. Sessions will include hip and shoulder mobility, balance, cultivating a disciplined breath, and much more as determined by the needs of participants. You will leave each session feeling stimulated from the inside out, with a handful of yoga poses to take with you when you go! Recommended (but not required) materials include a yoga mat, a strap or tie, two blocks if available, and some open floor space (near a wall, if possible).
A New Cosmology for STEM Teaching and Learning (10:30 - 11:30 a.m.)
STEM has traditionally been taught with very structured methods such as lecture and acquisition assessments. These teacher-centered, linear methods do not enlighten students to the true nature of STEM and do little to increase student interest. As the tides of Covid-19 wash and transform our educational landscape, we find ourselves in a uniquely exciting and opportune time to rethink our approaches to teaching and learning. A question posed by David Orr comes to mind ‘What is education for?’ These collaborations will explore new ways to ignite passion and relevancy for STEM students and teachers through student-centered inquiry-based models of learning. When students are able to explore something they are interested in, learning is not limited to within traditional classroom walls.
Whiteness (1- 2 p.m.)
Discourse of race in America customarily involves pointing our eyes and ears toward people of color. In this series we will turn the lens around and look straight at white America and the idea of whiteness itself. How has the meaning of white changed over the years and how does it function now? Why must whiteness be named? How does whiteness show up? Become more conscious about what is really going on and the social complicity that operates within us. Understand and take ownership of an oppressive system while developing the courage and capacity to question, challenge and dismantle it within your community and yourself.
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Do we need more productive theorizing?
Professor David Yaden, along with University of Georgia Professor David Reinking, has recently published Do we need more productive theorizing? A commentary in the Reading Research Quarterly. In the article, the professors argue that literacy research would be more productive if researchers had a clearer, more nuanced understanding of theory.
Reinking, D., & Yaden Jr, D. B. (2020). Do We Need More Productive Theorizing? A Commentary. Reading Research Quarterly.
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New Julio Cammarota book published by Palgrave Macmillan
TLS Professor Julio Cammarota’s new book Liberatory Practices for Learning: Dismantling Social Inequality and Individualism with Ancient Wisdom was recently published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book promotes collaborative ways of knowing and group accountability in learning processes to counteract the damaging effects of neoliberal individualism prevalent in educational systems today. These neoliberalist hierarchies imposed through traditional, autocratic knowledge systems have driven much of the United States’ educational policies and reforms, including STEM, high stakes testing, individual-based accountability, hierarchical grading systems, and ability grouping tracks. The net effect of such policies and reforms is an education system that perpetuates social inequalities linked with race, class, gender, and sexuality. Instead, the author suggests that accountability pushes past individualism in education by highlighting democratic methods to produce a collective good as opposed to a narrow personal success. In this democratic model, participants contribute to the common goal of elevating the entire group. Drawing from a well of creative praxes, reflexivity, and spiritual engagement, contributors incorporate collective dreaming to envision alternate realities of learning and schooling and summon the spirit into action for change.
Cammarota, J. Liberatory Practices for Learning.
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Research Group on Early Child Development, Education, and Policy to present at virtual AERA meeting
A paper, titled Validating the research-based early mathematics assessment (REMA) among rural children in southwest United States, written by members of the research group examines the assessment of school readiness in mathematics among children growing up in rural Arizona. Authors of the paper are Adriana Cimetta, assistant research professor; Ron Marx, professor of educational psychology; David Yaden, professor of teaching, learning, and sociocultural studies; Chris Cutshaw, assistant professor of public health; and Ghadah Alkhadim, assistant professor of educational psychology at Taif University and graduate of the college’s educational psychology doctoral program.
A second paper, titled Are Young Children’s Emotional and Behavioral Risk Factors Associated with Household Firearm Ownership and Storage?, by Cimetta, Cutshaw, Yaden, Marx, and Michael Sulkowski, associate professor of disability and psychoeducational studies, reports on the firearm ownership and storage practices of Arizona families with children at risk for emotional and behavior risk.
In addition to these two publications, the group has had a paper accepted for presentation at the 2021 virtual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. The paper by Changting Dai, educational psychology graduate student, Cimetta, Cutshaw, and Marx examines the mediating role that executive function and family engagement play in the relationship between children’s early mathematics performance and family socioeconomic status. The lead author, Dai, earned his M.A. in educational psychology from the college in 2018 and is now a doctoral student in the department and a research affiliate in the research group.
Alkhadim, G.S., Cimetta, A.D., Marx, R.W., Yaden, D.B., & Cutshaw, C.A. (2020). Validating the research-based early mathematics assessment (REMA) among rural children in southwest United States. Studies in Educational Evaluation 68.
Cimetta, A.D., Sulkowski, M.L., Cutshaw, C. A., Yaden, D.B., Marx, R.W. (2020). Are Young Children’s Emotional and Behavioral Risk Factors Associated with Household Firearm Ownership and Storage? Journal of Education and Human Development.
Dai, C., Cimetta, AD., Marx, R.W., & Cutshaw, C.A. (2021). Executive function and family engagement mediates SES and math in early childhood: A strength-based analysis. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.
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In new article, Jennifer White examines the benefits and challenges of online literacy coaching for teachers
DPS Assistant Professor of Practice Jennifer White recently wrote an article for the journal Perspectives on Language and Literacy, a publication of the International Dyslexia Association. In the article, titled Online Literacy Coaching for Teachers: Benefits and Challenges, White discusses the importance of supporting educators in the implementation of evidence-based literacy practices and how the use of innovative technology can elevate professional development. She presents information both from the field of research and in her own experiences as a coach.
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Paper by Jonathan Tullis and Jiahui Qi published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied
A paper by Jonathan Tullis, assistant professor in educational psychology, and Jiahui Qi, a recent graduate of the Educational Psychology, M.A., program, was recently published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. The title of the article is Generating mnemonics boosts recall of chemistry information.
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Worlds of Words releases new issue of WOW Stories
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Be sure to send in your news for the next College Insider!
We're interested in workshops, publications, new faculty and staff, stellar students to feature, and awards. Click the link below to submit.
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STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
Name: Destinee Duran
Major: Rehabilitation Studies and Services
Minor: Psychology and Business Administration
Expected graduation: May 2023
Hometown: Peoria, AZ
What led you to the University of Arizona College of Education?
Some of my family members attended the University of Arizona and being in the College of Education was a bit of a surprise for me because I was always all about being a medical student. However, the COE had flexibility and opportunity in everything from teaching, rehabilitation, to deaf studies. I'm truly fascinated by our diversity as a college and how supportive we are of one another.
What have you learned in the College of Education that's made a difference to you?
I knew I wanted to be involved while I was in college and the COE has many clubs that you can join. What I didn't expect was the amount of encouragement, support, and recognition that the college, specifically the dean and advisors, give you for being involved and for succeeding in school.
Tell us about something you're involved with in the College of Education and how it's impacted your life.
Being a part of the COE Student Ambassadors program has changed me in such a positive way. I’ve been able to connect with upcoming students and help them figure out what they want to do before they step on campus. I didn’t get that option when choosing the University so I was definitely lost on my first day.
What are your post-graduation plans as of now?
My post-graduation plans as of right now are to attend an occupational therapy program to get my certification and hopefully work for a really good clinic.
Do you have any advice for students just getting started in college?
Honestly, be different while in college. All of my friends are public health majors and, initially, I felt so left out, but after telling them about my experiences with COE, I realized how valuable the support the college offers is and that I’m a part of something good. Be yourself, challenge yourself, but in the end, do what you want to do. It’s your career, your life, do what makes you happy and don’t overthink it!
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