Upcoming presentation at SRCD 2017 biennial meeting

Members of our language and literacy group, along with GSE&IS faculty co-authors, will present at the upcoming biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) in Austin, Texas.

Rachel Zwass, Karla Rivera-Torres, Alison Bailey, and Rashmita Mistry will present their poster, “‘Sociolinguistic Cognition’ Development in Dual-Language Immersion and English-Medium Programs: Complementary Narrative Approaches.” Their poster session, titled “Language, Communication,” will be held on Saturday, April 8 at 12:15 pm. The session is located in the Austin Convention Center, Exhibit Hall 4.

Presentations at 2017 AERA meeting

Several members of our research group will present at this year’s meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in San Antonio, TX.

Anne Blackstock-Bernstein, Amy Woodbridge, Despina Pitsoulakis, and Alison Bailey will present the poster “Cross-Sectional Comparisons of Elementary Students’ Oral and Written Explanations about Academic and Non-Academic Tasks” in a poster session session titled, “Applied Research in School: Teaching and Learning.” Their presentation is Monday, May 1st at 10:35am in Hemisfair Ballroom 2 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.

Anne Blackstock-Bernstein and Alison Bailey will present the paper “How Elementary Students Use Gesture to Enhance Verbal Meaning-Making in Procedural Mathematics Explanations” in a paper session titled “Promoting and Measuring STEM Learning.” Their presentation is Saturday, April 29th at 10:35am in Room 7C (River Level) at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.

Graduation Announcement: Congratulations, Dr. Riedell!

Kate Riedell successfully defended her dissertation, Understanding Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment within Eighth Grade Science Classrooms for Special Needs Students, in December 2016. Kate is now working as a Research Analyst at First 5 LA. Although we will miss her in our weekly meetings, we’re certain she has an immensely successful future ahead. Congratulations, Dr. Riedell!

Dissertation Proposal Defense

Fourth-year PhD student (now PhD candidate!) Eve Ryan successfully defended her dissertation proposal this month. Eve will begin collecting her first wave of data in the upcoming months. Congratulations, Eve, and good luck as you begin your dissertation!

2016-17: Welcome, new students!

Our research group is excited to welcome three new students for this academic year. Marlen Quintero will join us to begin her PhD, and Carla Kekejian and Rak Qijun Yang will join our Master’s program. Good luck to everyone in the new school year!

Graduation 2016

This spring, we congratulated Nathalie Karimian and Lichao Sun as they received their MA degrees. Both Nathalie and Lichao have decided to pursue their doctorates in the fall. Congratulations to both of them, and best of luck in this next step!

Conference Award Winners

Congratulations to Anne Blackstock-Bernstein, Despina Pitsoulakis, Amy Woodbridge, and Alison Bailey for being awarded the prize for Best Poster at the 2016 Research and Inquiry Conference! Their poster, Elementary students’ written explanations: Comparisons across modalities and topics, compared the development of students’ oral and written language across grade levels, tasks, and EL status.

Inaugural Dual Language Immersion Conference a Success

On May 14, GSE&IS and UCLA’s Confucius Institute co-hosted the first inaugural conference The Policy and Practice of Dual Immersion: Planning for the Secondary Years. This conference focused on issues of teacher recruitment and preparation, program models and curricular resources, and policies to support advancement for the increasing number of schools and districts facing challenges as their dual-language immersion students enter secondary school.

Videos of the conference speakers, as well as a final report, can be found on the Confucius Institute website.

GRM and GSRM fellowship awards

Recipients of the Graduate Research Mentorship (GRM) and Graduate Summer Research Mentorship (GSRM) awards were recently announced by UCLA’s Graduate Division. Congratulations to Karla Rivera-Torres, recipient of a GRM fellowship for 2016-17, and to Amy Woodbridge, recipient of a GSRM fellowship for 2016 and a GRM fellowship for 2016-17!