Assistant Professor Jade Marcus Jenkins has been awarded a 2019-2020 Hellman Fellowship to be used toward her study, "The Impacts of State Early Childhood Policies on Children with Disabilities."
Hellman Fellowships were established by Warren and Chris Hellman and their children in 1994 to support the research of promising assistant professors who show capacity for great distinction in their chosen fields of endeavor. In notifying Dr. Jenkins of her award, Diane O'Dowd, UCI Vice Provost for Academic Personnel, communicated, "Your selection as a Hellman Fellow at UCI is a tremendous acknowledgement of your achievements, thus far." Jenkins is one of five assistant professors at UCI receiving the $50,000 Hellman Fellowship. She is joining the 58 other Hellman Fellows awarded fellowships since 2013. Read UCI's press release here. Proposal Abstract Children with disabilities enter school with a unique set of challenges and disadvantages relative to their typically-developing peers. Vital to improving the developmental trajectory of young children with special needs is to minimize potential developmental delay and avert the long-run costs from special education placement by intervening during the critical biological window of infancy and toddlerhood. Considering that the prevalence of disability among children has more than doubled since the 1980s, and children with disabilities represent 13 percent of public school enrollment, population-level interventions in the academic trajectories of these vulnerable students is a central concern for teachers, administrators, policymakers, and parents. The overarching research question in this proposal is “Do state early childhood policies impact the provision of early learning services for children with, or at risk of disability?” In this two-study research project, I will assess the impacts of two early childhood policies that vary across states. Study 1 uses differences in the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act, Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities Program (Part C) eligibility laws across states and over time to examine how early intervention for infants and toddlers who are vulnerable to delayed development influences their long-run education, health, and labor market outcomes. Study 2 uses differences across states and over time in the introduction of states’ prekindergarten programs to examine their impact on the enrollment of children with disabilities in federal Head Start programs. I use a quasi-experimental, state fixed effects analysis in both studies to control for unchanging (“fixed”) characteristics of states so that I will be able to discern the effects of states’ policies on children with disabilities from that of other unobserved state factors. The UCI School of Education celebrated the achievements of 535 bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. graduates during the university's commencement ceremonies, June 15-17, 2019.
“The graduates from the Class of 2019 join the accomplished and distinguished group of UCI School of Education alumni,” said Richard Arum, dean and professor of the School of Education. “There are more than 10,000 living alumni from the School of Education. We know that this newest group will become leaders in their community, inspire future generations, and make the school proud, just as those who’ve come before have done.” The School awarded 16 Ph.D.s to candidates who completed the Ph.D. in Education program: Priyanka Agarwal, Gabriel Estrella, Lauren Godfrey, Tien Ho, Masha Jones, Connie Kang, Tarana Khan, Hansol Lee, Qiujie Li, David Liu, Peter McPartlan, Wendy Ochoa, Sabrina Solanki, Karen Taylor, Osman Umarji, and Joanna Yau. The graduates specialized in one or more of the following areas: Educational Policy and Social Context; Human Development in Context; Teaching, Learning, and Educational Improvement; Learning, Teaching, Cognition, and Development; and Language, Literacy, and Technology. UCI alumna Dr. Wenli Jen served as honorary Mace Marshall for the 2019 commencement ceremonies. Dr. Jen is chief executive officer of Integral Prudence Solutions. She earned her Administrative Credentials; her Multiple Subjects Teaching Credential with CLAD; and a B.A. in Social Science with a specialization in Public and Community Service, minor in Educational Studies from UCI. She is on the board of the School of Education's Alumni Chapter. Photographs from the 2019 Ph.D. Hooding Ceremony The 14-month Master of Arts in Teaching + Teaching Credential program graduated 129 candidates; 57 pursued a multiple subject teaching credential, and 72 a single subject teaching credential. The multiple subject credential prepares graduates to teach all grade levels and content areas within the elementary school curriculum. The single subject credential trains students to teach social science, mathematics, English language arts, sciences, art, or world languages at the middle or high school level. Photographs from the 2019 Master of Arts in Teaching Commencement Three hundred and ninety (390) undergraduates earned a Bachelor of Arts in Education Sciences. Graduates pursued up to two specializations from the following: Early Childhood Learning and Development, Children's Learning and Development, After-School Learning and Development, Digital Media and Learning, English Language Learning, and Research and Evaluation. Sixty-two of the bachelor of arts graduates earned Latin honors. Forty percent of the graduates earned a second degree from another UCI School. Photographs from the 2019 Bachelor's Commencement Ceremonies Eighteen CalTeach Science and Mathematics Program graduates, Cohort 8, celebrated earning their STEM degree + Teaching Credential at the June 14th UCI CalTeach Science and Math Program Reception. The graduates have completed course requirements in a rigorous program that combines scientific training in math and science and field experience student teaching in Orange County elementary, middle, and high school classrooms. UCI’s CalTeach program is a collaboration among three schools - Biological Science, Physical Science, and Education – that enables undergraduates to complete both their STEM degree and a single subject teaching credential in a minimum of four years. The 2019 cohort represented the various fields of study available through the CalTeach program.
