Vagle

The Introduction to Phenomenological Research will offer qualitative researchers, instructors of qualitative research methods and graduate students insights on the philosophical and methodological foundations of phenomenology, practice with the core methodological techniques commonly used in descriptive and interpretive phenomenological research and discussions about the presenter’s post-intentional phenomenology.

Instructor: Mark Vagle
Associate professor
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
University of Minnesota

Georgia Center for Continuing Education

Press release
Website

The event kicks off with a reception at 6 p.m. with refreshments provided by local restaurants Five & Ten, The National and Farm 255. The screening of the film will begin at 7:30 p.m. A panel discussion will follow. Panelists include Hugh Acheson (chef, author, restaurateur), Paula Farmer (Clarke County School District Nutrition Director), Spencer Frye (Georgia House Representative, District 118), and Erin Barger (Director, Action Ministries and Our Daily Bread Kitchen). Admission is $20, with the proceeds going to the Athens Farmer’s Market’s Double SNAP Program that doubles the “food stamp” benefits of low-income residents at the Athens Farmer’s Market.

Cine
Reception begins at 6 p.m.
Film Screening — 7:30 p.m.
Panel discussion follows

Press release
Facebook

The film investigates incidents of hunger, as experienced by millions of Americans, and proposes solutions to the problem. Filmmakers Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush focus on the lives of three people who wage a daily struggle against hunger, and speak with various experts about the possibility of ensuring that every American is well fed. Despite the fact that the nation has the means and resources to feed every hungry mouth, it’s estimated that one in four American children doesn’t get enough to eat. The film asks if we possess the capability to provide these starving children with a nutritious diet but fail to do so, what does that say about us as a society?

The event kicks off with a reception at 6 p.m. with refreshments provided by local restaurants Five & Ten, The National and Farm 255. The screening of the film will begin at 7:30 p.m. A panel discussion will follow. Panelists include Hugh Acheson (chef, author, restaurateur), Paula Farmer (Clarke County School District Nutrition Director), Spencer Frye (Georgia House Representative, District 118), and Erin Barger (Director, Action Ministries and Our Daily Bread Kitchen). Admission is $20, with the proceeds going to the Athens Farmer’s Market’s Double SNAP Program that doubles the “food stamp” benefits of low-income residents at the Athens Farmer’s Market.

The UGA students worked with community residents and businesses on the event as part of a Hunger in Our Schools, anew service-learning course focused on issues of food security as they relate to young people’s experiences in schools that was developed by Kathy Thompson, a clinical associate professor and Jennifer James, an associate professor, both in the UGA College of Education’s department of educational theory and practice.

Partial funding for this event came from a grant from the UGA Office of Service Learning.

For more information on the movie, visit:
www.takepart.com/place-at-the-table

Visit the event’s facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/events/452062751554729/

UGA Gwinnett
Lawrenceville

Online registration
Press release

UGA Gwinnett
Lawrenceville

Online registration
Press release

Vagle

The foundations of phenomenological research in education will be introduced to in a three-day workshop sponsored by the University of Georgia College of Education June 5-7 at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education.

The Introduction to Phenomenological Research will offer qualitative researchers, instructors of qualitative research methods and graduate students insights on the philosophical and methodological foundations of phenomenology, practice with the core methodological techniques commonly used in descriptive and interpretive phenomenological research and discussions about the presenter’s post-intentional phenomenology.

Mark Vagle, a former UGA College of Education professor, will be the instructor for the workshop. Vagle is currently an associate professor in the department of curriculum and instruction at the University of Minnesota. He uses what he calls post-intentional phenomenology to critically examine some of the broad philosophical and social concerns that take concrete shape in elementary education.

Formal learning systems try to create a community in which people have similar feelings, behaviors and understandings, and so, they mostly ignore students’ individual differences. Phenomenology focuses on an individual’s first-hand experiences rather than the abstract experience of others. It emphasizes explaining the meaning of things through an individual’s perspectives and self-experiences.

The application-oriented workshop is presented by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research in Education and Human Development, based in the UGA College of Education.

Registration cost for this workshop is $625, which includes workshop materials, refreshment breaks, lunch and a parking pass each day. The registration deadline is May 22.

