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New Collaborative Launches Trauma Informed Resources
Professionals working with youth now have a practical tool to help students overcome mental health challenges to reach their potential. Professors across two colleges at Georgia Southern University have published a series of short videos that provide targeted, free training on how to implement trauma informed practices in a variety of settings.
Visitors to the Trauma-Informed and Mental Wellness Research Collaborative website find links to ten 12-to-30-minute instructional videos, including “Trauma Informed Strategies for Classroom Teachers,” “Foundations of Trauma,” and “Developing Mental Wellness Interventions in Clinics and Schools.” Videos are also available on a YouTube playlist.
The Trauma-Informed and Mental Wellness Research Collaborative was created by Regina Rahimi, Ed.D., and Delores Liston, Ph.D., from the College of Education, Tamerah Hunt, Ph.D., and April Garrity, Ph.D., from the Waters College of Health Professions, and
Vanessa Keener, Ed.D., from Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools. The group decided to collaborate after meeting at Road to Resilience, a conference on mental health co developed by Drs. Rahimi, Liston, and Keener and held at Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong Campus in 2022.
Rahimi says the need for action was evident after the Pandemic exposed increasing mental illness among children. She says “Teachers are overwhelmed with challenging behaviors and frustrated with the lack of resources.”
After securing a seed grant from National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Research Center, the group was able to establish the Trauma-Informed and Mental Wellness Research Collaborative website, create training videos, and plan for future expansion. Over the next year, the Collaborative plans to increase awareness of current resources and broaden the scope of the project. Rahimi says, “The goal is for the Collaborative to be a hub of mental health resources for youth in our community.”
Visit the website here: https://www.georgiasouthern.edu/coe/nyar-research-center/professional-development/
Alumnae selected to give fall commencement address
An accomplished alumnae of the College of Education gave the commencement address during fall graduation ceremonies at the Enmarket Arena in Savannah on Saturday, Dec. 16. Jackie Brown-Pinkney, Ed.D., earned her master’s and a specialist degrees in educational leadership, and a doctorate in education administration. She has spent her 30-year career working for the Effingham County Board of Education where she became the school system’s first social worker. Brown-Pinkney was appointed to the Georgia Composite Board of Counselors, Social Workers, and Marriage and Family Therapists by former Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal and again by Gov. Brian Kemp. She is also president of the School Social Workers Association of Georgia. Last year, she was nationally recognized as the 2023 School Social Worker of the Year by the School Social Work Association of America.
Brown-Pinkney is very active in community service and her accomplishments include founding the Wesley J. Jenkins Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit organization established in loving memory of her nephew. Through this foundation, she supports congenital heart defect research and offers scholarships to high school seniors pursuing higher education.
During her commencement remarks, Brown-Pinkney confessed that when she first graduated from Georgia Southern, she dealt with imposter syndrome. She encouraged graduates saying, “You are not defined by the negativity others may have projected onto you.”
Throughout her speech, Brown-Pinkney encouraged the graduates to participate, instructing them to say words important to her main points. The arena roared as graduates obediently repeated the words “believe,” “love,” “change and adapt,” “knowledge is power,” and “shine.” She concluded by saying, “Thank you for listening to my heart.”
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.
EAGLE Academy featured in Making a Difference magazine
This falls’ Making a Difference magazine features EAGLE Academy at Georgia Southern University! Along with the article, the magazine publishes a video that showcases the program.