Department of Teaching and Learning
Tammy Benson, association professor, and Patty Phelps, professor. Research: 2011 conference presentation titled, Exemplary Classroom Teachers’ Passion for Teaching, at the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL.
Gary Bunn, assistant professor, and Terri Hebert, assistant professor. Research: 2011 conference presentation titled, Teacher Effectiveness and Decision Making Impacted by the Limitations of Individual Reflections and Enhanced with Collaborative Casual Conversations, at the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL.
Lisa Daniels, associate professor. Research: PI on a grant from ADE that established the Arkansas Research Center (ARC) in 2009. To date, UCA has received $2,106,567 to implement the grant. ARC’s mission is to foster effective educational data use and to serve as a clearing house for state agency educational data needed to benefit Arkansas schools. The data offer endless opportunities for research including evaluation of effectiveness of various policies affecting schools. Currently ARC plans to expand by building connections with the Arkansas Health Department, Human Services, Workforce Services, and Higher Education, providing a hub of information under one roof to better benefit the state.
Lisa Daniels, associate professor; Tammy Benson, associate professor; and Gary Bunn, assistant professor. Research: 2011 conference presentations titled, The Role of Teacher Preparation Programs in Developing Positive Dispositional Traits in Teacher Candidates, How Dispositional Traits Manifest, and the Impact of Dispositions on Teacher Candidates’ Effectiveness, at the Association of Teacher Education Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL, and the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA.
Nancy P. Gallavan, professor. Research: Navigating Cultural Competence. Two books published with Corwin Press, 2011, http://www.corwin.com/authorDetails.nav?contribId=532564, and two related 2011 conference presentations at the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL. Editor of the Arkansas Association of Teacher Educators (ArATE) Electronic Journal http://candidate.coe.uca.edu/arate/; Editor of Annual Editions: Multicultural Education, McGraw-Hill http://www.mhprofessional.com/product.php?isbn=0073397806; Editor of Aligning Performance-based Assessments in Social Studies Classrooms, National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS); Co-Editor with Cheryl Craig of the Association of Teacher Education (ATE) Yearbook XX: Valuing Diversity that is Natural, Authentic, and Holistic: Cultural Competence in P-12 Classrooms, Schools, and Higher Education.
Terri Hebert, assistant professor. Research: 2011 conference presentation titled, The strategic use of visual Imagery as assessment of higher order thinking connecting sight and insight, at the Seventh International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (QI2011), The University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana, IL.
Jeff Whittingham, associate professor; Stephanie Huffman, associate professor in the Department of Leadership Studies, and Rob Christensen, assistant professor. Research: 2010 conference presentation titled, Using audio books in the middle school library, at the Arkansas Curriculum Conference, Little Rock, AR.
Stephanie Huffman, associate professor in the Department of Leadership Studies; Jeff Whittingham, associate professor; Rob Christensen, assistant professor; and Tracy McAllister, Department of Leadership Studies adjunct professor and Conway Public School District Librarian. Research: September, 2010, presentation titled, Audio books in the middle school library: The impact on reading skills, at the Arkansas Library Association meeting.
Department of Early Childhood/Special Education
Mark Cooper, professor; Patty Kohler-Evans, associate professor; Renee Calhoon, director of administrator and teacher development. Research: Professional Development of Promising Practices for Successful Implementation of School Interventions. Development of strategies designed to implement the Arkansas Adolescent Literacy Intervention (AALI) with $2M awarded to UCA’s Mashburn Center for Learning team from the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE). AALI is designed to help public school teachers maximize academic success among struggling adolescent learners. The Strategic Instruction Model developed by the Center for Research on Learning at Kansas University is the primary intervention and consists of Learning Strategies and Content Enhancement Routines. Data have focused on professional development activities; student, teacher and administrator surveys; student achievement data; and data that represent teacher/student mastery of the intervention methodologies. The Mashburn team investigates practices that impact the level of implementation of the AALI and consequently designed a Professional Development Implementation Protocol unique to professional development. The protocol is being used as a promising practice to support professional development at school, district, and state-wide levels. Dr. Kim Dielmann, Department of Psychology at UCA, serves as the external evaluator for the AALI.