For more information and to register visit: www.coe.uga.edu/events

Stephanie R. Jones

“Researchers do a lot of talking and writing about arts-based research, and I wanted to try to ‘walk the walk’ by producing scholarship through the comics/sequential art medium rather than perpetuate the discourse that we ‘should’ value multiple ways of making sense of data and of the broader world,” said Jones. “Our comics work has already opened up a new audience for us — lots of teachers love it because it literally illustrates practice and theory rather than simply explaining it through linear text, and they claim they can ‘get’ the point through the combination of images and text. I have also experienced the powerful possibilities that comics opens up for data analysis and scholarship that aren’t available to me through language alone — producing multiple signs and signifiers simultaneously is certainly a huge benefit when I am trying to demonstrate the complexity of places, people, practice, theory, etc.”

Jones teaches courses on ethnography and place-based teaching, feminist theory and pedagogy, social class and poverty, early childhood education, and literacy. Her scholarship on the intersections of literacy, social class, gender, and identity has been published in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, Journal of Teacher Education, Gender and Education, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Teaching Education, Language Arts, and Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, among others.  She is the author of Girls, Social Class and Literacy: What Teachers Can Do to Make a Difference, and she is working with Woglom to transform a three-year study of feminist pedagogy in teacher education into a graphic book.

“The Other Side of Poverty in Schools,” an intensive, one-day workshop on Thursday, May 2, is designed for teachers, administrators, counselors, and teacher educators and will focus on developing research-based teaching practices, reflecting on formative assessment across the curriculum, incorporating social class-related content and formulating ideas for establishing positive relationships with working-class and poor families. Workshop participants will:

• Learn about the five principles for change to better meet the needs of working-class and poor students
• Develop research-based teaching practices sensitive to working-class and poor children and families
• Reflect on formative assessment of working-class and poor students across the curriculum
• Take away powerful classroom ideas for incorporating social class-related content
• Get ideas for establishing positive relationships with working-class and poor families

“The Reading Turn-Around Program,” a one-day workshop on Friday, May 3, is designed for teachers in elementary grades, instructional coaches, literacy coaches, administrators, after-school specialists, tutors and administrators who want to provide the highest-quality reading instruction and literacy contexts for all children. Workshop participants will:

• Learn about the social class-sensitive, five-part framework for differentiated instruction in reading;
• Examine how social class and poverty play a role in reading and language in the classroom;
• Analyze social class and poverty in popular culture, media, and literature through critical reading practices;
• Design learning opportunities around working-class children’s literature;
• Create a concrete plan for individualizing reading instruction for “struggling” readers and enhancing literacy for all students

Vagle

Jones

The workshops are part of the Classroom Project @ UGA initiative developed by UGA faculty member Stephanie Jones, an associate professor in the College of Education’s department of elementary and social studies education, and former UGA faculty member Mark Vagle, now a professor in elementary education at the University of Minnesota.

Jones is a researcher, professional developer, education consultant and former elementary school teacher. She is the author of the book, Girls, Social Class and Literacy: What Teachers Can Do to Make a Difference and co-author of The Reading Turn-Around: A Five-Part Framework for Differentiated Instruction.

Vagle, also a researcher, is a former elementary and middle school teacher and administrator. He is co-editor of the book, Developmentalism in Early Childhood and Middle Grades Education: Critical Conservations on Readiness and Responsiveness. His research focuses on moment-to-moment classroom interactions and how they influence and impact student learning.

Each workshop will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The cost for The Other Side of Poverty in Schools is $125 which includes workshop materials. The cost for The Reading Turn-Around is $150 which includes instructional materials and a copy of the book, The Reading Turn-Around: A Five-Part Framework for Differentiated Instruction.  Registration deadline for both events is April 29.

For more information on these and other workshops or to register online visit:
www.coe.uga.edu/events

Thomas

Toney

Two College of Education students — Jordan Thomas and Collette Toney — were among 14 outstanding senior leaders honored by the University of Georgia’s Pandora Yearbook during a banquet on March 26 at the Tate Student Center.

