On February 28th, the College of Education had a special visitor. Archie, an emotional support dog, visited Dr. Stefanie Sorbet (Department of Elementary, Literacy, and Special Education) to share about supporting preservice and early career educators.
Archie and his handler, Mrs. Bethany Hill of Arch Ford Educational Cooperative, discussed ways they can support programs through speaking and presenting. Through this collaboration, Dr. Sorbet will be a presenter for the Arch Ford group of Year One educators in August, and Mrs. Hill will be a guest speaker in one of Dr. Sorbet's junior block classes.
*Photo of Mrs. Hill and Archie
Students in Ms. Catherine Miller's (Department of Elementary, Literacy, and Special Education) Development Theories course are learning how to create developmentally appropriate learning environments that are safe and nurturing for all learners. Guest speaker, Mrs. Jamisa Nuness-Hogan, Owner/Founder of Kid's World Child Care Center in Conway, Arkansas, used her 26+ years of expertise to provide students with examples of how to help young children develop into Progressive Thinkers.
Mrs. Nuness-Hogan holds a degree in Early Childhood. Kids World Child Care Center is the largest independently owned and operated child care center in Conway and has over 26 years of collaborative partnerships with local and state agencies. Kids World Child Care Center has been recognized by the Best of Faulkner County as a finalist for best child care center in 2019 and won the overall award for best after school program in 2020.
Dr. Michelle Buchanan:
Dr. Buchanan continues to impress students and faculty with her innovative approaches to classroom pedagogy. She spends a tremendous amount of time mentoring her students, which is a hallmark of her teaching. Her unwavering commitment to her students is unparalleled, and she is a credit to the STEMteach program and to the Department of Teaching and Learning.
Dr. Thomas Bruick:
Dr. Bruick has a natural way of communicating knowledge to students. Students respond well to his interactions, and they are able to retain their learning for application in outside-the-classroom settings. Students are comfortable with him; yet, they seem to respect the standards and requirements he sets for them. Dr. Bruick continuously exhibits growth and professionalism as an instructor in Leadership Studies and the College Student Personnel Administration (CSPA) program.
Dr. Nykela Jackson:
Dr. Jackson's work with the Educators Rising program, the annual Educators Rising conference, and concurrent credit classes has consistently reaped benefits for the college, and she has demonstrated a level of service to not only her college but to the many future educators in Arkansas.
Dr. Amy Thompson:
Thao, S., Thompson, A., & Johnson, A. (2022). Digital Literacy: How Reading Disabilities Affect Online Learning, oral presentation at the Annual conference of Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR), Newport Beach, CA
Abstract: Online learning has increased in schools and universities and the recent COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this change. The growth of online learning has heightened the need for investigating how individual differences, such as reading disabilities, moderate online learning. This study aimed to explore how students with reading disabilities perform online tasks compared to their peers. The results showed that RD students could locate information on the internet but had difficulty synthesizing information for tasks requiring deeper learning. Additionally, RD students had more grammatical errors and less words in their answers. Our findings emphasize that both traditional literacy skills and online research skills should be considered to promote students’ online learning.