Category: education

Some great new research published out of the department of sociology, concerning the signals teachers get from students and how teacher perceptions shape student performance:

Elementary school students bring varied skills and experience to the classroom, commonly referred to as cultural capital. And when teachers notice and value these skills, students do better in school.

A new University of Georgia study, published in the April issue of the journal Sociology of Education, expands the notion of cultural capital to include a digital dimension, demonstrating that computer fluency is as important of a signal to teachers as visiting museums and attending concerts.

"We know that cultural capital matters, that teachers like to know about kids doing well outside the home and bringing that into the classroom," said study co-author Linda Renzulli, associate professor in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of sociology. "But maybe we need to update cultural capital and think about this other piece of information teachers are gaining about students, which isn't the ballet and isn't travel. It's actually digital capital."

In a society as broad and diverse as the U.S., inequality is a perennial issue - though it's simply not the case, as some ideologues would have it, of trying to create some uniform set of experiences for every person. Equality of opportunity is another matter, and the more we learn about how to help provide this for all young students, no matter their personal circumstances, the better-able they will be to discover their person potential and grow up to make their unique, positive contributions to society.

Image: via Wikimedia Commons, used by permission of an Art Libre license.

With our own Georgia Bulldogs getting ready for the SEC Championship game this week against Alabama, it's worthwhile to mention one of the issues related to the excitement and the game. In an essay describing a plan to let college athletes major in sports, FSU psychology professor emeritus David Pargman brings up an interesting analogy in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Why do we impose upon young, talented, and serious-minded high-school seniors the imperative of selecting an academic major that is, more often than not, completely irrelevant to, or at least inconsistent with, their heartfelt desires and true career objectives: to be professional athletes?
Acquisition of athletic skills is what significant numbers of NCAA Division I student athletes want to pursue. And this is undeniably why they’ve gone to their campus of choice. Their confessions about their primary interest are readily proclaimed and by no means denied or repressed. These athletes are as honest in recognizing and divulging their aspiration as is the student who declares a goal of performing some day at the Metropolitan Opera or on the Broadway stage. Student athletes wish to be professional entertainers. This is their heart’s desire.

Agree or not, this is a compelling argument. And one with which our friends, colleagues and students in the arts are very familiar. The improbable comparison seems all the more on the mark in the context of what our student musicians, actors and painters are up against in their quest to 'make it'. They might have much more in common with our elite athletes than we had imagined.

via Think Progress.

Our news director, Sam Fahmy, sat down with new Franklin College dean Alan Dorsey for an article published in this week's Columns. Here is Sam's article in full.

“Continuing Education”

Alan T. Dorsey takes the helm of the university’s oldest, largest and most academically diverse college

By Sam Fahmy

When Alan T. Dorsey became dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences on July 1, he took the helm of a college that educates more students and has more faculty and staff than all but six units of the 31-member University System of Georgia.

Needless to say, he’s been busy.

“Being a dean is the world’s best continuing education,” Dorsey said, reflecting on the diversity of disciplines within the college. Much of his time so far has been spent learning about the college’s 30 departments, its centers and institutes and getting to know its faculty, staff, students, alumni and supporters.

Dorsey comes to UGA with nearly 25 years of experience in higher education, most recently as associate dean for natural sciences and mathematics at the University of Florida’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He is both a product and a proponent of flagship research universities and the transformative role they can play in the lives of students and in the world at large. “I’ve spent all of my career in higher education, and I believe in the education that we provide to our students and in the importance of faculty scholarship and research,” Dorsey said. “Administration gives me a chance to influence that in a small way, but hopefully in a meaningful way.”

Hundreds of undergraduates from nearly every major take an introductory chemistry course each semester, and beginning this fall they’ll benefit from the expertise of professor Norbert Pienta, who will join UGA in July to fill the position of Director of General Chemistry Instruction. Pienta is a leader in the field of chemical education, a research area that focuses on the teaching and learning of chemistry. He is editor of the Journal of Chemical Education, a highly regarded journal published by the American Chemical Society, whose offices will now be housed at UGA.

Pienta is known for his pioneering use of Web-based tools and software for assessing student learning, using electronic data collection and visualization models to improve the understanding of laboratory data, and creating materials about the application of learning theories and best practices in chemistry for faculty and graduate students. He recently began applying his expertise to K-12 education.

Maybe this is too easy. For NPR. But another week and more reportage on National Public Radio about the value of a college education and whether it's worth it. Maybe it's just that I drive once a week and only catch these then; maybe they run similar pieces like this morning's interview everyday. But this is a very important to topic to everyone, and one that is on everyone's mind especially at this time of year. I attended a wonderful commencement ceremony for Lamar Dodd School of Art graduates and their families last night, and the keynote speaker did a great job not mincing words about the job market for new graduates but also explaining his experience making up a career for himself, a job that did not previously exist, and what the new graduates should do to conjure similar routes to happiness and fulfillment for themselves. But before I get to that, this:

This chart, and there are many others like it, must be the context to any conversation on whether college is right for you. It is. And this is only in terms of employment and earnings, versus not going. But the above segment was filled with elliptical phrases like, "... or whether you should try something else." Well just what might some of those things be, Jennifer Ludden?

To think clearly is to write clearly is to speak clearly. When it comes to the faltering standards of English language usage and practice, the evidence abounds and can seem overwhelming. All who engage as teachers, and at any level, really have their work cut out for them. All writers and speakers everywhere take their places on the front lines of this struggle simultaneously as well, providing examples for better and often worse. The importance of the power to say what you mean, to persuade, to re-enforce (not to mention to use poetry for higher ends) has remained constant.

Franklin faculty and guest speakers continue the important work of bringing science to the public.

World-renowned paleontologist Jack Horner, author of How to Build a Dinosaur, will discuss how he and his colleagues are developing the technology to create a real dinosaur at a lecture that is part of the annual Darwin Days celebration at the University of Georgia. 

Horner, who advised Steven Spielberg on Jurassic Park and is Regents Professor of Paleontology at Montana State University, will speak Feb. 6 at 4 p.m. in room 102 of the Miller Learning Center. His lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be followed by a reception in which copies of How to Build a Dinosaur will be available for signing.

I was thinking about the upcoming Martin Luther King Holiday on my walk in this morning, how the Civil Rights Era in the U.S. can sometimes seem distant, abstract and merely iconic. But it is so much more than that. The principles for which people fought, marched and died continue to impact us in very real ways.