A SPECIAL WELCOME TO OUR NEWEST CLINICAL FACULTY! Dr. Darcey Gray, RCF at Lake Shore Middle School has lived in Jacksonville, Florida for the majority of her life. The last 12 years she has taught English, Reading, ESOL, and Early College courses for the Duval County School District. Darcey received her Bachelor’s degree in Art History from the University of North Florida, but then took some time off to explore the world. After many years away, Darcey pursued her Masters and Doctorate degree in Educational Leadership with a Specialization in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Phoenix in 2013. In her new position with the University of North Florida as a Resident Clinical Faculty, Darcey will support and guide interns pursuing a career in teaching. Besides working with rising

teachers, Darcey loves to spend time with her husband, Roman, dog, Cecil and most importantly planning the next vacation.

Dwyane L. Kohn, M.Ed. RCF at Kings Trail Elementary School has previously worked as a Clinical Educator and Adjunct Instructor in the Office of Field Experiences from 2005-2010. He now returns to UNF as a Resident Clinical Faculty for the UNF Professional Development School, Kings Trail Elementary. Dwyane earned his bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Florida State University and his master’s degree in instructional technology from Nova Southeastern University. He is actively researching doctorate programs in order to complete his lifetime goal of becoming “Dr. Kohn.”

Natalie Pelham, part-time Clinical Faculty for the past 6 years Natalie has had the opportunity to teach at Annie R. Morgan Elementary School but is so excited to return to her alma mater to teach future educators. Natalie completed her undergraduate studies at the amazing University of North Florida in Elementary Education and also has a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction with a Specialization in Digital Learning and Teaching. Natalie has been happily married for 6 1/2 years and has a sweet 10 month old son that keeps them very busy! She also has a big, 80 lb. dog who specializes in eating dress socks. She and her husband love watching and playing sports and also traveling in their down time.

P a g e | 2

Patricia Colom, part-time Clinical Faculty is a Florida Native, born in St. Petersburg. Patricia attended The University of South Florida where she received her B.A. in special education and an M.A. in Reading Education. Patricia has completed her 30th year in the teaching field. While in Tampa, she taught special education students in a self-contained learning disabilities setting. Patricia then moved to Palm Beach County where she taught second grade for five years. Patricia also spent two years as an elementary school library media specialist. While in Stillwater, Oklahoma, she was a reading specialist and trainer for the school district. For the past five years, she was a full time instructor in the College of Education at Bowling Green State University, in Bowling Green, Ohio. There she taught reading courses,

specifically Phonics and Reading Assessment and Diagnosis for the Department of Intervention Services. She also taught senior field experience and supervised interns. Patricia and her husband have two children, a 26 year old daughter and a 24 year old son. Her hobbies include reading, cycling, kayaking, baking, gardening and traveling.

DEPARTMENT OF EXCEPTIONAL, DEAF, AND INTERPRETER EDUCATION

Congratulations to Laura Jackson who was hired as a permanent Instructor in the ASL/English Interpreting Program! Laura has been a visitor and an adjunct in our College for about 5 years.

P a g e | 3

Top picture with Belize guests from left to right: Dr. Cecelia Ramirez-Smith, Dr. Cynthia Thompson, Dr. Carol Babb, Dr. Nikolai Vitti, Dr. Ethel Arzu, Aricelda Victoria

Reed, and Rosa Dilia Ramirez.

Bottom picture from left to right: Woodland Acres Elementary Principal Tiffany Fullwood, Lake Shore Middle International Baccalaureate World School Principal Chris

Begley, Resident Clinical Faculty Christie Stevenson, Dr. Nikolai Vitti, Professor in Residence Debbie Reed, Professor in Residence Susan Syverud, and Dr. John

Kemppainen.

Thanks to a $90,000 award from the UNF International Center to Drs. John Kemppainen, Susan Syverud, and Debbie Reed, initial steps were taken to create our first International Professional Development School partnership with the University of Belize and Kuxlin Ha Government Primary School. The following six stakeholders visited from Belize: Dr. Carol Babb, Deputy Chief Education Officer, and Mrs. Cecilia Ramirez-Smith, Director of Teacher Education and Development Services, from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports; Dr. Cynthia Thompson, Assistant Provost, and Dr. Ethel Arzu, Director of Quality Assurance, from the University of Belize; and Rosa Dilia Ramirez and Aricelda Victoria Reed, Teachers at Kuxlin Ha Government Primary School. Our international partners visited Urban Professional Development Schools (UPDS) Lake Shore Middle International Baccalaureate World School and Woodland Acres Elementary (WAE) where they had the opportunity to observe the breadth and depth of UNF involvement at each school. In addition, the Belizean educators were engaged in

P a g e | 4

2015 FCEC Conference picture from left to right: Dr. Susan Syverud, Quintia Hemphill, Dr. Janice Seabrooks-Blackmore, Baily Hersh, Savannah Myers, Dr.

