Virginia Tech School of Education Alumni Newsletter April 2022
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REIMAGINING THE FUTURE
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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
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Alumnus Alan Seibert to continue his legacy of servant leadership in education
Alan Seibert, who recently retired after more than 30 years of service to Salem City Schools in Virginia, has embarked on a new path with the Roanoke City Public Schools.
Seibert earned his doctorate in educational leadership and policy studies from the Virginia Tech School of Education in 2000. He then served as an assistant principal at Salem High School for five years and principal of South Salem Elementary School for three years before being tapped by the school board to serve as the school division’s superintendent in 2006.
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Visualizing Virginia Tech History
Visualizing Virginia Tech History is a multi-year project created by a transdisciplinary group of faculty and students that utilizes creative technologies including projection mapping, extended reality, and digital exhibits to illuminate 150 years of university history through 21st century technology. Bringing together historians, artists, educators, computer scientists, librarians and others from across the Virginia Tech campus, Visualizing Virginia Tech History is the most recent project to come out of the History Lab at Virginia Tech.
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VIDEO NEWS DIGEST
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Virginia Tech professor helps middle schoolers develop hands-on skills with STEM technology
March 7, 2022
Students in each Blacksburg Middle School are getting hands-on experience with a STEMbot, a large, mobile, raised-bed 3-gantry robotics system provided by Integrative STEM Education in Virginia Tech’s School of Education. Professor John Wells, along with his doctoral students, worked with middle school Technology Education teachers to set up the systems in their classrooms and prepare them for how to use the robots with students.
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Using technology to make visible, the invisible past
March 7, 2022
Collaboration and faculty-student research projects have led to the development of HistoryLab: Creative Technologies, Hidden Histories, Informal Learning. The new course, being offered for the first time this semester, bridges STEM fields, the humanities, education, and the creative arts.
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Extended reality: the future of visualizing the past
March 11, 2022
Virginia Tech's campus is brimming with stories longing to be told. Telling those stories, with an emphasis on marginalized voices, was the idea behind "Visualizing Virginia Tech History," a Humanities Week event that used multimedia displays and augmented reality to bring history to life.
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AWARDS & OUTREACH
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Meet the 2022 Bouchet Honor Society scholars at a celebratory tea
Five doctoral students have been selected as the newest members of Virginia Tech's chapter of the national Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society. The Graduate School will recognize Isil Anakok, Gabriela L. Carrillo, Anaid D. Shaver, Michelle White, and Johnny C. Woods Jr.
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Physics Teacher Education Coalition again honors Virginia Tech as part of ‘5+ Club’
The Physics Teacher Education Coalition (physTEC) has again honored Virginia Tech's School of Education and the Department of Physics as an inductee of “The 5+ Club, a group of institutions that have graduated five or more physics teachers in a given year.
The honor puts Virginia Tech in the top 1 percent of universities for training future physics teachers. This is the fourth time the department has been awarded the honor since Virginia Tech’s program began in 2011, previously winning in 2018-19, 2017-18, and 2012-13.
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We have our 'Burg-box Winners!
The generous individuals who donated $25 or more to the School of Education Fund during this year's Giving Day were automatically entered for a chance to win one of six 'Burg Boxes.
The winners are:
- Chase Catalano
- Claire Curcio
- Janet Funk
- Karen Messer-Bourgoin
- Odis McKinzie
- Robert Barrow
Congratulations and thanks to all those who donated this year!
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WE ARE HIRING!
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Grants Coordinator Assistant
The School of Education currently has a staff position open for hire (Grants Coordinator Assistant). If you know anyone that may be interested in this position, please share this information with them.
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- Amy Price Azano, published “Rethinking Equity and Justice in Rural Organizations: Implications for Policy and Practice,” The Rural Educator 43.1 (2022): 110–14, with Darris R. Means.
- The following doctoral students in the Instructional Design and Technology program in the School of Education presented papers at the Eastern Educational Research Association annual conference, which took place February 3 - 4 in Clearwater, Florida:
- Maram Khayyat presented “Cognitive Load Measurement of Using Interactive Virtual Reality Google Cardboard in Learning English Vocabulary as a Second Language”.
