Curriculum and Instruction News
The Wisconsin State Journal recently posted a report about Breathe For Change (B4C), a Madison-based company that’s designed to enhance the health and well-being of teachers, students and school communities through yoga, mindfulness and social-emotional learning. Breathe for Change was founded by Ilana Nankin, who earned her Ph.D. from the School of Education’s No. 1-ranked Department of Curriculum and Instruction in 2016.
The work of UW-Madison’s Elizabeth Graue was recently showcased in a “Research Minutes” podcast hosted on the CPRE Knowledge Hub website. As states increasingly call for standards-based Pre-K programs, teachers and administrators often struggle to balance traditional child development practice with external standards and policies. Graue is the lead author of a new, multi-state, comparative case study titled "What Guides Pre-K Programs?" In the podcast, Graue discusses her findings and their implications for Pre-K administrators, teachers and policymakers.
With rhetoric ratcheting up ahead of the November elections and a new school year just underway, an upcoming conference hosted by the UW-Madison School of Education couldn’t be more timely or relevant. The event is titled, “Teaching About the 2018 Elections: Preparing Students for Political Engagement,” and it will run from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 22, in Grainger Hall. The conference is designed to provide educators the tools, resources and confidence they’d need to teach about electoral politics in a way that is engaging but respectful to differing points of view.
UW-Madison’s Tom Popkewitz delivered a keynote speech at the European Educational Research Association ‘s annual conference in Bolzano, Italy, earlier this month. Popkewitz is a professor with the School of Education’s No. 1-ranked Department of Curriculum and Instruction. His research focuses on the systems of reason that govern curriculum reforms, the sciences of education and teacher education. His keynote was titled, “The Paradox of Research: The Good Intentions of Inclusion that Excludes and Abjects.”
UW-Madison’s Rui Li was recently awarded a prestigious Doctoral Dissertation Grant from The International Research Foundation (TIRF) for English Language Education. Li is a Ph.D. candidate with the School of Education’s No.1-ranked Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She is now one of 130 grantees from 26 different countries who have received this award since 2002. The project that’s being funded is titled, “Multimodal Learning and Communication Through Transnational Digital Storytelling.”
UW-Madison’s Diana Hess appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “The Morning Show” earlier this week to talk about the importance of civics education. Despite requiring high schoolers to pass a civics test, Wisconsin is one of the few states in the country that doesn’t require schools to offer a civics course. Hess, who is Dean of the School of Education, has spent much of her career researching the impact of school-based civic education programs and how students experience and learn from discussions of highly controversial political issues.
Four scholars with ties to UW-Madison’s School of Education traveled to China last month to take part in the 2018 International Network of Education Institutes’ (INEI) Summer Program, which was hosted by Beijing Normal University. The institute is an effort to build a cross-cultural platform for meaningful intellectual dialogue. Those from UW-Madison taking part in the program included: Hanna Lichtenstein and Kristen McNeill, who are master’s degree students with the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis’ Global Higher Education program; alumna Carolyn Schroeder; and Adam Nelson, a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor with the Department of Educational Policy Studies.
UW-Madison and faculty members from across campus helped host an international cohort of scholars on Aug. 13 at the Pyle Center for a conference titled, “Valuing Deep Education.” The event resembled a think tank for about 20 researchers and humanitarian specialists from Taiwan, India and the United States, including School of Education faculty members Francois Victor Tochon, Lynet Uttal and Mimi Bloch.
Sandra Kowalczyk, a reading specialist at Patrick Marsh Middle School in Sun Prairie, was named a 2018 Educator of the Year by the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE). Kowalczyk, who earned a Reading Specialist license through UW-Madison’s School of Education in 2005, will receive the award during the association’s annual conference Oct. 25-27 in Orlando, Fla.
UW-Madison's Michael W. Apple earlier this month delivered the keynote address at the International Symposium on Cultural Legacy and Educational Institutions, which was held at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Apple is the John Bascom Professor Emeritus of Curriculum and Instruction, and Educational Policy Studies. His keynote was titled, "Questioning Official Knowledge." He also presented the CLASS Public Lecture at Nanyang Technological University, with a talk titled, “Can Education Change Society?”