Table Of ContentTRANSFORMING LIVES
HOWDY FROM THE DEAN
What a year we’ve had at the College of Education and Human Development! Our enrollment has once again
reached a new height with over 7,000 students. We also broke ground on a new human clinical research
facility – the frst of its kind at Texas A&M.
We hired a multitude of new faculty including leading experts in mathematics, science education, sport
management, adult education, school psychology, teacher preparation, higher education, special education,
and health education. We also said goodbye to some very dear colleagues who have had a lasting impact on
our students and programs as well as within their felds.
This year, we continue our legacy of preparing leaders in education and health. We are acutely aware of the
challenges facing educators and administrators in our state. Last year, the Texas Education Agency once
again released seven teacher shortage areas for Texas including bilingual education/English as a second
language, mathematics, science, and special education. It’s a trend we are seeing across the nation as fewer
and fewer students are entering the teaching profession.
At Texas A&M, we are doing our part to address these shortage areas and keep children across the state and
nation interested and active in these high-need felds. But the College of Education and Human Development
does more than prepare teachers, we prepare leaders in many felds.
We are committed to having each of our graduates enter the workforce having experienced transformational
learning opportunities. Whether that’s a prestigious internship at a Fortune 500 company, a year-long clinical
teaching placement in urban Houston, or a life-changing global experience, we are supporting our students
as they lead and transform lives.
In this issue of Transforming Lives, you’ll meet our new faculty, be inspired by stories of our amazing students,
and meet donors that are partnering with us to ensure that the College of Education and Human Development
can continue our life-changing work well into the future.
Meet an expert who is training educators across our university and the world to have a lasting impact on how
students learn online. Discover how one faculty partnership is opening our students’ minds to new ideas,
challenges, and opportunities for collaborations across disciplines.
One of the most inspiring aspects of writing an annual report is to refect on all we have accomplished in
a year. We have been busy! It has been a phenomenal privilege for me to serve the college as Dean. I look
forward to where we head next…
Best wishes and Gig ‘em,
JOYCE ALEXANDER
PROFESSOR AND DEAN, RETA HAYNES ENDOWED CHAIR
We’ve got Aggies working in 756
school districts, all 20 regions, and
211 counties across the state.
<26
26-100
>100
SUPPLYING LEADERS
WITH EXPERIENCE
2
In This Issue of
In 2015, the Texas Education Agency
Transforming Lives
released seven teacher shortage areas
Laying the Groundwork for Success ............4
for the state including bilingual
Improving Content Area Reading
education/English as a second
Comprehension ..........................................7
language, mathematics, science, and
Global Perspectives ...................................10
special education.
Quality Matters When Improving Online
Student Learning ......................................13
Infoaboutkids.org: Accessible Research
and Knowledge for Parents, Teachers,
At the national level, the average number
and Researchers ........................................16
of enrolled students in teacher education
Annual Report ..........................................18
programs is declining, but Texas A&M is staying
strong. Taking the Lead .........................................30
2016-17 CEHD Event Calendar .................39
For the past fve years, we have averaged
Parting Shot ..............................................40
nearly 1,800 enrolled students each year.
We are also #1 in producing individuals with
teacher certifcations among public higher
education institutions in the state. And those
shortage areas?
We are #1 in math and science certifcations,
#2 in bilingual education, and #3 in special
education.
In the College of Education and Human
Development, we’re working hard to keep
schools in Texas flled with qualifed, passionate
educators.
Each year, we place nearly 450 students in
clinical settings deep in the Rio Grande Valley,
Increasing Passions for Science
across the plains of West, and throughout the
piney woods of the East. A collaboration between professors from four
colleges, including the College of Education
With more than 10,000 former students and Human Development, is hoping to
make a difference in the future of the STEM
currently working in Texas public schools
felds – science, technology, engineering and
as teachers, school counselors, principals,
mathematics. The project is part of a $1 million
coaches, and senior administrators, our hard grant from the National Science Foundation,
work reaches every corner of our state. building on the national Maker’s Movement. 124
students from Neal Elementary in 3rd, 4th and 5th
grade classes participated during the fall semester.
