Karla Moller, a doctoral student in language education at UGA's College of Education, has been awarded a Spencer Fellowship of $20,000 to complete her dissertation research during the 2000-01 academic year.

Moller, who grew up in Athens, received one of only 30 Spencer Fellowships awarded nationally - one of the most competitive and prestigious awards in education.

Working primarily with fourth-graders, Moller is researching how children in an interactive group discussion (six children and one teacher) add layers of meaning as they discuss children's literature containing social justice themes.

"I am interested in how children expand on their initial responses to the literature, look at other avenues of response, connect aspects of their lives to books and the group's dialogue in critical reflection of social issues or personal action based on their discussions," she says. "I am focusing especially on the experiences of struggling readers within the group -- those children who, because of their struggles with word recognition and factual content, are rarely provided opportunities for richly developed interpretive and inferential responses to literature."

Moller, who has master's and bachelor's degrees from UGA, returned to the campus in 1996 to begin her doctoral work. She has a master's in foreign language education with an add-on certification in ESOL. She received a bachelor's with a double major in German and Psychology.

Prior to returning to UGA, Moller taught at Brown's Mill Elementary School in DeKalb County. She also taught English as a Second Language (ESOL) for four years in German public and private schools, as well as for the German armed services.

The Spencer Foundation, established in 1986, is a private foundation that grants funds to support research which contributes to the understanding of education and improvement of its practice.

Moller has two sons, Nicholas, age 10, and Christopher, age 7. Her husband, Ralf, is a manufacturing engineer with Rockwell/Reliance Electric in Athens.
 

Monday May 22, 2000

Writer: Michael Childs, 706/542-5889, mchilds@coe.uga.edu

Contact: Joel Taxel, 706/542-4511, jtaxel@coe.uga.edu