UCA’s faculty-led study abroad program was a huge success this summer.
Seventy-five students participated in faculty-led programs all over the world.
Students traveled to places like Florence, Italy (for UCA in Florence) and London, England (for Theatre in London).
Other locations included Costa Rica and Shanghai, China for a language immersion program.
Dr. Jud Copeland, associate professor of Leadership Studies, is always happy to report how his students are successfully applying classroom concepts to real situations. In the Library Media (LIBM 6380) Administration of Information Programs class, students are required to remodel an existing library media center facility or to design a new one. The Facilities Design assignment requires the investigation of a current school library media center design, obtaining a copy of the blueprints, rating the current facilities, and determining if the center meets the current population’s needs (its strengths and weaknesses).
Angela Criss, who is working as the librarian at Harrisburg Middle School while pursuing her library media master degree at UCA, used her own library at the middle school to develop the library improvement design for Dr. Copeland’s class. She then used the information from the assignment to apply for a Lowe’s grant and was recently awarded $4,400 to incorporate part of those changes to the Harrisburg Middle School library media center, including an outdoor reading space.
Angela has promoted several fun and interesting activities in her library that include:
• Book fairs
• A trick-or-treat activity at Halloween where students drew titles out of a pumpkin and then located the title in the library and then read the book in question
• A “book tasting” event where she set up the library as a café so students could pass around new books and write the titles of ones they would like to read in the future on their “menu”
• Angela’s school was recently awarded an Apple grant and all students will be receiving
Dr. Alicia Cotabish, Assistant Professor of Teaching and Learning and Gifted Education Program Coordinator in the College of Education, has been elected to serve a two-year term as a board member of the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Research on Giftedness, Creativity and Talent special interest group (SIG).
The SIG deals with research studies that focus on how giftedness, talent, and creativity are developed and nurtured. The group encourages both international and national studies involving qualitative and/or quantitative methods in a wide variety of topics: Conceptions, Models, Identification, Programs and Practices, Counseling, Creativity, Thinking Skills, Disabilities, Parenting, and Diversity. Their mission is to provide leadership that encourages and promotes high-quality scholarship addressing giftedness, creativity, and talent, creates a community of scholars and leaders in the field, facilitates communication and dissemination of research both within and outside the field, nurtures future scholars, and advances research in the field.
Currently, Dr. Cotabish is the President of the Arkansas Association of Gifted Education Administrators (AAGEA) and serves as an expert speaker for the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC). She is also serving a three year term on the highly selective Standards Committee for the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP).
The College of Education is honored to have Dr. Cotabish among our distinguished faculty.
Jessica Herring, teacher at Benton Middle School in Benton, Arkansas has been accepted into the internationally recognized Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) Program’s Class of 2015.
There are, on average, over 900 applicants to this program in North America each cycle.
Ms. Herring is one of only 75 educators in North America elected this year to join the more than 2000 educators worldwide who are passionately committed to the improvement of teaching and learning through educational technology.
Herring is one of only three Apple Distinguished Educators in Arkansas.
The Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) Program began in 1994, when Apple recognized K-12 and higher education pioneers who are using a variety of Apple products to transform teaching and learning in powerful ways.
Today it has grown into a worldwide community of over 2,000 visionary educators and innovative leaders who are doing amazing things with technology in and out of the classroom.
More information on this group of innovative educators is available online at http://www.apple.com/education/ade.
Jessica graduated from the Middle Level Education program at UCA in 2010 and earned her Masters from the Advanced Studies in Teacher Leadership in Summer 2013.
She currently teaches 7th grade at Benton Middle School and serves as an adjunct professor in the UCA Master of Arts in Teaching program. She is also a member of the Arkansas Council for Teachers of English Language Arts.
Dean Diana Pounder, Ph.D., was recognized at the April 2015 American Education Research Association Conference (AERA).
AERA is a professional organization of educational researchers nationally, and its annual conference typically attracts approximately 15,000 participants and presenters.
The Learning and Teaching in Educational Leadership Special Interest Group awarded her their Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award for her research and service contributions to leadership preparation and program evaluation.
Additionally, Dr. Pounder served as a faculty mentor to educational leadership doctoral candidates participating in the AERA-Division A/UCEA Dave Clark Seminar.
Clark Seminar faculty mentors provide guidance to competitively selected doctoral students about their dissertation work, their career paths, and their professional growth and achievement.
