Portes

Pedro Portes, a professor of educational psychology in the College of Education, has been invited to join the editorial board for a section of the premier peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

Portes, The Goizueta Foundation Distinguished Chair of Latino Teacher Education and executive director of the Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education, will serve on the board of the American Educational Research Journal’s (AERJ), Teaching, Learning, and Human Development section in 2014. He was selected because of his substantive and methodological expertise as a researcher in education.

A past Fulbright Scholar to Peru, Portes received the AERA’s 2005 Research Award in Human Development. He is co-author of “Vygotsky in 21st Century Society” (2011) and author of “Dismantling Educational Inequality: A Cultural-Historical Approach to Closing the Achievement Gap” (2005). He is co-editor of the forthcoming “U.S. Latinos and Education Policy Research-Based Directions for Change,” to be published in spring 2014.

Portes joins COE faculty colleagues Peter Smagorinsky, Donna Alvermann and Jeremy Kilpatrick who also have served on the AERJ’s editorial board.

Smagorinsky, a UGA Distinguished Research Professor in language and literacy education, has served on the AERJ editorial board since 2008. He has also served on the editorial boards of the AERA journals: Review of Educational Research (2012-15, 2009-11, 1997-99) and Educational Researcher (2007-09).

Alvermann, the Omer Clyde and Elizabeth Parr Aderhold Professor in Education and a UGA Distinguished Research Professor in language and literacy education, served on the editorial board of the AERJ’s Social and Institutional Analysis section from 2006-11. She was named an AERA Fellow in 2012.

Kilpatrick, a Regents Professor of mathematics education, served on the editorial board of the AERJ’s Social and Institutional Analysis section from 2002-05. He was named an AERA Fellow in 2009.

Other COE faculty members who are AERA Fellows include: Mary Atwater and Roy Martin (emeritus) (2008), George Engelhard Jr., Jude Priessle and Jeremy Kilpatrick (2009), Joe Tobin and Leslie Steffe (2010).

Reschly

“We must move beyond the notion that grade retention and social promotion are the only available options. In the last decade, great strides have been made in describing effective academic and behavioral interventions,” writes Amy Reschly, an associate professor of educational psychology and director of the School Psychology Program at UGA’s College of Education in an August 7 op/ed article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution‘s “Get Schooled” blog.

Luh

Wei-Ming Luh, Distinguished Professor at National Cheng-Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan, was named director of the Center for General Education at the school on August 1.

Luh (PhD ’92, MEd ‘88), who received her doctorate in educational psychology and master’s degree in instructional technology from UGA, received the College of Education’s Alumni Professional Achievement Award in 2008.

Luh received the Outstanding Research Award in Education from the National Science Council in Taiwan in 2004 and the Ta-You Wu Memorial Award for distinguished young scholar in 2002.

She served as a Fulbright Research Scholar at Georgia College and State University’s School of Education conducting research on testing methodologies in 2008.

Reeves

A book co-authored by University of Georgia College of Education professor emeritus Thomas C. Reeves has received the Outstanding Book Award from the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT).

Conducting Educational Design Research, co-authored by Reeves and Susanne McKenney of the University of Twente in The Netherlands, is beneficial to faculty and students in university graduate programs in which exposure to innovative design research methodologies is limited. It is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in educational design research and fosters dialogue on how to best prepare the next generation of educational researchers.

Reeves and McKenney will receive the award at AECT’s annual international convention in Anaheim, Calif., in October 2013. Reeves will also be a keynote speaker at the convention.

During his career, Reeves has developed and evaluated numerous interactive learning programs for education and training. He has been an invited speaker in 30 countries around the world. He is a former Fulbright Lecturer and a former editor of the Journal of Interactive Learning Research.

Reeves is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) and he became the first American to be named an Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) Fellow in 2011.

He also co-authored A Guide to Authentic E-Learning, which won the 2010 Association for Educational Communications and Technology Design and Development Outstanding Book Award. The book was co-written with two Australian colleagues, Jan Herrington from Murdoch University and Ron Oliver of Edith Cowan University.

Some of the 16 gifted students from Istanbul, Turkey listen to the instructor of a class during the Torrance Center’s Global Minds Summer Program.

Sixteen gifted students from Istanbul, Turkey, are participating in the inaugural Global Minds Summer Program at the Torrance Center, based in the University of Georgia’s College of Education.

The students, ages 7-12, are here for intensive academic instruction in English. Courses range from Secret Agent Scientists and Multiplicative Reasoning to Personality Psychology. The three-week program is designed to give students exposure to subjects they will not learn in school.

