College of Education
2024 National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference
In 1990, the National Youth Advocacy and Resilience (NYAR) Conference, formerly known as the National Youth-At-Risk Conference, was founded by Georgia Southern University’s College of Education. The name change was adopted in 2021 and was encouraged by the youth the program serves. The Conference continues to provide prominent training for all individuals devoted to promoting and advancing the well-being of youth. For over 30 years, the conference continues to encourage the participation of educators at all levels including Therapists, Social Workers, Psychologists, Criminal Justice Professionals, Business and Community Leaders and Volunteer Service Providers.
Past conference speakers have included nationally and internationally recognized educators and youth advocates such as Geoffrey Canada, Ron Clark, Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Jim Brown, TV celebrity Judge Glenda Hatchett, and several National Teachers of the Year. In its 34th year, the conference has grown from a regional conference of 150 participants to a national conference of approximately 1400 participants and presenters from across the globe.
The 2024 NYAR Conference was held March 3-6th at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Savannah, Georgia. Keynote speakers included Dardi Hendershott, Co-founder of Hope 4 The Wounded, LLC and co-author of Supporting the Wounded Educator: A Trauma-Sensitive Approach to Self-Care, Manuel Scott, Ph.D., author and Freedom Writer, and Keith Brown, Principal Speaker and Lead Consultant.
Alisa Leckie, Assistant Dean for Partnerships and Outreach and Co-Chair of NYAR, expressed how the goals of the 2024 conference were to make it more personable for youth.
“NYAR 2024 was a resounding success. Participants left inspired and energized to continue doing the important work of supporting youth in our communities. It is a privilege to work with our presenters and participants each year,” she said.
Taylor Norman, Associate Professor of English Language Arts and Co-Chair of NYAR shared her experience on this year’s conference.
“This year’s conference, like so many in the past, created a proactive and productive space for our participants and attendees. I am honored to do this work, and inspired by the passion, purpose, and commitment embodied by our diverse and beautiful community,” she said.
The conference was a huge success with more than 200 presentations and over a thousand participants. Georgia Southern anticipates this number will continue growing and benefitting young people around the world and is excited for the future of our youth as we build on this success.
US Army contracts professors to create metacognition tool
The US Army Research Institute has awarded an $800,000 contract to a group of professors to fund the creation of a new tool: An AI-powered computer program to analyze and enhance an individual’s metacognitive skills. One of those professors is Antonio P. Gutierrez de Blume (Co-PI), Ph.D., Professor of Educational Research in Georgia Southern University’s College of Education.
Over the next three years, the group will use their award to develop a chatbot-like tool with the ability to take an individual’s responses to open-ended prompts and categorize their level of proficiency in various metacognitive skills like self-regulation and problem solving. Further, the tool will be able to guide the individual in strategies to improve those skills through continued conversational interactions with the program.
The project is in response to the US Army Research Institute’s request for proposals aimed at “enhancing metacognition across the leader development lifecycle.” As a scholar of metacognition, Gutierrez de Blume understands why the Army wants their leadership to be skilled in this area. They explain, “People who are metacognitive make less errors because they comprehend situations more accurately.”
This will be Gutierrez de Blume’s first experience working on a military project, and there are security and ethical factors that make it a unique experience. The team will need to pass security clearances, and they’ll be issued Army computers and equipment to ensure confidentiality. Concerning the ethics of military work, Gutierrez de Blume says, “I couldn’t in good conscience create a tool that would be used for death and destruction.” But they see metacognition as a way to do the opposite, saying, “If commanders in the field have good self-regulation skills, they will avoid reacting out of anger and frustration…What I’m hoping is that this tool can help us ultimately see more dialog and less conflict.”
Gutierrez de Blume is co-principal investigator of the project along with fellow metacognition researchers Jason Blaash, Ph.D., from Georgia State University and Col. Victor Deekins, Ph.D., from West Point US Military Academy. The fourth co-principal investigator, Laura Allen, Ph.D., from the University of Minnesota, has expertise in artificial intelligence.
Program offers teachers unique items for hands-on learning
Would your lesson on fossils benefit from dinosaur bone replicas? Could your engineering unit be enhanced by a LEGO robot kit? How about a variety of preserved mammalian organs for your biology class? The College of Education’s Center for STEM Education at Georgia Southern University loans out all of these items and more through their i2STEMed School Outreach program.
The program keeps an inventory of STEM-related items, such as microscopes, safety goggles, sheep brains and earthquake tables, in the warehouse that they share with the Georgia Southern Museum. Teachers throughout the region browse items on the program website and request delivery to their school. Georgia Southern professors and practicum students also utilize the program.
Kania Greer, coordinator of the Center, says, “The goal of this program is to make all learning hands-on and inquiry-based.” She encourages instructors outside traditional STEM fields to utilize the program’s resources to add a cross-curriculum element to their lessons. For example, one history teacher has requested Georgia soil samples, core sample tools and soil test kits for a lesson about George Washington Carver.