- Ghadah Almutairy and Rebecca Clark-Stallkamp, “Students have 99 Problems, but with Strategies, Solving Them Will Not Be One of Them: Instructional Strategies Leveraging Problem Types”;
- Almutairy, Helen Ajao, Lumbini Barua, Gabriel Adeneye, and Clark-Stallkamp, “Transformation of Instructional Design Competencies in the Post-Covid-19 Era: A Metasynthesis”;
- Clark-Stallkamp, “Designing for Uncertainty: Argumentation as a Pedagogical Tool to Manage Uncertainty in Ill-Structured Problem Solving”;
- Clark-Stallkamp and faculty member Alicia Johnson, “Two Heads are Better than One: Co-teaching as a Form of Professionalization in Higher Education”;
- Bryce Platt Kayanuma, faculty members Glen Holmes and Johnson, and School of Education alumnus Abbot Packard, “Utilizing Graduate Students to Enrich Traditional Academic Collaborations” and “Authentic Learning for Students and Faculty in a Community of Practice”;
- Platt Kayanuma and Nikita Reis and faculty member Holmes, “Notion – The Dream App for Educational Professionals”;
- Platt Kayanuma, faculty members Holmes and Barbara Lockee, and School of Education alumnus Leo Chen, “Using Diffusion of Innovation Theory to Explore Faculty Adoption of Research Management Systems”;
- Reis and faculty member Lockee, “The Rise of Ungrading: Pandemic Insights and Future Directions toward Meaningful Learning Assessment.”
- Barbara Lockee, published “Developing Consulting Skills in Novice Instructional Designers,” The Instructional Designer’s Training Guide: Authentic Practices and Considerations for Mentoring ID and Ed Tech Professionals, ed. Jill E. Stefaniak and Rebeca M. Reese (New York, New York, and London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2022), pp. 229–44, with Instructional Design and Technology alumna Miriam Larson.
- Two graduate students from the School of Education were among five Virginia Tech students selected for induction into the Edward Alexander Bouchet Graduate Honor Society in 2022: Anaid Shaver, Counselor Education, and Johnny Woods, Jr., Higher Education. The society was established in 2005 and named for the first African American to earn a doctoral degree in the United States; it “seeks to develop a network of scholars who exemplify academic and personal excellence, foster environments of support, and serve as examples of scholarship, leadership, character, service, and advocacy for students who have been traditionally underrepresented in the academy — exemplifying the spirit and example of Dr. Bouchet.” Virginia Tech is one of 16 Bouchet Society chapter institutions. The 2022 Bouchet Graduate Honor Society Scholars were recognized at a reception on campus on March 23; they will be inducted in April via a virtual ceremony originating at Yale University.
- Brett Jones and Yasuo Miyazaki and Educational Research and Evaluation doctoral student Mengyun Li published “Motivational Climate Predicts Student Evaluations of Teaching: Relationships between Students’ Course Perceptions, Ease of Course, and Evaluations of Teaching,” AERA (American Educational Research Association) Open 8.1 (2022): 1–17, with Stephen Biscotte.
- Brett Jones and Jesse “Jay” Wilkins and Educational Psychology doctoral student Hande Fenerci-Soysal published “Measuring the Motivational Climate in an Online Course: A Case Study Using an Online Survey Tool to Promote Data-Driven Decisions,” Project Leadership & Society 3 (December 2022), 100046.
- Natalie Ferand and seven other faculty from CLAHS were awarded mentoring grants from the Office of the Provost during the 2021–2022 academic year.
- John Wells, published “Technological/Engineering Design Based Learning: Assessing Student Critical Thinking and Problems Solving Abilities” with Susheela Shanta and “High School Pre-Engineering Students’ Engineering Design Cognition” with Matthew D. Lammi and John Gero, International Journal of Technology and Design Education 32.1 (March 2022): 267–85 and 311–31 respectively.
- Jesse “Jay” Wilkins, published “Construction of Subitized Units Is Related to the Construction of Arithmetic Units,” Educational Studies in Mathematics 109.1 (2022): 137–54, with Andy Norton and School of Education alumna Beth MacDonald.
The Virginia Tech School of Education is a global catalyst for individual and social transformation through education, applied research, and advocacy. With 20 degree and certificate programs, you can find your own pathway to serve the greater good.