For some time, Dr. Vilia Tarvydas, a professor and coordinator for the University of Iowa’s graduate programs in rehabilitation had been petitioning for a course covering mental health counseling after a natural disaster. (Continued…)

A group of top academic high school students from China is experiencing Iowa -- everything from anthropology and engineering classes to ice cream socials and baseball games, thanks to a first-of-its-kind program at the University of Iowa. The program, called the China-BESTS (Belin-Blank Exceptional Student Talent Search) Program, is part of a cooperative agreement between the UI College of Education's Connie Belin and Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development and Hangzhou Harvest Consulting Company Ltd, a consulting company in China.

Ken Hallinan admits he didn't always have his life mapped out - in fact, he describes the path that led him to the UI as a "long, convoluted one." After a brief and an early career in journalism, Hallinan, 42, decided he needed to get back in the classroom. He wanted to be a teacher. (Continued…)

Iowa City Press-Citizen features Teacher Education graduate and UI track star Christine Kotarba in article entitled, “Hearing loss can’t slow down UI senior.”

In the past, the most popular way to instruct children about the outdoors was to teach indoors, according to Dr. Christy Moroye, assistant professor and specialist in environmental education. Chemistry experiments, memorization of textbooks, the collection of data on weather patterns, and other pursuits based on the scientific method, were (and in many cases, still are) standard.

But as the sustainable development and conservation movements find their footing in the mainstream, merely telling children they should love the environment is not enough. A result is Place-Based Education, which focuses on teaching kids about sustainability and conservation through encounters with the creatures with which they share their world. The theory states that through interactions with their habitat, children will develop a love for the environment, and thus a desire to help sustain and nurture it in whatever ways possible.

Feature story on the R.E.A.C.H. (Realizing Educational and Career Hopes) program

Ear warmers, a coffee table that doubles as a dog kennel and a Mega Melter were a few of the more than 200 inventions presented by 358 students from across the state of Iowa in University of Iowa's Carver Hawkeye Arena April 5. The Invent Iowa 2008 State Convention gave the young inventors an opportunity to demonstrate devices they believe could make life easier or more enjoyable for many people. Invent Iowa is sponsored by the UI College of Education's Connie Belin and Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development as well as the UI and Iowa State University colleges of engineering.

Belin-Blank Center celebrates two decades of service to international gifted education community

Have you ever seen a product in the store or on TV and wondered why you didn't think of it first? If so, you may be interested in viewing the many inventions to be displayed at the Invent Iowa 2008 State Convention Saturday, April 5, at the University of Iowa Carver Hawkeye Arena.
http://news-releases.uiowa.edu/2008/march/032708invention_convention.html

Invent Iowa
http://www.kgan.com/csArticles/articles/000065/006546.htm

Press Citizen
http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880405006

A story about teaching a second language to children notes that early education is especially important for learning a language. Children are particularly tuned in to acquiring language and figuring out how language is built, says MICHAEL EVERSON, an associate professor in the University of Iowa College of Education who specializes in foreign-language acquisition. "Very early, children can break this code that there are different sounds in the language," Everson says. "[Nursery rhymes and poems] help kids develop . . . how the sound system of their language works." The State Journal is published in Michigan.

Surveys abound showing that women in academe (and the rest of society) earn less than men. Likewise theories abound for why this is the case so many years after it ceased to be acceptable for deans (or other bosses) to automatically assume a woman could make do with less. PAUL UMBACH, a scholar at the University of Iowa who has been mining national data, presented his latest findings Monday at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. The results, in short, say that - even using the most sophisticated possible approach to take into consideration nonsexist reasons for pay differentials - a pay gap remains, based on gender. And while this can't be definitively tied to sexism, there aren't a lot of likely alternative explanations. But the study also found that some of the explanations that do exist - in particular based on disciplines and the types of institutions where women are more likely to find jobs - suggest that the salary gaps may be here to stay, unless higher education thinks very differently about reward structures.

It's where women teach, more than what they teach, that accounts for their poorer earnings in the academic work force, a researcher from the University of Iowa suggested at a conference here on Monday. For decades, scholars have tried to sort out how much of the gender gap in wages is caused by raw discrimination and how much is driven by mediating factors. Female faculty members have sometimes been found, for example, to have fewer and less-prestigious postgraduate degrees, on average, than their male colleagues. Some studies have also found that women are concentrated in fields or institutions that attract relatively little external research money, or where faculty members publish less frequently. Those mediating factors do not necessarily excuse the gender gap, because they might themselves reflect various kinds of past and present sexism. But they complicate efforts to understand and remedy wage disparities. On Monday afternoon, a scholar suggested a way to clarify the question. During a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, PAUL UMBACH, an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Iowa, offered a new statistical technique for assessing wage inequalities. He argued that his method - known as a cross-classified random-effects model - offers a richer and more accurate picture than scholars' previous analyses of the gender gap.

University of Iowa doctoral student Wangui Gathua started fund to help Kenyans after violence.

Iowa City Press-Citizen editorial about The University of Iowa study, "A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students."

An editorial about gifted education cites The UNIVERSITY OF IOWA study, "A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students." The paper covers Florida's Treasure Coast and Palm Beach.

Three years after the University of Iowa's Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development published "A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students," an online research survey shows that the report has had a major impact on the state of gifted education in the United States.

http://www.tristateobserver.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=9542
http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080217/NEWS01/802170316/1079/NEWS

University of Iowa College of Education Teacher Education students teaching abroad enrich U.S. classrooms.

Diana Blaney, a scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., wants to inspire the next generation of rocket scientists and astronauts.

The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, developed by University of Iowa faculty and administrators, examine students' skills in reading, language, math, social studies and science and compare students to a national average. All Utah third-, fifth- and eighth-graders took the tests.

Music Education Assistant Professor Mary Cohen invites the senior community to join her Voices of Experience intergenerational choir.

A story on Assistant Professor Andrew Ho from the Fall 2007 issue of Spectator

This article features a number of Distance Learning programs including Professor Wanat and the master’s degree in Educational Administration Program.

A story about Girls on the Run, a program that trains girls in grades three through five to run, notes that one of the coaches is Tricia Seifert, a post-doctoral student at the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA.

Tim McGowan, the Teacher of the Year in Rapid City, SD, earned a master's degree in counseling and human development at the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA. He is one of seven finalists for South Dakota teacher of the year.

• Michael Everson examines how we learn language—especially Chinese—and why it matters.
• John Mikelson, the former Army medic became an undergrad at 45, and now helps veterans of all ages make the college transition.
• Deb Vierling: Using education as a tool for empowerment, the UI College of Education alumna has been dubbed everything from an advocate to an angel.
• Saba Ali A: Faculty member’s ties to Islam, Appalachia, and now Iowa inform research on education, culture, and career.
• Don Coffman: Sad to see adults leave music behind, the music educator and bandleader decided to coax some back.
• Christine Grant: The former women’s athletic director has earned a national reputation advocating opportunity for all athletes.
• Rachel Marie-Crane Williams thinks art can blend with activism to make a difference in the world. Her artistic vision takes her into prisons and juvenile homes, where she hopes art will touch lives and act as a catalyst for social change and a catharsis for those who need healing or inspiration.
  

Link to present and past press releases created by University of Iowa News Service