Students, their hometowns and majors are:

• Danielle Burnette, McRae, political science
• Kasey Darley, Macon, chemistry
• Joseph Wells Ellenberg, Saint Simons Island, political science
• Justin Ernest, Norcross, finance
• Rebeka Geer, Auburn, NY, public relations
• Carlon Howard, Dublin, political science
• Melanie Lucash, Lawrenceville, health promotions and behavior
• Rashaida Melvin, Acworth, human development and family science
• Lauren Tiffany Robinson, Ball Ground, human development and family science
• Anesia Sandifer, Martinez, finance
• Adrienne Schwartzman, Suwanee, interdisciplinary studies in wilderness therapy
• Jordan Thomas, Alpharetta, sports management
• Collette Toney, Snellville, social studies education
• Fatima Youseff, Monroe, international affairs

“These students are some of the brightest and most committed individuals in the senior class,” said Donielle Ojeah Bell, senior coordinator for student activities and staff adviser for Pandora. “They’ve shown themselves to be leaders during their time at Georgia, and we fully expect that each of them will accomplish great things in the future.”

This year’s honorees were selected from among more than 30 nominees.

Nominations were accepted from faculty and staff members or from the students themselves. Students were interviewed by two faculty or staff members, and the scores from the interviews were combined with students’ GPAs to arrive at an overall score.

The 2013 Pandora Yearbook will be unveiled during the annual Pandora Premiere event on April 24 on the Tate Student Center Plaza.

Pandora Yearbook is a registered student organization within UGA’s Division of Student Affairs.

For more information, call 706/542-6396 or see http://pandora.uga.edu.

Graduate programs in elementary and secondary education are perennially ranked in the top 10 in the nation in U.S. News & World Report’s annual issue of “America’s Best Graduate Schools.”

One of the University of Georgia College of Education’s most preeminent departments—Elementary and Social Studies Education—has changed its name to the Department of Educational Theory and Practice (ETAP) after an almost unanimous approval at the University Council in late February.

For nearly as long as Elementary and Social Studies Education has existed as a merged department, its faculty has been concerned that its name did not reflect its mission, its component parts, or the work that the faculty pursued, said Ronald Butchart, professor and head of the department.

Even in its early existence, its name obscured the fact that Middle School Education and Early Childhood Education (by far the department’s largest program) were housed in the department. More recently, the department has created two more programs, a doctoral emphasis in Teacher Education and a unitary doctoral program, and has absorbed responsibility for the undergraduate social foundations courses. Those new aspects of the department’s work were also excluded from the department’s formal name.

Over the years, the faculty found it awkward to explain the department’s name to people unfamiliar with it. Elementary Education existed only as a graduate emphasis, not as an undergraduate major; Social Studies Education, meanwhile, usually thought of primarily as a secondary education major, was awkwardly married to elementary education. Further, not a quarter of the research pursued in the department touched primarily on elementary or social studies education. Potential faculty applicants had been dissuaded from applying because of their confusion about the department’s structure.

Any attempt to create a traditional department name inclusive of all its moving parts would have resulted in a name so long that, as the department said in its justification for the name change, it would have taken the top half of departmental stationery. Further complicating matters, in recent years the department has become a powerhouse of exciting, interdisciplinary research that falls far beyond the boundaries suggested by traditional departmental names.

As a result, the faculty decided it needed to decide upon a departmental name that reflected its new reality as a department containing three outstanding teacher certification programs, a new dynamism in its graduate programs, a wholly rethought and intentionally interdisciplinary doctoral program, the college’s undergraduate cultural contexts and diversity courses, and scholars pushing the boundaries of educational knowledge.  It was a short step to realizing that the name it had adopted for its unitary doctoral program, Educational Theory and Practice, was also the name that best fit the entire department.  It also expressed the department’s commitment to testing theory in practice, and informing practice with theory.

The new name, the Department of Educational Theory and Practice, was vetted through College of Education department heads who took the proposal to their faculty with little objection. The proposal then went through the entire college and university systems with strong support at every level, culminating in a nearly unanimously favorable vote at the University Council.

Graduate programs in elementary and secondary education are perennially ranked in the top 10 in the nation in U.S. News & World Report’s annual issue of “America’s Best Graduate Schools.”  In the 2014 issue of specialty rankings, UGA tied for third for secondary education and ranked fifth for elementary education.