UW-Madison School of Education Online News - February 2009

Welcome to the UW–Madison School of Education Online News, a monthly update on School and campus news and resources. 

Education Building Work Begins
Grab your hard hats! After years of planning and preparation, the $34 million project to renovate and add to the Education Building on Bascom Hill has reached the construction phase. The last three units in the building – Academic Services, Counseling Psychology and Educational Policy Studies – moved to temporary quarters in January, clearing the way for work to begin, with the project scheduled for completion in late summer 2010. Read more.

Campus Connections Now Available Online (PDF)
The School Psychology Clinic, which is providing invaluable experiences for school psychologists-in-training, is featured in the latest issue of Campus Connections. That story, along with news about important research initiatives, art happenings, alumni updates and more, is now available online as a PDF file of the print newsletter. View the PDF file.

UW Transforms Warehouse into Art Lofts
Transformation of the old university warehouse on Frances Street to a state-of-the-art facility for Art programs began a few years ago with the move of the glass lab and metal sculpture foundry to the building. The latest development – a $9.2 million renovation completed in December – provides a new home for ceramics, papermaking and other areas, plus studio space for more than 60 faculty and graduate students.
Read more.

Special Education Team Tackles Afterschool Tutoring
Many schoolchildren who have learning disabilities or limited English proficiency receive some form of tutoring after school, but programs too often are staffed with poorly trained volunteers. To address the problem, Kimber Malmgren (associate professor, rehabilitation psychology and special education) has developed a tutoring program centered on evidence-based reading instructional practices. It’s inexpensive and can be easily adopted by afterschool programs for their own use. Get the details.

Turning Dreams into Diplomas
The trends are troubling: Less than 60 percent of students now entering four-year non-elite public universities earn bachelor’s degrees; and only 40 percent of beginning college students from low-income families complete a two- or four-year degree within six years. A report by Sara Goldrick-Rab (assistant professor, educational policy studies) and colleague Josipa Roksa at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research suggests where policymakers could most effectively intervene to reverse these trends and describes factors contributing to student success. Read more.

Delta Program Has Big Impact on UW Teaching Culture
In its first five years on campus, the Delta Program has had a profound impact on UW-Madison's teaching and learning culture. Housed in the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), the program strives to train graduate students, postdoctoral students, faculty and staff in the sciences, engineering and mathematics to be excellent researchers and teachers. A fall 2008 review found that more than 400 faculty and instructional staff enhanced their teaching practices in some way as a direct result of Delta workshops. CIRTL is a unit within the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. Read more.

Tandem Prepares for New York Art Fair: Feb. 27-Mar. 2
Tandem Press invites alumni and friends to visit its exhibit at the Works on Paper Fair, to be held in New York City at the Park Avenue Armory between 67th and 68th Streets. For further information, call Tandem Press at 608/263-3437 or send an e-mail message to info@tandempress.wisc.edu.

Wisconsin Council for the Social Studies and International Education Conference: March 16-17
This year’s conference features keynote speakers Gretchen Steidle Wallace, co-author and producer of the Sundance documentary winner, The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur, and UW professor Jeremi Suri, author of the award-winning book, Kissinger and the American Century. In addition, the conference offers educators a variety of workshops designed to develop curriculum and enhance teaching. Meetings will take place at the Madison Marriott West Hotel. Registration is required and may be completed online. Get the details.

School’s Calendar Highlights Upcoming Events
As usual, there’s more happening in the School than the Online News can describe individually. Upcoming events include a WISCAPE forum on strengthening academic programs through inter-campus collaboration (Feb. 18), a public lecture by Professor Michael Apple on the politics behind educational reforms (Feb. 19), the Dance Spring Student Concert (Feb. 26), a public lecture by Professor Mary Schneider in Appleton on prenatal brain development (Mar. 11), and a spring colloquium series on equity issues in math and science education. Check the web calendar for details on these and many other events. Visit the web calendar.

Kudos to Education Faculty & Staff

• Kathleen Horning (director, Cooperative Children’s Book Center) has been selected to deliver the 2010 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association.
• Margaret R. Meyer (assistant scientist at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research) has co-edited the book, A decade of middle school mathematics curriculum implementation: Lessons learned from the Show-Me Project.
• Kenneth Zeichner (Hoefs-Bascom professor of teacher education and associate dean for undergraduate, international and teacher education) has received the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
  

Update Your Records

Have you moved or changed your name? You can easily update that information via the alumni page on the School’s website.  And we’ll make sure that your University records are changed as well as ours. 
Update your records

Next Issue

The next issue of the School of Education Online News will be delivered in March 2009.

We Welcome Your Feedback

Thank you for reading the online news.  If you would like to comment on this service, please send a message to: soeonline@education.wisc.edu.