The program, which runs from June 16-July 7,  is  in collaboration with the Gifted and Talented Education Center of Turkey.

To follow the program, please “like” the Torrance Center’s Facebook page and follow it on Twitter@TorranceCenterU, where pictures and other highlights of the program will be posted.

For more information on the program, visit:
www.coe.uga.edu/torrance/about/international-gifted-talented-educational-camp/

Templin

A three-day workshop presenting an introduction to multilevel statistical models featuring their use in longitudinal analyses. Multilevel models are widely used statistical methods with names such as hierarchical linear models and random or mixed effects models. By attending the Longitudinal Data Analysis Workshop, participants will gain a basic understanding of the modeling approach and will be able to conduct basic longitudinal analyses.

Instructor: Jonathan Templin
Associate Professor
Research, Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics program
UGA College of Education

Georgia Center for Continuing Education

Press release
Website

Reschley

Amy Reschly, an associate professor of educational psychology, co-authors an article in the May 2013 issue of the Journal of School Psychology reviewing the historical perspective and latest research on social promotion versus grade retention.

Templin

A three-day workshop presenting an introduction to multilevel statistical models featuring their use in longitudinal analyses will be hosted by the University of Georgia College of Education June 12-14 at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education.

Multilevel models are widely used statistical methods with names such as hierarchical linear models and random or mixed effects models. By attending the Longitudinal Data Analysis Workshop, participants will gain a basic understanding of the modeling approach and will be able to conduct basic longitudinal analyses.

Topics include analyses for basic repeated measures data, analysis of growth curves, within-person fluctuation, and simultaneous prediction of multiple sources of variation. The course will feature example handouts and syntax from SAS, software for business analytics.

The instructor of the workshop will be Jonathan Templin, a faculty member in the UGA College of Education’s department of educational psychology. Templin is an associate professor in the Research, Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics program. His quantitative program of research is focused on the expansion of diagnostic modeling in education and the social sciences. The main focus of his research is the development of statistical methods for classifying individuals with respect to psychological phenomena (mental abilities or psychological disorders).

The registration cost is $650 which includes workshop materials, parking passes, refreshment breaks and lunch each day. Registration deadline is May 29, 2013.

For more information, visit:
www.coe.uga.edu/events

Hamilton

The University of Georgia College of Education will host the Design, Implementation, and Analysis of Randomized Experiments in Education workshop series May 29-31 at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education.

This three-day workshop on the design, implementation and analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) is designed as an introductory session for people with an interest in trials, but with limited experience in undertaking them in educational settings. The goal is to increase the capacity of researchers to develop and conduct rigorous evaluations of the impact of education interventions.

The workshop will be interactive, with individual and small group assignments, and will include real-world examples from both the literature and the presenters own experience. It will provide intensive training on planning, implementing and analyzing data from an RCT. Participants will learn to describe the principles underlying randomized experiments and their advantages for making causal inferences and adequately describe the treatment and counterfactual, and measure implementation fidelity. Attendees will learn how to design an RCT, taking into account the practical limitation of the field, as well as the hierarchical structure of populations in education, and understand many of the common pitfalls in implementing RCTs in the field.

The instructor will be Jennifer Hamilton, senior study director at Westat, recognized as one of the foremost research and statistical survey organizations in the United States.

Hamilton more than 20 years of experience managing a variety of research studies in education. She specializes in evaluation methodology with a focus on experimental and quasi-experimental designs. She has designed and managed rigorous, high-stakes evaluations for clients that include the U.S. Department of Education, school districts, and city agencies such as the New York City Mayor’s Office. She is a certified What Works Clearinghouse reviewer, a peer reviewer for numerous journals, and a board member of the Eastern Evaluation Research Society.

Her chapter on program evaluation is forthcoming in a major textbook. In addition to her methodological expertise, Hamilton is adept at analyzing, interpreting and presenting complex data in ways that are understandable to a non-technical audience. Her analytical experience includes hierarchical linear modeling, logistic and multiple regression, and factor analysis, as well as complex modeling techniques such as structural equation modeling, including longitudinal analytic models. She graduated with a Ph.D. in measurement, statistics and evaluation from the University of Maryland, College Park.

The registration fee is $799 and includes workshop materials, refreshment breaks, lunch and parking passes each day. The registration deadline is Wednesday, May 15.  For more information or to register for these and other COE workshops, visit: www.coe.uga.edu/events/.

Cramond

Bonnie Cramond, director of UGA’s Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development, is interviewed on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” in the second of a three-part series about education and the arts which aired on April 17.