Education

Around the College: Feb. 12, 2020

Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

  • Soo-yong Byun, associate professor of education (educational theory and policy), was invited as a speaker to the 2020 East Asia Forum organized by the London School of Economics and Political Science Students’ Union Korea Future Association. The forum will be held March 28 at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom. In addition, Byun, along with Kibum Kwon, a recent graduate from the Workforce Education and Development program and now an assistant professor at Texas A&M at Commerce, and Jiwon Kim, another recent Workforce Education and Development graduate and now an assistant professor at Korea University of Technology and Education, co-authored the article “Gender, Nonformal Learning, and Earnings in South Korea,” which was published in Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education.
  • Betsy Campbell, assistant teaching professor and research associate in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation to host a workshop titled "Understanding accelerators as organizations that influence diversity and inclusion in entrepreneurship through practices.” The workshop, which will be held later this year in the College of Education, will convene scholars and accelerator facilitators.
  • A new study by a research team led by James DiPerna, professor of education (school psychology), recently was published in Educational Researcher. The study also was cited in this article in Education Dive.
  • Gwen Deger and Naima Bhana, both graduate students of Jennifer Frank, assistant professor of education (special education), won the 2019 Council for Exceptional Children – Teacher Education Division Graduate Student Research Poster Award in November. The title of their poster was “¡Escúchame!: Using simulations to prepare special educators to communicate positively with families with LEP.” Deger and Bhana worked with Frank in her SPLED 404 class to set up a TeachLivE session in which they simulated how undergraduate students should work with parents who don't speak English during special education individualized education program meetings. TeachLivE is a mixed-reality classroom with simulated students that was developed at the University of Central Florida.
  • Erica Frankenberg, professor of education (educational leadership), was quoted in the article “'You can’t help but to wonder': Crumbling schools, less money, and dismal outcomes in the county that was supposed to change everything for black children in the South” in The Hechinger Report, which covers innovation and inequality in education.
  • Jana Jaffa, a doctor of education candidate in higher education, had her proposal accepted for the National Academic Advising Association's International Conference that will be held this summer in Athens, Greece. In addition, she recently was accepted onto the NAFSA Teaching, Learning, Scholarship (TLS) Research & Scholarship subcommittee.
  • Royel M. Johnson, assistant professor of education (higher education), co-authored a study with Leticia Oseguera, associate professor of education (higher education), titled "Examining the Role of Scientific Identity in Black Student Retention in a STEM Scholar Program" in The Journal of Negro Education. In the study, Johnson and Oseguera examine the role of scientific identity in black student retention in a STEM-focused scholar program.
  • Matthew Gardner Kelly, assistant professor of education (educational leadership), and Kai A. Schafft, professor of educatoin (educational leadership) and rural sociology, co-wrote an article titled “Fracking has led to a ‘bust’ for Pennsylvania school district finances” that was published in The Conversation.
  • Paul Morgan, professor of education (education policy studies), has a new article, “District-Level Achievement Gaps Explain Black and Hispanic Overrepresentation in Special Education, in Exceptional Children. The article examines racial and ethnic disparities in special education service receipt in the U.S. Morgan’s co-authors are George Farkas, distinguished professor of education at the University of California, Irvine; Marianne M. Hillemeier; Cynthia Mitchell, applications system analyst with the Social Science Research Initiative; and Adrienne D. Woods, postdoctoral research scholar in the Penn State Department of Education Policy Studies.
  • Chi Nguyen, a doctoral candidate in educational policy studies, had the first article of her dissertation published in International Journal of Leadership in Education: "Nationally standardized policy and locally interpreted implementation: how Vietnamese school leaders enact education reform."

"Around the College" highlights accomplishments by faculty, staff and students in the College of Education, including publications; research presentations at conferences and workshops; and awards, grants and fellowships. Please share your news with us and your colleagues by emailing edrelations@psu.edu.

Last Updated February 19, 2020

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