Doctoral student awarded Public Impact Distinguished Fellowship
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UCI Graduate Division named UCI School of Education doctoral student Dandan Yang a 2021-22 Public Impact Distinguished Fellow.
One of only four graduate students university-wide to receive the honor, Public Impact Fellows highlight and support Ph.D. or MFA students whose current research has the potential for substantial impact in the public sphere. As part of her research, Yang is designing an interactive bilingual storybook app for young children and parents from language minority backgrounds to examine the verbal and non-verbal parent-child-computer interactions during shared reading and how these interactions are associated with children’s vocabulary learning and comprehension outcomes. |
Doctoral Student Dandan Yang
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“Digital apps, which parents can easily use on their mobile devices, are more cost-effective both from the state and families’ perspectives, compared with other educational interventions and resources such as teacher professional development or private tutoring,” Yang said. “Millions of children from financially disadvantaged and language-minority backgrounds, as well as millions of English language learners from less-developed countries and areas may benefit from this easy-to-use educational technology.”
“Dandan has shown masterful research leadership in her work – conceptualizing an important study, assembling and leading a large team of computer scientists and educational research assistants to iteratively design the bilingual e-books, and impressively collecting and analyzing a vast amount of data in the middle of a global pandemic – all to yield very interesting findings about this innovative technology for children's learning,” said Professor Mark Warschauer, who, along with Associate Professor Penelope Collins, serves as Yang’s advisors.
“The results are very important for understanding how bilingual e-books can help families learn together,” Warschauer added.
Yang will receive $12,000 to support her research and will have the opportunity to participate in Grad Advocacy Day in Sacramento to represent UCI and interact with legislators.
UCI Graduate Division also named 10 UCI students Public Impact Fellows, including School of Education doctoral students Hye Rin Lee and Renzhe Yu. For a full list of awardees, please click here.
“Dandan has shown masterful research leadership in her work – conceptualizing an important study, assembling and leading a large team of computer scientists and educational research assistants to iteratively design the bilingual e-books, and impressively collecting and analyzing a vast amount of data in the middle of a global pandemic – all to yield very interesting findings about this innovative technology for children's learning,” said Professor Mark Warschauer, who, along with Associate Professor Penelope Collins, serves as Yang’s advisors.
“The results are very important for understanding how bilingual e-books can help families learn together,” Warschauer added.
Yang will receive $12,000 to support her research and will have the opportunity to participate in Grad Advocacy Day in Sacramento to represent UCI and interact with legislators.
UCI Graduate Division also named 10 UCI students Public Impact Fellows, including School of Education doctoral students Hye Rin Lee and Renzhe Yu. For a full list of awardees, please click here.