The Center’s Administrative Assistant, Mary Thaler, adds, “It doesn’t have to be complicated. We want to make this as easy as possible for teachers.” She fields direct inquiries to the center and says, “If a teacher needs something, we will try to find a way to get it to them.”
Greer and Thaler are continually adding to the program’s inventory based on teacher requests, demand for items, and the program occasionally adds new resources developed by the Center. Thaler says, “We love finding new things and bringing them to teachers.”
The Center for STEM Education’s i2STEMed School Outreach program has been operating in its current form since 2019, and has expanded each year. Nearly 300 orders were filled during the 22-23 school year, and orders are on pace to easily surpass 300 this year.
The i2STEMed School Outreach program also offers on-site STEM demonstrations for schools. Their STEM Night resources are in high demand with 23 events on the books for this school year.
To see examples of teachers using items from the program in their lessons, visit the Center’s Instagram page at https://www.instagram.com/i2stemed. For more information about the Center, visit their website at www.coe.georgiasouthern.edu/stem. To support the work of the Center for STEM Education, give to the STEM Center Foundation through fund 0951.
Professor visits China to share about preschool special education
One faculty member in the College of Education began this semester with a trip to Zhengzhou, China for the International Seminar on Preschool Inclusion. Kymberly Harris, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Elementary and Special Education, was an honored keynote speaker at the 4-day event. Roughly 2,500 administrators, instructors and professors from the area attended to learn about serving children with disabilities in the preschools of Henan Province. Harris’ presentation covered evaluation practices.
While in Henan, Harris visited some conference attendees’ preschool locations, strengthening relationships with administrators and teachers. She also visited Henan University of Foreign Exchange in Kaifeng where she participated in a workshop for roughly 30 faculty, sharing a presentation about preschool (birth to five) special education in the United States.
Harris has been involved with special education teacher preparation in China since 2006 when she published an article with Meng Deng, Ph.D., comparing special education practices in the United States with those in China. Denong later established China’s Institute of Inclusive Education, and Harris serves on the organization’s administrative board.
Harris credits Deng for initiating her engagements in Henan. Their collaboration has kept her involved in China, and his connections have allowed her hands-on access to the work there. During the trip, Harris spent time with Deng in person for the first time since before the COVID pandemic. She says, “This has been a long and productive relationship. He has an international vision, and he is the smartest person I know. I have learned so much from being around him.”
Then and Now: Doctoral program turns 30
Georgia Southern University’s first doctoral degree program turns thirty this year. The Doctor of Education Degree program in Educational Leadership began its first classes in the fall of 1993, just three years after the institution transitioned from college to university. It was the first doctorate to be offered by any institution in South Georgia.
The program began with a cohort of 12 students who were happy to be able to advance their education without having to travel outside the region. This fall, the program welcomes 33, with 11 new students in its P-12 Administration concentration and 22 new students in its Higher Education Administration concentration who will be able to complete the program entirely online for the first time. It will be the University’s second doctoral program to be offered online, joining the Doctor of Nursing Practice.
Program director Elise J. Cain, PhD, was recently given a copy of the 1992 proposal for the creation of the degree program by a retiring professor. Elizabeth Downs, PhD, was cleaning out her office after 33 years at the University and thought Cain would like to have it. The pair enjoyed looking at the historical record and found that making education accessible to working professionals was as much an issue in the early nineties as it is today. One excerpt from the proposal says:
Unlike doctoral aspirants in other fields … most school administrators pursue doctoral studies after many years of teaching and instruction. Generally, they return for doctoral study … as mature adults with careers, spouses, mortgages, children in school, and other responsibilities. Thus, it is a difficult, often impossible, challenge for school administrators to juggle their career aspirations and other obligations in order to continue their studies, improve their career options and upgrade their skills.
The original proposal predicts the impact of the degree program. It states:
Southeast Georgia encounters most of the social and cultural problems that predominate in urban and rural areas in the United States. Thus, Georgia Southern University has the opportunity for significant leadership in dealing with the challenges of racial, ethnic, and family diversity, escalating drop-out rates, fiscal constraints, urban and rural differences, and other issues that will influence the conduct and success of public schooling in Georgia and the nation well into the 21st century.
In 2023, the University is “well into the 21st century,” and has conferred 515 Ed.D. degrees in Educational Leadership (or Educational Administration as it was once termed). Cain reports, “Over the years, this program has continued to adjust, adapt and improve–there’s no doubt we continue to have a positive influence in our field.”
The Ed.D. in Doctoral Leadership boasts partnerships with schools across the region, and many distinguished graduates, including Georj Lewis, Ed.D. (’07), who currently serves as president of Clayton State University, and Lisa Herring, Ed.D. (’07), who recently completed a term as superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools.
Those who initiated a doctoral program for “Educational Administration” in the early nineties could not have imagined online programs and the challenges of today’s educators, but their vision of Georgia Southern University as a leader has been realized.
For more information about Georgia Southern’s Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership, visit the program website: https://www.georgiasouthern.edu/coe/edld/p-12-leadership/p-12-ed-leadership/