LEARN MORE AT TX.AG/NEALELEMENTARY
3
LAYING
GROUNDWORK
FOR SUCCESS
Building a Model for
Academic Language in
PK-3
YOUR THIRD GRADER SHOWS YOU HIS
SCIENCE HOMEWORK.
It asks, “Why do we get scabs?” You stumble
for a moment. You haven’t thought about
this for a long time! What are those things
called…plates, no platelets? Don’t they have
something to do with scabs? You search
your brain some more. What were those
things called that clean out the dirt? Oh yes,
macrophages. Using these two important
terms from the academic language of
science, you begin to piece together a
reasonable explanation for him.
4
But what happens when your child is bilingual fourth grade in order to properly catch up with
and the science problem is not in the language their English-speaking peers,” said Dr. Fuhui
spoken at home? A lack of an ‘academic Tong. “Third grade is seen as a transition year
language’, or the language needed by students for students.”
to do their work, may be a contributing factor
in the achievement gap for English language The importance of this research may extend
learners across the state and nation especially in further back into early childhood education. Dr.
STEM felds. Tong adds that English language learners need
about fve to seven years to properly develop
Scholars at the Center for Research and and acquire academic language.
Development in Dual Language and Literacy
Acquisition believe one of the frst steps starts The researchers used both standardized tests
with training educators to work with these and district-developed tests to evaluate the
students specifcally. efectiveness of their model.
“Today almost everything revolves around STEM Initial fndings of the project show the critical
related projects. These subjects require us to need for reaching these students at an early
understand academic language and students age.
must have strong academic foundations in
order to be able to learn more sophisticated “We found that the intervention was successful.
instruction,” Dr. Rafael Lara-Alecio, director of The students who completed our program
the center said. scored signifcantly higher in the areas of
vocabulary, decoding skills, content reading, and
Working with teachers and administrators in the in science achievement than those who had not
Aldine Independent School District in Houston, participated,” said Dr. Beverly Irby, co-director of
these researchers are developing a model to the center.
improve the English literacy development for
English language learners through structured
professional development for bilingual
educators.
Led by Dr. Lara-Alecio, the team developed a
set of curriculum for selected teachers along
with bi-weekly training sessions after school. The
sessions focused on lesson plan structure and
guidance on how to implement the curriculum
with their students. The Bilingual Education Program at
CEHD was recognized as a Bright
“We provided the teachers with a set curriculum
Spot in Hispanic Education by the
and trained them to use efective strategies
White House Initiative on Educational
to help students learn the academic language
Excellence for Hispanics.
in English through virtual professional
development,” said Dr. Lara-Alecio. “By infusing
The program addresses educational
scientifc concepts into the lesson, students
achievement gaps for bilingual
will have the opportunity to learn the academic
language needed to succeed in the classroom students and has helped graduate and
while they are improving their English language certify over 200 bilingual educators
skills.” every year.
“We saw that in order for students to improve
LEARN MORE AT LDN.TAMU.EDU
their comprehension, K-2 students must go
from learning to read, to reading to learn by the
5
Students in the selected classrooms also “For teachers participating in the project, they
outperformed the control students on tests felt the strategies were very efective in engaging
of oral reading fuency, science assessment, and motivating their students,” said Dr. Tong.
district science benchmark tests, and district “They continued using the strategies they
benchmark tests in reading. learned even after the project was completed
and shared them with other teachers in the
district.”
SPREADING THE IMPACT OF OUR RESEARCH
Experts from the Center for Research and Development in Dual Language and Literacy
Acquisition and the Educational Research Center teamed up this summer to offer a special
Summer Leadership Institute for administrators and educators from bilingual campuses
across Texas.
Principal Ash Kirk attended the workshop with a team of educators from Black Elementary
from Aldine Independent School District in Houston.
“Sometimes teachers don’t know how to approach students that have linguistic differences so
they need to be educated in those teaching strategies,” stated Kirk.
“Looking at cultural differences is a very important thing, especially in our district. I think it
was also benefcial to have that dialogue not only with teachers but also with administrators,”
added teacher Alicia Joseph-Lewis. “The shortage of bilingual teachers has affected us in the
sense of classroom sizes are growing for the students and because of that there is an uneven
student-to-teacher ratio.”
