Around the neighborhoods: The neighborhood themes pull together the college's talents and strengths toward a common vision and mission. The themes are: Teaching and Learning; Psychological, Physical, and Social Development; and Family, Organization, and Community Systems and Contexts.

Short timeframe, significant gains

This July, associate professor Jennifer McComas, director of graduate studies in the Department of Educational Psychology, and nine undergraduate and graduate research assistants made significant literacy gains with struggling readers in a Minneapolis summer school program. Through the voluntary program at Lucy Craft Laney Community School, they were able to work on an individual basis with about 60 elementary students who had tested below grade level in reading.

After gauging each reader’s level during the first week, McComas and her graduate assistant Dana Wagner customized reading interventions accordingly. Some, for example, showed increased fluency when simply offered an incentive, such as a piece of candy. Others improved their performance when the instructor read the passage aloud beforehand as a model of fluent reading. Each of the instructors met with four to six students per day to offer their personalized intervention and to test for retention on a regular basis.

After 12 days of intervention, students in one of the test groups gained an average of nine words per minute, and the other group gained an average of seven per minute. The control group of students who attended the regular summer school program gained an average of 2.5 words per minute.

McComas’s literacy research is part of her larger research interests in early academic intervention as a way to circumvent future behavioral problems, which often lead to an emotional behavioral disorder (EBD) diagnosis, school failure, and drop-outs. She is spending the fall designing a larger study that will address academic and behavioral success of children in elementary and middle schools in north Minneapolis.

Take it outside

Child psychologist Marti Erickson, senior fellow in the Center for Early Education and Development, joined about 70 other experts at the University’s Landscape Arboretum in August to share ideas about promoting No Child Left Inside (NCLI). NCLI is both a proposed legislative amendment and a national initiative aimed at promoting outdoor activity and environmental education for children.

Outdoor play, especially when unstructured, promotes healthy child development through increased physical activity and use of the imagination. Children who gain an appreciation for the outdoors typically develop concern for the environment as well.

The NCLI bill would authorize $100 million in grants for states and school districts to integrate environmental education into their K–12 curricula. NCLI was originally inspired by the work of Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder (Algonquin Books, 2005). In conjunction with Louv, Erickson and a group of scholars and civic leaders from across the country have created the Children and Nature Network to further support state and national NCLI programs.

McIntyre, Johnson win 2007 AASLH award

Dorothy McIntyre (M.Ed. ’69) and Marian Bemis Johnson (M.Ed. ’73) recently won an Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History for their book Daughters of the Game: The First Era of Minnesota Girls High School Basketball, 1891–1942 (McJohn Publishing, 2005). Daughters of the Game recounts the early history of girls’ basketball through photos and first-person stories from the women who played. McIntyre, who is on the College Advisory Council, led efforts to include girls’ interschool sports in the Minnesota State High School League, where she was associate director. During her long career supporting girls and women in sports, Johnson developed the women’s varsity sports program at Lakewood Community College, where she was women’s athletic director for almost 20 years. For information on book signings or ordering, see daughtersofthegame.com.

College colleagues exchange gift of life

On June 3, colleagues Peter Dimock and Peggy Pond from the School of Social Work forged a lifelong bond. Pond, an undergraduate community program assistant, donated 60 percent of her liver to Dimock, 62, who needed a transplant due to damage from cancer and from hepatitis C. Undertaken at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, Dimock’s surgery took nine hours.

The Star Tribune ran a front-page story about Pond and Dimock on the day of the surgery, which has had ongoing impact. Last month, when both were at the hospital for routine follow-up appointments, they were recognized by someone who had seen the paper. Her husband is in need of a liver transplant, and because of Dimock’s story she was inspired to write an open call for donors to her church congregation. Someone who they didn’t even know stepped forward as a match.

Pond has also been contacted a number of times by potential donors who want to know about her experience. Because the liver regenerates, both she and Dimock now have normal-sized organs. He’s back to his active lifestyle—working full time, biking, and dancing with his wife.

Child welfare forum ties practice to cultural competence

In June more than 90 researchers, child welfare professionals, state legislators, and community members converged on the McNamara Alumni Center for a forum entitled “Evidence-based practice in child welfare in the context of cultural competence.” Speakers represented the University of Pennsylvania, Ramsey County Community Human Services, the American Indian Policy Center, and a number of other national organizations.

The forum’s goal was to address the lack of information about the effectiveness of culturally sensitive approaches to child welfare. It’s an issue vital to a variety of fields, says social work professor Susan Wells, Gamble-Skogmo Chair in Child Welfare and Youth Policy, who hosted the event. “It’s important for the college to support this work because child welfare crosses so many areas—schools, families, law, social services,” she says. “All the different people studying child welfare need to speak a common language.”

To continue the work begun at the forum, Wells will serve as guest editor of a special issue of Children and Youth Services Review that focuses on the same theme. A call for papers is available on the forum Web site, along with proceedings, video footage, podcasts, and slideshows from the event.

Educators take spotlight at Professionalism in Practice conference

On August 17, more than 100 educators gathered for the first annual Professionalism in Practice conference, co-sponsored by the College of Education and Human Development. Entitled “Practice Made Public,” the half-day event featured a lively mix of interactive workshops and research roundtables led by teachers and based on their practice.

The conference’s keynote speaker was Jan Mandel, a teacher at St. Paul Central High School and an authority on integrating arts and curricula. Several of her students joined her to simulate an English class that incorporates improvisation and movement techniques.

The unique forum allowed teachers to demonstrate that they have research to share and that their reflection is substantive, says educational policy and administration coordinator Julie Kalnin, adding, “It was the teacher’s voice and knowledge being acknowledged at a research university.” Kalnin, who coordinated the college’s support for the conference, describes it as the culmination of longtime collaborative efforts by the University, Education Minnesota, and by Minneapolis Public Schools to support teacher professionalism and practice.

For conference coordinator Sharon Cormany Ornelas, Patrick Henry Professional Practice School coordinator, the event served to bring teachers together from an array of different disciplines for one purpose: improving the field of education. “It’s about giving teachers a voice in their professions, giving them a chance to dialogue about their practice and their research.”

Partners in storytelling

The Continuing Professional Studies (CPS) department within the newly named Preparation to Practice Group embarked on a unique research collaboration with Lucy Craft Laney Community School and the Black Storytellers Alliance (BSA) earlier this fall. The project, funded by the University’s Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, aims to explore storytelling as a means of teaching literacy skills to young students of color.

Throughout the project, third-grade students from Lucy Craft Laney, a predominately African American K–8 school in north Minneapolis, will participate in regular storytelling activities coordinated by BSA. The nonprofit organization promotes the traditions of African and African American storytelling. CPS and principal investigator associate professor Tim Lensmire (curriculum and instruction) are supervising the research and evaluation components of the project.

The research also specifically explores the partnership between the University, schools, and community organizations. The collaboration is one way to apply the mission of CPS, which is to create mutually beneficial partnerships between the college and the community, says Suzanne Miric, one of the project’s supervisors.

PHOTOS: Steve Schneider, Leo Kim, courtesy of McJohn Publishing, Carolyn Wavrin, Dawn Villella