Gina Kunz, CYFS research associate professor, shared her team’s research on teaching coaching Thursday, April 6 during the Paul Durban Show on KFOR, a Lincoln, Nebraska, radio station.
The team’s original study investigated how ‘coaches’—trained educators—can help teachers enhance instruction, particularly when using new instructional approaches. Their sample included middle and high school teachers in rural schools across Nebraska.
Amanda Witte, CYFS project manager, has been selected to participate in an inaugural fellows program through the University of Nebraska’s Rural Futures Institute. As one of 15 faculty fellows, Witte was selected for her contributions to rural communities through research.
A CYFS team has released a new working paper titled “Studying Educational Effectiveness in Rural Settings: A Guide for Researchers.”
The guide draws from experience gained while conducting research through CYFS’ National Center for Research on Rural Education, which was funded from 2009 to 2014 by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.
After leading the National Center for Research on Rural Education, a team of CYFS researchers has edited a new book titled “Rural Education Research in the United States: State of the Science and Emerging Directions.”
When the team began their work, there were not books focused specifically on rural education research—a gap they aimed to fill, said Gwen Nugent, lead editor and CYFS research professor.
As the school year begins at North Bend Elementary School, preschool teacher Morgan Root is supporting students of all grade levels with an evidence-based model developed by CYFS researchers.
Root is learning to facilitate the model, Teachers and Parents as Partners, as part of a new project focused on training rural school personnel. TAPP supports collaborative relationships between parents and teachers to improve students’ social, behavioral and academic outcomes. It also features a facilitator who guides the problem-solving process.
CYFS director Susan Sheridan and Amanda Witte, project manager, led a December 2015 webinar to share results from their study of conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC) in rural communities. Developed by Sheridan, CBC (also known as Teachers and Parents as Partners) is a structured parent-teacher partnership model that promotes positive academic and social outcomes for students.
As students learn to think like a scientist, a CYFS research team is discovering how to best prepare teachers as they emphasize inquiry over traditional science instruction.
CYFS researchers led a webinar May 12 to discuss the process and findings of their project, “Coaching Science Inquiry (CSI) in Rural Schools.” CSI examines how professional development and follow-up coaching influences teachers’ implementation of guided science inquiry—a classroom approach designed to help students learn the methods used by scientists to study the natural world.
Gretna and Chadron, Nebraska, are each home to slightly more than 5,500 residents. That’s where their similarity ends.
The city of Gretna borders a major metropolitan suburb, while—nearly 500 miles away in Nebraska’s Panhandle—Chadron is a short drive from the Badlands of South Dakota.