026 WSU Principal Certification program

There’s never been a more important time to have really good teachers. And, as long as we’re talking about teachers, we might as well talk about school principals. Whenever you hear about a school turn-around, or an amazing reform effort, one of the indispensable components of these is a good principal. On the flip side, teacher retention is the worst in the first three years of a teacher’s career, and one of the most often cited reasons by these teachers for leaving the profession is a lack of support or understanding from the principal. Truly, the onus is on WSU’s educational leadership program to ensure its principal certification is top-notch.

For more on this, we talked to Teena McDonald, from WSU Spokane.

025 Getting to Know You: Salina King

Salina King is a recent graduate from the College of Education. You could say that she’s doing a victory lap as she is using this Fall 2016 semester to finish her program and receive her teaching certification. She’s student teaching in a 4th grade classroom in Colfax, WA.

024 Making a difference through educational leadership

Today’s education requires more than just the status quo. That’s where Washington State University’s College of Education comes in. The college has a dynamic statewide educational leadership program, including superintendent certification, principal certification, and the best, most well-respected educational doctorate program in the state.

One of the college’s ed doctorate grads is Jared Hoadley, the executive director of student services for the Mead School District, north of Spokane. He’s absolutely dedicated to meeting student needs. Using a balance of practical experience, theory, and research, Dr. Hoadley is a prime example of how our alumni are making a huge impact in the field.

023 Health Science STEM Education Research Center

Right now, there’s a big focus at Washington State University on the health sciences. WSU Spokane has the new medical college, the College of Nursing, and the College of Pharmacy.

However, only select populations tend to gravitate toward careers in the health sciences. There are definitely underrepresented groups of students.

Janet Frost is a clinical associate professor in the college’s mathematics education program. She’s also the director of the Health Science STEM Education Research Center.

Among other things, the center works on finding the best ways to help health science experts to better teach, mentor and guide these underrepresented students in a way that allows them to consider health sciences as a potential career.

022 Improving balance among pregnant women

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that one out of four older people, meaning 65 and older, falls every year, but less than half tell their doctor. One out of every five falls causes a serious injury such as broken bones or a head injury. There’s also a tremendous cost attached to falls. Dr. Robert Catena, from the college’s Sport Science program, is the director of the Gait and Posture Biomechanics Lab. And he says that while the CDC highlights older people falling, there’s another demographic whose falls can injury not just one person, but two, potentially more.

021 Setting up an employee wellness program

A new fitness program is being introduced at Washington State University. The president and provost offices are giving financial support to the program, while the College of Education is administering the program, due to its scholarly research in sport science and athletic training. The program is called Cougar Employee Wellness Program, and is for all faculty and staff.

Its motto is “Be Active. Be Fit. Be Well.”

We sat down with Shane McFarland, one of the college’s kinesiology graduate assistants, and talked to him about everything he’s been doing to help get this program off the ground.

020 First generation immigrant students

Imagine the difficulties of being a student in the U.S. while also being an immigrant.

On the WSU Tri-Cities campus, Eric Johnson researches the difficulties, and talks about the engagement he does in this field that helps the students, as well as the teachers who teach those students.

019 Improving the education doctorate

The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) is a group of 80 colleges and schools of education, all of whom have committed resources to work together and strengthen the educational doctorate. The WSU College of Education was one of the founding members of CPED. While the college has always had a very strong ed doctorate program, it recognized the value in critical examination of its own program through dialogue, experimentation, critical feedback, and evaluation with other programs.

At this year’s annual convening, we caught up with Rick Sawyer, from the WSU Vancouver campus, and he talked more about CPED and what the College of Education hopes to get from this association.

018 Augmented Reality and the Assistive Technology Lab

If you hadn’t heard of augmented reality before, you probably have by now! That’s the technology behind the worldwide Pokémon GO craze.

Augmented reality has both similarities, and differences than virtual reality. Special education professor Don McMahon tells us what the difference is.

So why would a special education professor talk with us about augmented reality? How did he become a cutting-edge researcher in this field? He’ll explain how augmented reality is being used in the college’s assistive technology lab, and how that lab is helping increase opportunity and equity for students, especially those with disabilities.

017 First-Year Student Engagement

When it comes to student enrollment, most of the attention is spent on total enrollment, including record-breaking classes of incoming freshman. But, what good is it if the retention rate is terrible. How can universities hang on to students they do have?

We talk to Evelyn Martinez, a recent WSU College of Education graduate. She explains the importance of engagement, and students using the resources being made available to them. She also talks about universities having a more fluid definition of what success is.

RSS
Facebook
LinkedIn
Share