News and Events

What’s Love Got to Do with It? The Heart of School Readiness & Success June 4, 2008 Westin Convention Center Pittsburgh Hotel Additional Information Moderators: Twila Davis, Parent Leader Robert Nelkin, President & CPO, United Way of Allegheny County Gloria Rodriquez-Ransom, Parent Leader Scheduled to speak: Adolph Brown, III www.docspeaks.com Estelle Richman, PA Sec. of Public Welfare Resources and Downloads Hotel Reservation Information...

Isabel Beck, Emeritus Professor, was recently elected to membership in the National Academy of Education (NAEd). Members are elected on the basis of outstanding scholarship and contributions to education and include up to two hundred U.S. members and up to twenty-five foreign associates. NAEd has a formal partnership with the National Research Council. On Beck’s award Dean Lesgold commented, “This is truly U. S. education's highest honor, and we are extremely fortunate to h...

Bryon Kohut, doctoral student in Higher Education Management, was elected the 2008-09 president of the Graduate and Professional Students Association (GPSA).  This year Bryon is the business manager for the Council of Graduate Students in Education.  GPSA represents graduate and professional students at the University of Pittsburgh and is the umbrella for CGSE.  Some of the services that GPSA provide include travel grants, free legal services, sponsorship of various activitie...

The Department of Health and Physical Activity will host a Health Fitness Instructor Workshop sponsored by the American College of Sports Medicine June 20 - 21, 2008 at Trees Hall, University of Pittsburgh. The workshop will include practicums and lectures covering: Pre-activity screening/risk stratification Exercise programming for apprently healthy individuals Exercise programming for special populations Assessing cardiorespiratory fitness, body composition, muscular fitness,...

Michelle Pierce, a 1993 MAT graduate recently received one of the academic world's most prestigious honors, the Fulbright scholarship grant for international educational exchange. She will work on an ESL initiative called English Opens Doors in Arica, Chile which focuses in the training of future teachers in foreign language and English as a second language....

Recognition Ceremony Details : Students should check in at the Information Table by 8:20 a.m.  Students should begin to line up for the processional at 8:45 a.m.  Recognition Ceremony begins promptly at 9:00 a.m.  All PY students should dress in professional attire. All degree students are encouraged to dress in academic regalia for the School’s Recognition Ceremony.       Seating for the School of Education ceremony is on a first-c...

The School of Education graduation ceremony is April 27, 2008. Those of you who have graduated last summer, fall or are graduating in April are invited to participate in the ceremony. All of us in the faculty hope that you will join in celebrating your progress. If you are at all like I was as a student, you will be wondering why you should go to these events. There are two reasons. First, your family and friends have supported you in pursuing your educational goals, and they will enjoy seeing y...

The School of Education is offering online course registration online for the summer term. Register today for continuing education and Act 48 credit!...

During the annual CGSE Student Research Conference, all presenters will be given a reusable water bottle instead of an individual use bottle.  At each meeting, everyone can refill their water bottle.  In addition, various recycling bins will be set-up in the area for dispoal of recyclable material.  Everyone is encouraged to become a role-model in the recycling effort.  ...

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The mission of the School of Education, one of the best urban, public research universities, is to: advance knowledge, policy, and the practice of education regionally, nationally and globally and prepare the next generation of professional educators and scholarly researchers. To do this, we must maintain a community of learning and teaching practice that mutually engages university faculty, students, and education professionals in advancing the understanding and practice of education. We seek t...

A recent email from a prospective student asked why we had discouraged her from pursuing preparation to teach a certain foreign language. She made a good case that it would be good for schools to teach the language she had mastered and asked why we hadn't encouraged her to pursue a teaching credential with us. This got me to thinking about an important aspect of the advice we provide to prospective students. Usually, our advice consists of help in achieving a goal, especially when we offer a pro...

Listen to the radio interview online....

Part 1 – Preparing Teachers As I read public discussions of schools of education, I often wonder what people think we do. Some of that is obvious – our core business is preparing future teachers. We're constantly looking for better ways to do that. However, we have broader responsibilities. In this blog, and perhaps in another one or two to follow, I would like to explore what we're doing here at Pitt and why. And, I welcome your own follow-up comments – we're always trying to...

Ethan Hull, PhD student, and Deborah Aaron, associate professor in HPA and principal investigator, analyzed data from Aaron’s 17 year longitudinal study to conclude that when children enter the picture, physical activity time dwindles....