Among other outcomes, the 4-day institute provided participants with tools to positively
impact culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy on bilingual campuses; develop
effective communication and engagement plans for families, communities, and teachers;
and build individual leadership capacity, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence through
effective and strategic reflection, conflict engagement, and management.
LEARN MORE AT ELRC.TAMU.EDU/SLI
6
Improving Content Area
Reading Comprehension
(SWELL)
IMPROVING
CONTENT
AREA READING
COMPREHENSION
DR. KAY WIJEKUMAR KNOWS THE English language learners in elementary and
SOLUTION TO THE NATION’S LITERACY middle schools.
PROBLEMS STARTS WITH OUR
“If we don’t get them early enough in elementary
ELEMENTARY STUDENTS. and middle school, by the time they get to high
school it’s very hard to remediate and get them
For over 15 years, she has been developing and
to have these skills,” explained Dr. Wijekumar.
researching a program to help children improve
“The sooner we can put them on a very positive
their content area reading comprehension
academic pathway, the bigger impact we will have
performance on standardized tests and writing.
on their lives.”
Now, as director of the Center for Urban School
Partnerships, she is continuing these eforts for
Dr. Kay Wijekumar guides a young
student through her web-based
tutoring system.
7
The results of her hard work have illustrated that Teaching students to recognize the underlying
students who used her program have outperformed text structure, or how the information within a
other children by over one-half a grade level on written text is organized, can help students focus
standardized tests and a 75% grade level increase and monitor their comprehension as they read.
on writing main ideas. For example, it helps them recall key concepts and
relationships like the diference between “mass” and
In 2000, Dr. Wijekumar began working with a “matter.”
professor at Pennsylvania State University to develop
Students who have used Dr. Wijekumar’s program have outperformed
other children by over one-half a grade level on standardized tests and a
75% grade level increase on writing main ideas.
a web-based tutoring system to provide one-on- “These kids just need a leg up. They don’t have a
one instruction to a large number of students. The reading disability; they just need the background
project, known as the Intelligent Tutoring for the knowledge and the ability to read well to gain that
Structure Strategy (ITSS), was designed to improve knowledge.”
reading comprehension in STEM felds and social
sciences for students in fourth through eighth grade The program features an animated guide that
– a time when students are expected to read and presents modeling, practice, assessment, scafolding,
process information on their own in every area of and feedback to learners. Students learn how to
the curriculum. fnd signaling words - or key concepts - used by the
authors, classify the text structure, summarize the
The focus on this age group is important because text, and then recall the text.
of what is called the fourth grade slump where
students suddenly experience a huge drop in their “At the end of the day, if students can put
reading comprehension. Research shows this information into their brain in an organized manner,
happens because some students are unable to they can take it out and associate it in an organized
process, understand, and remember the content manner,” explained Dr. Wijekumar.
area text.
8
Reading comprehension is even more of an issue
for English language learners. In response to
an increase in the number of English language
learners in their classrooms, many of the teachers
who participated in the project reached out to Dr.
“The sooner we
Wijekumar and her team for a similar program to
specifcally help Spanish speaking students succeed. can put them on
That program is now available.
a very positive
The program includes two adaptations: Spanish
academic pathway,
Scafolding and English Hybrid. Spanish Scafolding
presents materials in both English and Spanish.
the bigger impact
English Hybrid gives students the option of getting
help in Spanish. we will have on
“Our most recent research study shows almost their lives.”
double the efects of what we found with our English
speaking students,” said Dr. Wijekumar. “The only
place we found a problem was in a couple of schools
where the textbook and teachers were giving
instruction that contradicted our program.”
More than 900 students in Texas and New Mexico
have been involved in the research, and teachers
Because of those concerns, Dr. Wijekumar and her
of those students are reporting success across the
team have made adjustments to the lessons and
board.
types of support for both students and teachers.
“We’ve revised our professional development for the
teachers so that we know all of the teachers will be
“There are many teachers who tell us that the kids
on the same page as us.”
remember things a whole lot longer, they’re so much
better at it and their confdence has gone up,” said
Dr. Wijekumar.
9
