UW-Madison School of Education Online News - October 2009

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

Alumni Feature: Kelley Takes Teaching Skills to Uganda

Adam Kelley (B.S. ’07 in elementary education and African-American studies) learned about culturally relevant teaching in his field experiences at Lincoln and Midvale, two of the elementary schools that participate in the Madison Professional Development Schools Partnership.  Kelley is putting the skills he learned from those experiences to good use in his role as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer training teachers in a remote region of Uganda. At the same time, he says he is gaining insights from his African experiences that will influence his teaching once he returns to the United States.

Read Adam’s story

First Call for Education Alumni Award Nominations

Here’s your chance to make someone’s day!  If you know an alumna/alumnus who has had an outstanding professional career or whose work within a community exemplifies the service for which the School is known, consider nominating that person for an alumni award.  The Alumni Achievement Award and the Outstanding Recent Graduate Award are the highest honors given to alumni by the School of Education.  Nominations are due Jan. 15, 2010, and require letters of support.  A nomination form and guidelines are available online.

Visit the alumni awards website

Kevin Henkes Receives Honorary Alumni Award

Dean Julie Underwood presented an Honorary School of Education Alumni Achievement Award to children’s book author and illustrator Kevin Henkes on September 15, when Henkes kicked off the Art Department’s Tuesday Talk Series with a presentation on his work.  Although his early success as an author/illustrator interrupted his university career, Henkes remembered fondly his classes in the Art Department and his hours of research at the Children’s Cooperative Book Center.  Henkes is one of the elite few who have received two of the most prestigious awards in children’s literature: a Newbery Honor for writing and the Caldecott Medal for illustration.  Event photos can be found on the Art website.

Check it out

Policy Brief Compares Postsecondary Opportunity Programs

A new WISCAPE (Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education) policy brief provides an overview of more than 50 postsecondary opportunity programs.  These nationwide programs are designed to reduce the barriers to postsecondary education among underrepresented students, such as first-generation students, socioeconomically disadvantaged students, and racial minorities.  Written by WISCAPE policy analyst Elizabeth Stransky Vaade, the paper provides four recommendations to consider when strengthening existing or creating new programs.

Read the brief

Federal Grants Power Research on Computer Games and Learning

A UW-Madison research team recently won $4.5 million in grants from the National Science Foundation to study computer games and learning.  The largest of the grants – for $3.5 million – creates a consortium of three universities to develop technology that will let computers teach real-world problem-solving.  “Funding at this scale gives us an unprecedented opportunity to use computer games to teach – and to test what kids have learned – in a new way,” says education professor David Williamson Shaffer, who is the principal investigator on three of the four grants.

Read more

Researchers Evaluate a Core Reading Program

Current published research offers few studies that examine the impact of reading programs on children’s reading skills.  To help remedy this shortcoming, education professor Geoffrey Borman and colleagues at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research evaluated and reported on one such program.  Their study determined that the average student from an Open Court Reading (OCR) classroom outperformed nearly 58 percent of the students in classrooms that were not assigned to OCR.  OCR is a phonics-based K-6 curriculum that is grounded in research-based practices.

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Photos Track Progress on Education Building Renovation

Every day brings more changes to the Education Building on historic Bascom Hill, and you can follow the progress via regularly updated photos on the School’s Facebook page.  Home of the UW-Madison School of Education, the building is currently undergoing a renovation and addition to renew historic characteristics and to prepare it to meet 21st century needs. Construction began in January 2009, with completion scheduled by summer 2010.  (You'll need to scroll down to the photos section on the Facebook page.)

View the photos
 

Assistive Technology Expo Showcases Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities

 “Assistive technology is a foundation to the quality of life that almost all persons with disabilities require,” says Monica KamalRossa, lead organizer of this year’s Expo. New adaptive motor vehicles, speech recognition systems, and rehab robotics are but a few of the technological advances to be showcased at the November 4 event.  It will run from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Engineering Centers Building on the corner of Breese Terrace and University Avenue.  It is free and open to the public.

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Campus: Badger Career Network Offers Job Alerts for UW-Madison Grads

When the going gets tough . . . WAA steps up.  University of Wisconsin-Madison graduates looking for a career edge can now be the first to know about job opportunities, networking events and online tools through the expanded Badger Career Network, provided by the Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA).  The improved suite of services now includes Job Alerts, a new online service that connects mid-career and executive-level UW-Madison alumni with employers seeking to fill job openings that require specific expertise.  The service is free to alumni.

Check it out

School’s Calendar Highlights Upcoming Events

The coming weeks are jam-packed with exciting events, including the 12th annual Charlotte Zolotow lecture featuring author Gregory Maguire (Oct. 7); the fifth annual Passing the Mic Series, which brings internationally renowned musical and spoken-word artists to campus (Oct. 8-10); the Margaret "Jo" Safrit Lecture, featuring University of Massachusetts-Amherst kinesiology professor Patty Freedson; a WISCAPE forum on “The Indispensable University” (Oct. 16); Li Chiao-Ping Dance (Oct. 24-25); the Art Department's Studio Days, when graduate students open their studios to the public (Nov. 4-5); and much more.

Check out the calendar

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 published in November.

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