On the Map Research Highlights
Knapp balances academic advocacy with adventures on a motorcycle
UB and GSE alumna Amanda Knapp, BS ’00, EdM ’03, drew on her West Virginia roots when she began winning off-road racing competitions with a motorcycle graduation gift she got after earning her doctorate. Now as associate vice provost and assistant dean leading student success initiatives at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, she’s found a connection between racing and academia. “It’s all about keeping students on track,” she said. “You find a way within yourself to overcome that hurdle … It’s all about having the right support around you. Anything is possible. We all cheer for our students. Just like racing.”
Students around world come together to create COVID-themed comics with UB program
A GSE research team adjusted a graphic-novel teaching project to fit COVID restrictions, and it went virtual and international.
Fourteen students from the U.S., Mexico and India joined in by video calls and developed stories related to the issues and inequities at home and school that the pandemic highlighted. Their work and drawings, developed with leadership from UB and GSE educators, illustrated an educational truth: “Storytelling is a pathway to learning,” said Sameer Honwad, program coordinator and GSE assistant professor of learning and instruction.
Lee to investigate educational equity in Asia
GSE Professor Jaekyung Lee will travel through Asia as he studies how to make education more accessible to girls, immigrants and refugees as part of his 2020-21 Fulbright Global Scholar Award, one of the most competitive in the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. “My ultimate goal is to inform global education policy initiatives, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on Education, to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all,” said Lee.
UB GSE expert analyzes xenophobic impact
Adetola Salau, a GSE PhD student in the Department of Learning and Instruction and a dual citizen of Nigeria and the U.S., is also the senior special assistant for education to the governor of Lagos State. Her focus on transforming Nigerian STEM education to be more hands-on and interactive came, in part, from her years living in New York, where she finished her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
She also learned as she taught STEM classes in secondary schools in South Carolina, North Carolina and California. Ahead in the fall issue: a story about how Salau is applying the lessons of her GSE coursework in real time as she launches innovative programming initiatives for the 5 million public and private school students of Lagos State. Stay tuned … You can read the full story in our upcoming fall issue.