Shoudong Feng, associate professor. Research: 2011 book, Strategy use in unequal encounters: Chinese ESL learners’ strategies. Germany: Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. Based on large amount of speech data collected in academic settings, the pragmatic communication theory is applied to identify the strategies adult Chinese English Language Learners use when they communicate with a partner of unequal status with emphasis on the influence of culture on communication strategies.
Janet Filer, associate professor. Research: Clinical Director for the Developmental Outreach Clinic at UCA with UAMS/LEND (Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Other Related Disabilities). The overall purpose of the LEND program is to improve the lives of people with neurodevelopmental and other related disabilities through pre-service and in-service training of professionals and families. This clinic serves children and their families, aged six months to five years, who have various types of developmental delays including learning disorders, cerebral palsy, autism, and mental retardation. The clinic provides evaluation and follow-up of children in families who have limited access to specialized services.
Janet Filer, associate professor; Candice Barnes, assistant professor; and Mark Cooper, professor . Research: 2011 book chapter titled “The role of faculty in disposition development of teacher candidates: A neglected voice in teacher preparation” in Pathways to Transformation: Learning in Relationship edited by C. Boden and S. Kippers, Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Department of Leadership Studies
Shelly Albritton, associate professor. Research: 2010 book chapter titled, “Leading a change initiative: Efforts to improve faculty perceptions of online courses” in Cases on building quality distance delivery programs: Strategies and experience, edited by S. Huffman, S. Albitton, W. Rickman, and B. Wilmes, Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Stephanie Huffman, associate professor. Research: 2010 journal article titled, The missing link: The lack of citations and copyright notices in multimedia presentations, Tech Trends, 54(3), 38-44.
Stephanie Huffman, associate professor; Shelly Albritton, associate professor; Wendy Rickman, assistant professor, and Barbara Wilmes, associate professor in the Department of Early Childhood/Special Education. Research: Co-editors of the 2011 book titled, Cases on building quality distance delivery programs: Strategies and experience, Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Stephanie Huffman, associate professor; and Wendy Rickman, assistant professor. Research: 2010 invited journal article titled, Highly successful school library media specialists. AAIM Journal: Arkansas Association of Instructional Media, 23(2), 17-19.
Wendy Rickman, assistant professor in the Library Media and Information Technologies Program and the Instructional Technologies Program. Research: Winter, 2010, journal article titled, A Study of Self-censorship by School Librarians, School Library Media Research Journal Research Journal, 13, a refereed online research journal of the American Association of School Librarians: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/slmrb/slmrcontents/volume13/contents.cfm
Angela Webster-Smith, assistant professor.Research: September 2010 journal articled titled, Connect, Respect, and Reflect: A Teacher Case Study of Resolve ArATE Electronic Journal,1(1), a refeered online research journal of the Arkansas Association of Teacher Educators: http://candidate.coe.uca.edu/arate/journal.htm; 2010 journal article titled, Hope-Based Schooling that Advances Democracy: The Mission of 21st Century Leaders, Learning for Democracy Journal, 3; Topic Editor for the areas of Site and District-based Leadership of the International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation: Website titled Reflective Living, designed to help each visitor tap into their authenticity to live their best life: http://reflectivelivingwithdrangela.com
Angela Webster-Smith, assistant professor; Shelly Albritton, associate professor, and Patricia Kohler-Evans, associate professor in the Department of Early Childhood/Special Education. Research: 2011 book chapter titled “Meaningful conversations: Coaching to transform the heart, head, and hands of learning” in Pathways to Transformation: Learning in Relationship edited by C. Boden and S. Kippers, Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.