Friday, November 20, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
242 Mabel Lee Hall
Jim Bovaird, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Psychology and Director, CYFS Statistics & Research Methodology Unit

A developing child’s environment, or context, is known to affect individual behavior. Developmentalists have long recognized the need to look at the “ecosystem” in which humans learn and develop. Using Bronfenbrenner’s (1979, 1986) ecological model as a template, this presentation will outline current methodological possibilities that allow us to consider the influence of multiple interacting systems in a child’s environment, including immediate social settings (microsystems); the connections between multiple distinct social settings (mesosystems); neighborhood and community influences (exosystems); the overarching cultural, political, and economic influences (macrosystems); and the developmental impact of time (chronosystem). Particular attention will be given to matching ecologically-pertinent research questions with available appropriate methodologies and identifying when the state-of-the-science may be inadequate.

Distance education hardly new at UNL, and CEHS has been at the center of it since the turn of the century.

At the start, distance education had a more literal meaning. Teachers College faculty traveled Nebraska  to Study Centers where they helped teachers gain credentials, high school students complete college courses, and Civilian Conservation men meet toward degrees.

Before long, Teachers College was pioneering research in educational applications of motion pictures and, eventually, television. Again, Nebraska residents were the prime beneficiaries: in the before Sputnik entered orbit, Teachers College was reaching 42 high schools throughout the state, providing instruction in 16 academic subjects.

Distance education continues to change, though not the mission.

This fall, the department of Educational Administration received regional recognition from the University Continuing Education Association. Laureen Greenwood (EEO) along with department faculty and students, coordinated video-conferencing solutions for doctoral defenses. Candidates were spared the time and expense required to visit Lincoln in person.

CEHS faculty and staff successfully model the use of techology for their students. In 2009, student teacher Colleen McBride, along with her two cooperating teachers, was awarded a National Teacher Award by Time Warner for her work using multimedia tools with Lincoln 3rd grade students.

CEHS remains committed to making education accessible to Nebraskan's who cannot travel to Lincoln. The college continues to forge new methods, with new tools, to provide educational opportunities at a distance.

Marianne Fons, co-editor in chief of Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine and co-host of the public television series of the same name, will speak on "Why We Quilt" on November 14, 2009 at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum in Lincoln, NE. The proceeds from the lecture and following reception and trunk show will benefit the museum.

Fons will share her experiences as a quilter and quilting teacher as well as her research into why millions of people, now and in the past, have loved to quilt. Her lecture is illustrated with a wide range of quilt images from the past and present, including some of her own prize-winning quilts. Following the lecture a limited-seating reception will be held at the museum. Marianne will show some of her quilts and comment on the exhibition "American Quilts in the Modern Age, 1870-1940".

Tickets are on sale now. Lecture-only admission is $22 for museum members, $25 for non-members. Combination lecture and reception tickets are $50 for members and $60 for non-members.

EARLY REGISTRATION RECOMMENDED Call 402-472-6549 to reserve a seat, or print and mail the registration form below.

Katherine Richardson Bruna is an Associate Professor of Multicultural and International Curriculum Studies at Iowa State University.  

Her ethnographic research on the school experiences in science of newcomer Mexican youth in a demographically-transitioning midwest community has been published in a number of scholarly journals, including Cultural Studies of Science Education, Linguistics & Education, the Journal of English for Academic Purposes, and Multicultural Perspectives.  She is editor (with Kimberly Gomez) of The Work of Language in Multicultural Classrooms: Talking Science, Writing Science (Routledge, 2009), and her invited chapter for the International Handbook on Science Education on the topic of science schooling and US Mexican youth is forthcoming.  With an interest in transnational approaches to professional development, Richardson Bruna has also led several delegations of Iowa teachers and administrators to rural Mexico and has facilitated visits by Mexican teachers to Iowa schools.