Debbie Reed, Dr. Karen Patterson, Juiliana Santucci, Tessa Aldophson, and Aaron Hancock.

several developmental sessions learning the nine essentials of Professional Development Schools and what UNF has found to work best in its schools. Moreover, the Belizean educators enjoyed lunch and conversation with Duval County Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti and other UPDS stakeholders, including English Professor Dr. Marnie Jones, who developed a course entitled “Reading Matters” where her UNF students engage in novel studies with the highest performing fifth grade readers at WAE. UNF Provost Dr. Earle Traynham, UNF Vice President for International and Student Affairs Dr. Mauricio Gonzalez, and other key UNF administrators welcomed our guests. To promote collaborative music education between UNF and Belize with this new initiative, the Belizeans also met with Drs. Randy Tinnin and Gordon Brock from the School of Music. In addition to learning about Professional Development Schools, the Swivl Robot and Swivl Cloud technology was introduced as tools that will enhance communication and collaboration for this international project. Our Belizean guests also participated in sessions from the Monique Burr Foundation on Child Safety Matters and OneJax on Project Breakthrough. Our Belizean guests were so excited about this project, that plans are in works to send three additional stakeholders from the University of Belize and the Principal of Kuxlin Ha Government Primary School this fall before a UNF delegation travels to Belize in mid-November.

UNF was well-represented at the 69th Annual Florida Council for Exceptional Children Conference in Orlando, Florida. As Board Director for the Association for the Gifted, Dr. Christine Weber from the Department of Childhood Education, Literacy, and TESOL gave a presentation entitled “Challenging Academically Diverse Learners Using Tiered Assignments.” In addition, Drs. Susan Syverud, Debbie Reed, Janice Seabrooks-Blackmore, and Karen Patterson and student leaders from the UNF Chapter of the Student Council for Exceptional Education Bailey

Hersh, Savannah Myers, Juliana Santucci, Tessa Aldophson, Aaron Hancock, and Quintia Hemphill overall presented the following: “A University-Schools Partnership that Fosters Citizenship for Children with Disabilities,” “Preparing Candidates to Become Change Agents for Struggling Readers, Including Children with Disabilities,” and “Teacher Preparation in an Urban PDS Contex: Working with Struggling 7th Grade Math Students.”

P a g e | 5

Dr. Susan Syverud had over 150 participants attend her session entitled “Increasing the Reading Achievement of Young Struggling Readers” at the fourth annual TEACH Conference. TEACH is an event that is sponsored by WJCT and Community First Credit Union and was created to engage, empower, and inspire teachers.

DEPARTMENT OF CHILDHOOD EDUCATION, LITERACY, AND TESOL Dr. Stacy Boote recently published an article with Dr. Craig Berg from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. "Format Effects of Empirically-Derived Multiple-Choice Versus Free-Response Instruments when Assessing Graphing Abilities" was published in the International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education. Dr. Nile Stanley and Dr. Hope Wilson have recently published an article titled “Storytelling, values and perceived resilience among Chinese, Vietnamese, American and German prospective-teachers” in The Universal Journal of Educational Research. Furthermore, Dr. Nile Stanley and Dr. John Ouyang have been awarded a $6,000 research grant to investigate the effectiveness of the storytelling method of adolescent, Chinese second language learners. Additionally, they have conducted workshops for the Duval County Foreign language teachers.

Dr. Christine Weber and Wendy Behrens (MN Department of Education) presented a session on Making differentiation decisions at the 21st Biennial Conference, World Council for Gifted and Talented Children International Conference in Odense, Denmark in August.

P a g e | 6

DEPARTMENT OF FOUNDATIONS AND SECONDARY EDUCATION

Dr. Daniel Dinsmore presented three papers at the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) conference in Limassol, Cyprus. The first paper was titled, “The benefits of self-explanation for more difficult types of transfer problems.” The second paper, coauthored by Emily Fox from the University of Maryland, was titled, “Tracking the relation between measures of prior knowledge and reading comprehension.” The third paper, coauthored by Meghan Parkinson was titled, “Elementary and middle school students’ development of epistemic stance and higher order thinking.” Dan also got to

visit a medieval castle and a 2200 year-old archaeological site on his trip.

