Curriculum and Instruction
Maria Gonzalez-Howard • Associate Professor
Department of Curriculum and Instruction Associate Professor of STEM Education Dr. María González-Howard was awarded a new National Science Foundation grant in collaboration with Dr. Katherine L. McNeill at Boston College. The project will run between September 2025 and August 2029 and will partner 3rd, 4th and 5th grade teachers across the greater Austin and Boston regions to co-develop a suite of tools that elementary teachers can use to customize high-quality instructional science curricula that better supports students with a range of communicative strengths, including multilingualism. The resulting customization tools will be disseminated widely with the goal of improving science learning for all elementary students, including multilingual learners, nationally and support students’ use of their entire communicative and sensemaking repertoires in and for science.
Center for Community College Student Engagement
The Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE) has released a report titled Essential Conditions for Community College Student Success: Maximizing Student Engagement by Fostering a Culture of Caring, which examines the link between a culture of caring and student success. The report analyzes data from more than 54,000 student respondents from 127 community colleges who participated in the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, as well as nearly 10,000 incoming students at 58 colleges who responded to the Survey of Entering Student Engagement. The five components of caring that researchers explored included sense of belonging, self-efficacy, stigma and help-seeking behaviors, support for basic needs, and mental health and well-being. Results include that a caring environment is related to success.
Special Education
Sarah Powell • Professor
For Media and Web: Department of Special Education professor Dr. Sarah Powell was awarded the Eminent Researcher Award by the Learning Difficulties Association in Australia. The award is funded by Routledge, publisher of the Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, and recognizes significant contributions to research in the area of learning difficulties. Powell’s research focuses on evidence-based mathematics instruction, including interventions for students with learning difficulties.
