Nita Paris, a recent doctoral graduate in educational psychology, has received the 2002 Distinguished Dissertation Award of the Year from the Association of Teacher Educators.
    Paris, now an assistant professor of educational psychology and graduate program coordinator in the department of secondary and middle grades education at Kennesaw State University in Marietta, finished her Ph.D. in May 2000 with a major in applied cognition and development and a minor in science education.
    She received the award for her dissertation, titled “Elaborate Analogies in Science Text: Tools for Enhancing Preservice Teachers’ Knowledge and Attitudes.”
    Paris said she believed her research was of significant interest to teacher educators and to the educational community as a whole.
    “It addresses fundamental concerns of many educators – enhancing learning from text and enhancing content knowledge of preservice teachers,” she said. “In addition, it addresses enhancing preservice teachers’ beliefs about their ability to teach content to students. And finally, the research addresses the content area of science. Preservice and inservice teacher knowledge of science and teaching expertise in science has been and continues to be a focus of much research.”
    Paris credited Shawn Glynn, professor of educational psychology for chairing her committee as well as COE faculty members Steve Olejnik, Marty Carr, Tom Koballa and Deborah Tippins.
    Paris was born in and attended public schools in Louisiana. She received her bachelor’s in nursing from Northwestern State, a masters in exercise physiology and a bachelor’s in education from Texas Women’s University, and a masters in educational administration from the University of North Texas.
    She spent most of her professional life in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas teaching elementary school, high school science and served as a middle school principal.

Tuesday, March 26, 2002
Writer: Michael Childs, 706/542-5889, mchilds@coe.uga.edu
Contact: Shawn Glynn, 706/542-4249, sglynn@coe.uga.edu