In Dr. John White’s role as UNF-UFF president, he spoke out against the Campus Carry Bill (HB 4001 and SB 68) on First Coast Connect the morning of (10/5/15). The show’s host, Melissa Ross, has invited him back to speak again next week prior to the OneJax gun control discussion in Lazzara Hall next week (a discussion that includes no faculty but lots of pro-gun folk). John has also been publishing letters to the editor in media outlets across the state, attended a forum on the issues sponsored by the Florida League of Women Voters, and has created a web page dedicated to informing students and faculty about the issue. The link can be found at this address: http://unf-uff.org/guns-on-campus/. Dr. Dilek Kayaalp recently published a journal article titled “Living with an accent: A sociological analysis of linguistic strategies of immigrant youth in Canada in the Journal of Youth Studies” and her paper has been accepted for a conference. She will present her paper titled "Accent hierarchy and linguistic experiences of minority youth in Canada" at the International Political Science Association’s 24rd World Congress in July 2016. DEPARTMENT OF LEADERSHIP, SCHOOL COUNSELING AND SPORT MANAGEMENT

P a g e | 7

The U.S. Embassy in Manama in collaboration with the Ministry of Education invited Dr. Terence Cavanaugh to share his expertise with students and educators in Bahrain. Dr. Cavanaugh participated in the “Towards Digital Empowerment in Education” conference from October 4 to 6, 2015, where he spoke about “Digital Empowerment from Digital Literacy to the Make Movement” and offered a workshop on “Finding Your Transitional Application.” Over the two-day event, Dr. Cavanaugh reached over 200 teachers and teacher specialists in various fields of education. He also conducted a customized action research workshop for 60 teacher specialists from the Ministry of Education, discussing ways and methods to improve digital tutoring in public schools. Additionally, the U.S. Embassy organized three separate workshops for 15 teachers and 60 students at the Bahrain Teachers College in University of Bahrain, covering topics such as digital textbooks, interactive mapping technologies, and information literacy. Lastly, the U.S. Embassy organized a specific workshop for over 60 English Language teachers, focusing on “Bookmapping: Literature, Reading and Interactive Maps.”

Drs. Nicholas Eastham and Terence Cavanaugh are presenting at the Florida Association of Science Teachers (FAST) conference in Tallahassee. They are presenting “3D printing: You don’t have to be a designer.” In addition to that, Terence Cavanaugh is presenting two more sessions, “Building your own open source science textbook” and “Strategies for the retooled science etextbook.”

Dr. Matthew Ohlson was named to the National Public Policy Committee of Kappa Delta Pi, International Honor Society in Education https://www.kdp.org.

OFFICE OF ACADEMIC ADVISING

Senior Academic Advisor Sandie Miller loves to paint! Currently on display in the Academic Advising Office is some of her art work. She began her quest to paint flowers while out on an injury she sustained last year. Self-taught for the most part, she enjoys the therapeutic aspects of painting and creating. This past summer, Sandie donated a piece of her art to a fund raiser at NAS that sold and more recently was asked for a donation piece for a fund raiser at the Seaside Community Charter School (SCCS) in Atlantic Beach by Dr. Katrina Hall. Her art will be on display for sale at SCCS Artisan Fair on October 24th and the public is invited to attend. “I am encouraged, needless to say, that someone out there likes my work.” Sandie has recently been approved and accepted to participate in local Art Walks around Jacksonville.

P a g e | 8

Dr. Rose helps a participant build a "cannon" to launch marshmallows. Dr. Hall poses with the son of an attendee.

CENTER FOR URBAN EDUCATION AND POLICY

CUEP Faculty associate Dr. Katrina Hall and Center Director Dr. Mary Rose presented "Building Literacy through Play" at the Health Department downtown as part of the DCPS Parent Academy series on Friday, October 9. The participants learned how to approach learning in a playful way that builds children's conceptual knowledge. The next workshop is at John. E. Love Elementary, Thursday, November 12 at 5:30pm. The public and walk-ins are welcome; a light supper will be provided. Email Dr. Hall for more information.

OFFICE OF THE DEAN

Drs. Betty Bennett, Megan Possinger, Jennifer Kane, John Kemppainen, Marsha Lupi and graduate assistant Jade Yuen, participated in Florida Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (FACTE) in St. Petersburg, Florida from October 7 – 9.