As part of the June 14 ceremonies, CalTeach Director Doron Zinger and Master Teacher Kris Houston announced the recipients of two new awards: CalTeach Champion, given to Dean Ken Janda, and the CalTeach Student Service Award, given to Shantel Lopez. Both awards will be bestowed on a yearly basis. Following the awards, Zinger acknowledged and thanked the CalTeach faculty, fieldwork supervisors, and mentor teachers for their guidance and support during the student teaching experience.
Faculty and Supervisors: Amanda Holton, Lecturer; Christine Cameron, Supervisor; Danyelle Dale, Supervisor; Helen de la Maza, Lecturer; Sabina Giakoumis, Lecturer; Jeremy Hansuvadha, Lecturer; Kenn Huber, Lecturer; Karajean Hyde, Lecturer; Summer Keller, Lecturer; Esther Kim, Supervisor; Laura Palen, Supervisor; Stephanie Quan, Lecturer and Supervisor; Bill Brooks, Supervisor; Mahya Babaie, Lecturer; Vanessa Cerrahoglu, Lecturer; Gwen Blakenship, Supervisor; Chris Huff, Supervisor; Terry Shanahan, Supervisor; Bill Butler, Supervisor; and Claudia Flint, Supervisor. Mentor Teachers: Gabby Camacho, Laura Compton, Katheryn Cowans, Karen De Luna Lopez- Perez, Mickey Dickson, Emily Fellmer, Erika Fierro, Josh Gagnier, Nicole Gassner, Russell Hill, Pedro Ibarra, Charles McDonald, Nick McHatton, Vanessa Morales, Sara Neufeld, Sarah Ormes, Sue Pickels, and Julie Siratt. The collaborative CalTeach Leadership Team includes Kenneth Janda, Dean, School of Physical Sciences; Richard Arum, Dean, School of Education; Frank LaFerla, Dean, School of Biological Sciences; Doron Zinger, Education Co-Director/Program Director of CalTeach; Philip Collins, Physical Science Co-Director/Professor of Physics; Jessica Pratt, Biological Science Co-Director/Assistant Teaching Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology; Kristine Houston, CalTeach Academic Coordinator/Maser Teacher; and Kelley Le, Teacher Network Facilitator. For additional information about UCI’s CalTeach program, contact Chelsea Barilli, CalTeach Program Coordinator; Don Williams, Physical Sciences Counselor; Jennifer Bague-Sampson, Biological Sciences Counselor. CalTeach Graduation Reception Photographs UCI Distinguished Professor Jacquelynne Eccles has been selected by Katie Jodi at the University of Michigan for the naming of her collegiate lecturer appointment.
According to Thad Polk, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan: Katie Jodl has been named a Collegiate Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan. The University only awarded this distinction to four lecturers across the entire Ann Arbor Campus this year. The award is based on "a sustained record of excellence in teaching and learning and/or in service or other contribution to the University." Collegiate Lecturers are allowed to name their lectureship after another current or former Michigan faculty member, and Katie has decided that her title will be the Jacquelynne S. Eccles Collegiate Lecturer of Psychology. Katie will retain this title for the rest of her career at the University of Michigan. Chancellor's Professor Carol Connor has published with colleagues in the May issue of the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education: "Modality and Interrelations Among Language, Reading, Spoken Phonological Awareness, and Fingerspelling."
Abstract Better understanding of the mechanisms underlying early reading skills can lead to improved interventions. Hence, the purpose of this study was to examine multivariate associations among reading, language, spoken phonological awareness, and fingerspelling abilities for three groups of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) beginning readers: those who were acquiring only spoken English (n = 101), those who were visual learners and acquiring sign (n = 131), and those who were acquiring both (n = 104). Children were enrolled in kindergarten, first, or second grade. Within-group and between-group confirmatory factor analysis showed that there were both similarities and differences in the abilities that underlie reading in these three groups. For all groups, reading abilities related to both language and the ability to manipulate the sublexical features of words. However, the groups differed on whether these constructs were based on visual or spoken language. Our results suggest that there are alternative means to learning to read. Whereas all DHH children learning to read rely on the same fundamental abilities of language and phonological processing, the modality, levels, and relations among these abilities differ. "The Added Challenge of Digital Reading: Exploring Young Children's Page Turning Behaviors"6/11/2019
PhD students Ying Xu and Joanna Yau have published a paper with Associate Professor Stephanie Reich from the 18th ACM Interactional Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC): "The Added Challenge of Digital Reading: Exploring Young Children's Page Turning Behaviors." IDC conferences feature researchers, educators, and practitioners sharing the latest research findings, innovative methodologies, and new technologies in the areas of inclusive child-centered design, learning, and interaction.
