Revival - College of Education - University of Florida

news9Summer camps: Working with the Northeast Florida Science,Technology and Mathematics Center for Education (NEFSTEM), UFhas created a specialized math-and-science oriented summer camp forgifted and high-achieving middle school students.10Engineering GatorTrax: This program paves the way to engineeringcareers by providing students in grades 6-12 with opportunities tolearn mathematics with hands-on activities, regular classroom instruction,Saturday engineering programs, mentoring, field trips and more.11Learning science through global warming: UF researchers andAlachua County teachers have teamed up to create a curriculumthat uses the concept of global warming to teach K-12 students about thephysical sciences.12Socioscientific Issues for Science Education Project: UF and theUniversity of South Florida are working together to study how theexploration of socioscientific issues—moral or political debates in whichscience plays a role—affect students’ content knowledge and reflectivejudgment in science courses.13Smallwood Science Scholarship: With funding from the SmallwoodFoundation, UF is offering scholarships for high school studentsfrom groups underrepresented in the sciences to participate in summerresearch opportunities.14Engaging future scientists: College of Education professors areworking with UF scientists to develop tools for assessing theresearch experiences available to undergraduate students. The longtermgoal is to conduct a longitudinal study that will provide a “bigpicture” view of the changes that need to be made in the undergraduateexperience.15From science student to science teacher: Research shows that the transitioninto teaching is one of the most crucial phases of professionaldevelopment. This project explores factors that contribute to the successes andfailures of teachers as they progress from teacher candidate to early careerprofessional.Lansford near the shuttlecraft Atlantis launch pad on the morningof launch.Ed Times editor lendsPR expertise to NASAWhen he isn’t doing public relations and editingEducationTimes for the College of Education, Newsand Communications Director Larry Lansford is,well, doing public relations. Lansford took a briefleave of absence last summer to work as a volunteerfor NASA, assisting the space agency’s media relationsteam in shepherding the 1,000 or so membersof the international press through the much-anticipatedlaunch of the space shuttle Atlantis. For aday-by-day account of his experience, complete withdazzling launch pictures, visit the college’s Web siteat http://news.education.ufl.edu/node/254.BILL RANDOLPH/Orlando FPRANew UF teachers cohortforms in Pinellas CountyOne of UF’s most powerful efforts to reach underprivilegedkids has expanded into new territory. Lastyear, the college’s Lastinger Center for Learning startedtraining a new cohort of teachers in Pinellas County,which includes St. Petersburg and Clearwater. Thecenter’s job-embedded graduate program was alreadyhelping 160 teachers—all from low-income urbanschools—study and earn graduate degrees through thecollege while continuing their classroom responsibilities.Earlier in the year, more than 400 teachers fromschools in the participating counties (Alachua, Duval,Miami-Dade and Pinellas) participated in the center’sSummer Institute, covering a variety of topics frombest practices for developmentally appropriate instructionto the strengthening of school culture to supportall learning.COE View Bookwins ADDY AwardThe College of Education last year created its first“View Book”—a publication designed to introducethe collegeto prospectivestudents,faculty and acommunityat large. The20-page,color booklethas receiveda 2007 SilverADDY Awardfrom the Gainesville Advertising Federation. Held annuallyat the local and national levels, the ADDY Awardcontest is one of the toughest competitions in advertisingand public relations. The View Book—available onlineat http://news.education.ufl.edu/files/news/ViewBook.pdf—is also designed and written to direct people tothe COE Web site, where they will find more detailedinformation.16African American girls in the sciences: African-Americans andwomen have historically been underrepresented in the sciences.UF researchers are studying African-American girls in a crucial period(sixth grade) to understand their experiences in the math and scienceclassroom and find pathways to better academic outcomes.17From bench to bedside: UF provides professional developmentto help teachers learn more about the working world of thebiomedical sciences—so they can boost students’ awareness of careersin the biomedical field.18SPICE: Science Partners in Inquiry-Based Collaborative Education: UFand Alachua County Public Schools are strengthening the sciencecurriculum by placing science and engineering graduate students intomiddle school classrooms, where they implement hands-on, inquirybasedlearning of ecology-related topics.19Project TALL: Teachers as Learners Learning Mathematics: COEfaculty work in high-poverty, largely minority schools to increaseclassroom teachers’ mathematics content knowledge and measure theimpact that knowledge has on student outcomes.20Better reading through scientific inquiry: Will kids become betterreaders if reading is part of a scientific project all their own? ACOE study is investigating the impact of an integrating reading into aninquiry-based science curriculum.21Strengthening virtual high schools: Going beyond the question ofwhether virtual schooling is effective, this project focuses on the“what and how” of successful e-schools.22TEGIVS: Teacher Education Goes Into Virtual Schooling: Are today’steachers ready to teach in the “schools that technology built?”This COE project looks for ways to expose new teachers to examples ofeffective virtual schooling practices.10 EducationTimes Fall / Winter • 2008Fall / Winter • 2008 EducationTimes 11