This semester, four Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College researchers are utilizing grants awarded by the Institute for Social Science Research at Arizona State University. The projects they submitted to ISSR were recognized for having particular significance to the social sciences, with the potential to benefit communities through contributions beyond education research.
A year ago, we announced we were reimagining our college of education. Big words, admittedly. But we also have to admit that our education system does not reliably do what we need it to do for nearly enough people and communities. So, a year later, it’s time to ask: What are we doing about it?
How a doctoral student is solving wicked problems in an urban environment
Imagine being part of a process that allows you the freedom to solve a challenge with no predetermined “right” answer. If there were answers to choose from, they still would not be correct because you would be missing a key component — empathy — and your thinking would be severely limited.
“I have always seen education as a key to moving our society move forward,” alumna Angel Jannasch-Pennell (PhD '96) says of earning her degree in Curriculum and Instruction, Special Education. And moving forward is just what Jannasch-Pennell helps educators and educational organizations do.
Last April, the iTeachELLs Teacher Quality Partnership Project, an initiative of ASU's Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, sponsored a visit from Joel Westheimer. The author and commentator facilitated three events focusing on the topic, "Teacher as Citizen," and based on his book, "What Kind of Citizen? Educating our children for the common good."
Arizona State University has welcomed 52 Saudi Arabian educators to the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College as part of the yearlong Building Leadership for Change Through School Immersion program. Developed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Education, the program — which will run through February 2019 — is in direct response to the Saudi Arabian government’s goal of investing in the future of their country by improving and innovating their schools.
Earlier this month, Kristen Hadeed, founder of Student Maid and author of “Permission to Screw Up,” visited ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College to give a talk and workshop on leadership.
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College is dedicated to working with schools and communities to confront a wide range of challenges in education; an imperative in keeping with ASU’s mandate to assume fundamental responsibilities for the communities it serves. For a research university such as ASU, that commitment requires a balance between the merits of pure research and knowledge creation with the demand for research that confronts societal challenges.
For the fourth consecutive year, Arizona State University has been named among the top producers of Teach for America corps members, according to 2018 rankings released by Teach for America, the national nonprofit that enlists recent college graduates to teach for two years in high-need urban and rural public schools.
In 2018, ASU climbed in the rankings to the top three, up from No. 4 in 2017, among large institutions included in the 680 contributing colleges and universities.
Many people view education as fundamentally a local phenomenon, especially in the United States. Iveta Silova, professor and director of ASU’s Center for Advanced Studies in Global Education, part of Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, says that view needs to be broadened. We need to be much more open to the world, she says. It’s changing all of the time, and so must we.