School of Education/WCER Tuesday Lecture Series
2009-10
Tuesdays @ 3:00 – 4:00 pm
259 Teacher Education Building (unless noted)
All lectures are free and open to the public. Light refreshments served at most events.
Please find below an overview of this year's lecture series, including titles and presenters.
Tuesday, March 16 3-4 PM, 259 Educational Sciences
Where the Heart Is: Evangelical Christian Homeschooling Mothers' Educational Practice
Melissa Sherfinski is a PhD candidate in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She has been working with evangelical Christian homeschooling mothers since May of 2009, and continues to collect data in one community using ethnographic methods. She will share her story of conceptualizing and carrying out qualitative research in this very interesting field.
Tuesday, March 2 3-4 PM, 259 Educational Sciences
Federal Funding for Education Research: Tips and Trends
UW-Madison is a national leader in federally funded research, and education research is one of the domains in which the university has been particularly successful. Join Adam Gamoran, Wisconsin Center for Education Research Director, as he discusses popular sources of federal funding for education research, particularly the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation. He will point out recent changes in the interests of these agencies, attempt to forecast future trends and opportunities, and discuss strategies for success. Light refreshments will be provided.
Tuesday, February 16 3-4 PM, 259 Educational Sciences
Are Twentieth Century Factory-Model Schools Becoming Twenty-First Century Franchised Schools?
Mary Haywood Metz will talk about the ways that current narrowed definitions of academic achievement, accountability, and "scientific"or "evidence-based" research create a re-enforcing triangle that encourages prescriptive models of schooling to be "scaled up" to create networks of schools managed in ways that draw heavily from business models for nationally franchised businesses, such as McDonald's. She will use institutional theories and contingency theory in the study of organizations to explore some of the problems with this transfer of organizational practice between the institutions of business and education.
Tuesday, February 2 3-4 PM, 259 Educational Sciences
Inquiry at the Heart of Educational Research
Training in educational research is often weighted by discussions of method, ideology or practical applications. Clif Conrad and Rich Halverson will discuss how good research is animated by a spirit of inquiry - a human activity of searching for answers to burning questions. Their presentation will itself be a form of collaborative inquiry as they explore lessons learned and advice for graduate research that emerged from their recent ELPA course "Introduction to Inquiry." Also, they will make you smile.
Tuesday, January 19 3-4 PM, 259 Educational Sciences
Forging Strong Professional Connections as a Graduate Student at UW-Madison and Beyond
Damiana Gibbons, Curriculum and Instruction Dissertator, will discuss the various connections she has forged both at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and abroad. She will highlight the benefits and limitations to developing a wide base of mentors, including but not limited to advisors or members of a dissertation committee. In particular, she will focus on her personal experiences fostering some types of connections that are not often discussed when thinking about how to create strong relationships in graduate school, such as developing good relationships over time with the participants at your research sites, creating strong ties with other graduate students, and increasing your mentorship pool by making connections with professors in other universities, in her case professors at the University of London.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 3-4 PM, 259 Educational Sciences
What is a Theoretical Framework? And How Do I Get One?: Striving to Define and Build a Foundation for Research
Join Professors Jee-Seon Kim, Mitchell Nathan and Michael Thomas as they define what a theoretical framework is how they constructed the frameworks that guide their work.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 3-4 PM, 259 Educational Sciences
The Evolution of Research Agendas: Expanding Ideas Throughout the Course of an Academic Career
Join Professors Beth Graue and Gloria Ladson-Billings as they talk through the development of their research agendas from the beginning of their careers to their current research interests. Beth Graue, Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, also serves as Associate Director of Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) and Director of the Doctoral Research Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her areas of interest include readiness, class size reduction, preparing teachers for inclusive home-school relations, and qualitative research methods. She is currently part of a team of WCER researchers conducting the study of data use as a reform strategy.
Gloria Ladson-Billings chairs the Department of Curriculum & Instruction, is a faculty affiliate in Educational Policy Studies, and the Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was the 2005-2006 president of the American Educational Research Association, is a member of the National Academy of Education, and is a convener for the Forum for Democracy, Also in
2008 she was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal of Teachers College, Columbia University and a Hilldale Award. Ladson-Billings'
research examines the pedagogical practices of teachers who are successful with African American students and the application of Critical Race Theory to education.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 3-4 PM, 259 Educational Sciences
Preparing for a Successful Academic Job Interview Using Social MediaAre you on Facebook? Do you Twitter? Are you Linked.In? Sean C. Duncan is a doctoral candidate in Curriculum and Instruction that landed an academic position by utilizing social media. Join us as Sean argues for the importance of aggressive use of various social media by Education graduate students in the job market.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 3-4PM, 259 Educational Sciences
Interested in Qualitative Research?: Learn about the School of Education’s efforts to support the development and learning of qualitative researchers
Participants will leave this session with a better understanding of existing course work to learn epistemologies, paradigms, and methods of qualitative research, courses to gain practical experience and to analyze data as well as specialized approaches to qualitative research. Additionally, members of the School of Education’s Qualitative Methods committee will talk about the processes of coordination and change in this large institution.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009 3-4PM, 259 Educational Sciences
The Tortuous Path to Publication: Just How Many Revisions is it Going to Take?
Kick off the Doctoral Research Program Lecture Series with Emeritus Professor Michael Olneck, Educational Policy Studies! Using his American Journal of Education article, "What Have Immigrants Wanted from American Schools? What Do They Want Now?: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Immigrants, Language, and American Schooling" as an example, Professor Olneck will discuss the challenges and vicissitudes of conceiving, writing, and publishing an academic article.