Lindsay Clare Matsumura, Assistant Professor at the Learning Policy Center was quoted in Education Week's April 18, 2007 article “Not All Agree on Meaning of NCLB Proficiency” by David J. Hoff. The following is an excerpt from that article: Advocates of national academic standards argue that because of such disparities, Congress should set up a process that would establish national standards and tests that states would be able to adopt, knowing that they met a national defini...

CEAC Presentation View PowerPoint Presentation Click an image below for a larger view Affiliates of Collaborative for Evaluation and Assessment Capacity (CEAC) work together to merge technical, evaluative, research design, statistical, and theoretical expertise to best address practical evaluation and assessment issues. Current areas of interest and expertise include evaluation of preK-16+ educational programs and services, formal and informal educational experiences, classroom to...

Recently, two occasions helped to remind me that each of us in education matters and can make a difference in the world. First, I was asked by a reporter to comment on the importance of having good teachers. After some reflection, I told the reporter that every successful person I know can point to at least one teacher who really made a difference in his or her life. Ask a few people you admire, and you can be pretty sure that they will have some stories to tell of how a teacher caused them to h...

Heather Bachman Watch a Live Recording of the Presentation : Early Experiences and School Success Heather Bachman is an assistant professor in the Applied Developmental Psychology Program in Psychology in Education . She obtained her degree in developmental psychology at Loyola University and completed postdoctoral training at Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research, where she held an adjunct faculty position. Bachman's research interests focus on cognitive and social comp...

Louise Kaczmarek Watch a Live Recording of the Presentation : Our New 5-Year Bachelor/Master's Program Leading to Multiple Certifications Louise Kaczmarek , an associate professor in Special Education in Instruction and Learning , specializes in early intervention. She recently received a training grant to establish a specialization in autism within the early intervention program. Kaczmarek , along with Meryl Lazar in elementary education and Carl Johnson in Applied Developmental Psycholo...

Jennifer Carrier Watch a Live Recording of the Presentation : Working with Arts and Sciences to Enhance Elementary Science Teaching Jennifer Cartier , an assistant professor in Science Education in Instruction and Learning , has a PhD in education and a master's degree in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Williams. After completing her graduate work in 1999, she joined the National Center for Improving Student Learning and Achi...

Maureen McClure Watch a Live Recording of the Presentation : The Indonesia Project as an Example of our International Effort Maureen McClure , associate professor and chair, in Administrative and Policy Studies . She has a PhD in education from the University of Rochester and three masters' degrees (an MS in educational administration, an MBA in applied economics and an MA in secondary education). McClure works mainly with large scale education systems in crisis, often with the UN. She ha...

Rose Swenson and Jerry Longo Watch a Live Recording of the Presentation : The Educational Leadership Initiative Rose Swensen and Jerry Longo are the Co-Directors for Organizational Development and Institutional Relations for the Western Pennsylvania Educational Leadership Initiative (ELI). Swensen is an experienced management consultant skilled in organizational development, human resources management models and strategies, and program design, delivery and management for educational institu...

Sponsored Project Funding During the 2005-2006 school year, the School of Education was awarded $15.4 million in research, training and public service grants and contracts from external sponsors including the Federal Government, Commonwealth of PA, local and national foundations and other sources. The largest portion of our funding was received from the Federal Government. NIH funding was over $2.6 million and NSF funding totaled $515,700. Instructional Program Highlights Started new grad...

Many disciplines contribute to education, and not all are empirical scientific disciplines. Important contributions come from historical analysis, from moral philosophy, and a number of areas of social and literary theory. However, in education as in many other areas of human endeavor, there also is much to be gained through rigorous empirical work. In this note, I consider some of the contributions of educational research methods to science in general and to education more specifically and...

Experience shows that teachers with an undergraduate degree in a related content area are better prepared and more confident in the classroom. Click below to read more about our one-year elementary, secondary special education, and early childhood Masters and Instructional I Teacher Certification programs....

Having spent part of my career working in artificial intelligence, I often think about what computers can do and about what the unique roles for people will be in the future. Of late, it has occurred to me that almost all of the assessments prevalent in education measure capabilities that machines often have as well. It is not unusual, for example, for a school system to have as its math goals teaching the younger child to emulate a $5 calculator and the older child to emulate a $100 graphing ca...