Below is a sample of recent faculty research from College of Education. To view a larger sampling, please check out the full Annual Report and Findings publication (PDF).
Dianne Gardner, associate professor of educational administration and foundations
Gardner, D. C. (2011). Characteristic collaborative processes in school-university partnerships. Planning & Changing, 42, 63-86.
This article presents findings from multiple years of evaluation of STEM-focused, school-university partnerships. In addition to developing the three empirically grounded models of structural partnership configurations for project electives, the CSEP team used these models to examine partnership projects for their characteristic collaborative implementation processes. This essay specifically applies questions that deal with project viability and sustainability—across the full range of Illinois ITQ projects—revealing which collaborative structures and processes make the projects sustainable and which do not.
Terry Husband, assistant professor of teaching and learning
Husband, T. (2011). “I don’t see color:” Challenging assumptions about discussing race with young children. Early Childhood Education Journal, 10, 1-7.
Early childhood classrooms in the U.S. continue to become increasingly diverse as we journey through the 21st century. Yet and still, many early childhood educators have been slow to respond to these shifts in diversity on the basis of both developmental and political concerns. In this guest editorial, I argue for the integration of anti-racist education in the early childhood social studies classroom. The reasons I discuss here concern when and how children develop racial attitudes, the difficulty of altering long-standing stereotypes, student empowerment, critical teacher reflection, and issues of standardization. I conclude with several considerations teachers should heed as they engage in this form of education.
Stacy Kelly, assistant professor of special education
Kelly, S. M. (2011). Assistive technology use by high school students with visual impairments: A second look at the current problem. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 105, 235-239.
This study assessed the use of assistive technology by high school students with visual impairments through a secondary analysis of the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2). The results indicated that less than half the academically oriented students with visual impairments in the United States were using assistive technology. The study found that across the three waves of data, an average of only 42 percent of academically oriented high school students with visual impairments were using high-tech assistive technology and that use of these technologies were predictors for the students’ future employability.