Abstract Electronic books (e-books) with audio narration are often touted as enabling pre-literate children to read independently, which, indeed, is the most common way children utilized e-books in the U.S. However, young children may have trouble navigating e-books, as their cognitive and fine motor skills are still developing. Compared to print-books, e-books lack the tactability and tangibility of print books and thus may pose additional challenge to book navigation. To examine this issue, we randomly assigned 174 children aged 3-5 to be read either a print book by an adult (n = 85) or an e-book with audio narration (n = 89) and compared their page-turning behaviors, including disruptive turning (i.e., turning before narration ends), delayed turning (i.e., being inattentive for over one minute after the narration ends), and incorrect page-turning motions. We found that screen-based reading imposes additional cost to children's navigation of the book, especially for children under four years old and those who are less experienced with tablet devices. The learning curve to navigate e-books appears to be steeper than that for print-books. Future e-book design may want to provide scaffolding for young users and those lacking familiarity with touchscreen technologies. DOI: 10.1145/3311927.3323121 "Dual-Language Engagement: Concerted Cultivation of Spanish among Students, Teachers, and Parents"6/10/2019
Event: 14th Annual Center for Hearing Research (CHR) Symposium Theme: Variation from Hearing to Language Location: Medical Education Building, UCI Date: June 1, 2019 Presentation Title: Dual-Language Engagement: Concerted Cultivation of Spanish among Students, Teachers, and Parents Presenters: Yenda Prado, Elizabeth Peña Abstract Research has shown that bilinguals typically privilege majority-labeled over heritage language. Privileging is related to identity, proficiency, language use, and cross-cultural attitudes toward language. It is not clear why privileging occurs in environments deemed supportive of dual-language cultivation. This mixed-methods research explores language privileging by investigating the moves students, teachers, and parents make in their concerned cultivation of Spanish within a dual-language immersion school. Research questions:
Findings suggest that students’ Spanish use is (a) cultivated across culturally specified spaces, speech, and contexts; (b) by incorporating multiple concurrent instructional strategies, (c) with opportunities for full language immersion, and (4) by developing comfort, support, and engagement. Yenda Prado (photo by Phillip Tran)
PhD student Jacob Kepins is one of ten outstanding students on the UCI campus to be awarded a research grant from the UCI Center for Organizational Research. Jacob's grant project is titled "State College Admission Guarantees: A Study of the Organizational Field of Secondary and Post-Secondary Educational Organizations."
Jacob is a fourth year PhD in Education student specializing in Educational Policy and Social Context (EPSC). His research interests include educational organizations, social stratification, school poverty, educational inequality, dropouts, college access, and school-to-work transition. He is advised by Distinguished Professor George Farkas. Abstract It is recognized, theoretically, that secondary and post-secondary educational organizations are linked within the field of college access as students from the former are sorted and selected into the latter. Educational researchers, however, spend little time examining the variation of this organizational field. I use a nationally representative sample of U.S. high schools to examine the boundaries of and isomorphism within the college access field by observing how the ecological (poverty) and policy (public college admission guarantee) environments of secondary schools is associated with the structure and climate of secondary schools and the flow of student resources from secondary to post-secondary educational organizations. Assistant Professor Jade Jenkins is UCI Co-PI for a $3,300,000 five-year grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to study whether, for whom, and how the effects of successful early childhood school readiness interventions are sustained across a child's development. The title of the grant is "Factors in Persistence Versus Fadeout of Early Childhood Intervention Impacts." Kenneth Dodge of Duke University is PI. The second Co-PI is Alumnus Tyler Watts, Assistant Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University starting this fall.
Abstract This project seeks to understand whether, for whom, and how the health, educational, and psychosocial effects of early childhood school readiness interventions are sustained across a child’s lifespan. A consortium of leading scholars (Phillips, Dodge, et al., 2017) recently concluded that contemporary preschool programs in general have a positive impact on kindergarten readiness, but long-term effects are “sparse.” Most programs have not been evaluated over the long-term. Among those programs that have been evaluated, some find that effects are sustained into elementary school, whereas others find that effects fade out. Among the reasons for differing effects is variability in participants’ subsequent school experiences. This project will provide the most comprehensive examination to date of the fadeout phenomenon. We propose first to test whether the initial positive effects of three early childhood interventions persist through elementary school and into adolescence, and whether effects hold across important subgroups (e.g., dual language learners). We then test the “Sustaining Environments” hypothesis by Bailey et al. (2017) that heterogeneity in persistence of program impact is conditioned on characteristics of the child’s later school environment. We hypothesize that some elementary school environments (e.g., classrooms with higher proportions of peers who had also benefitted from early programs and are ready to learn, teachers trained to recognize early beneficiaries and to promote their accelerated learning, and continuity of curricula and school buildings from preschool to elementary school) will be more likely than others to have sustained effects (a moderation effect). Qiujie Li has accepted a position as Postdoctoral Researcher in the Learning Analytics Research Network (LEARN) at New York University. Her responsibilities will include:
Li will be working with Alyssa Wise, Associate Professor of Learning Sciences. For her Ph.D. in Education, Li specialized in Learning, Teaching, Cognition, and Development (LTCD). She completed her B.A. in Educational Technology in 2011 at Beijing Normal University, and received an M.A. in Distance Education from the same university in 2014. She has been advised by Professor Mark Warschauer and Assistant Professor Rachel Baker. |