Cato College of Education

Making learning fun is a goal for many educators, and starting this fall, resources developed by two College of Education students will make that aim a little bit easier.

A new College of Education study is revealing the effects of cross-cultural interactions in the classroom, and how educators can better communicate with students from different backgrounds.

Published in the journal Teaching Exceptional Children, the research “A Journey, Not a Destination: Developing Cultural Competence in Secondary Transition” looks specifically at educators who help culturally and linguistically diverse special education students transition from school to the adult world.

A new UNC Charlotte College of Education study shows teaching struggling students reading strategies through U.S. history class can improve both reading skills and understanding of the subject itself.

The College of Education’s literacy professors are among the most prolific scholars in the country in their field, according to a recent study.

Published in the journal Reading Psychology, the article looked at the productivity of literacy faculty nationwide from 2006 to 2012. The rankings were based on the number of times professors appeared in nine prominent research journals, adjusted for the size of the literacy faculty at the particular college.

Counselors, therapists and scholars from across North Carolina recently traveled to UNC Charlotte for a conference on play therapy featuring the leading expert in the field.

The College of Education’s Multicultural Play Therapy Center hosted the five-day workshop. It featured discussions on the underlying theory of play therapy and provided practical tips for employing the technique, which allows young children to explore and deal with issues by expressing themselves through play in a controlled environment.

Math and science classes have long been the stuff of nightmares for many, but there is a movement under way to change that perception.

UNC Charlotte’s College of Education recently hosted one of the faces of that movement – Oakland University engineering professor Barbara Oakley, author of “A Mind for Numbers.” Her research delves into the neuroscience of learning in an approachable way. It explores topics ranging from the specific ways the brains focuses, to why people procrastinate and how to stop.

The answers to the big questions by their very nature provoke strong reactions. The debate over the right way to find those answers is no less contentious. Out of this landscape has emerged the discussion over the relationship between science and religion. Can they coexist? What role do they have in public policy? What should be taught in schools?

College of Education professor Spencer Salas is in India working with the U.S. State Department to train people to teach English in the capital New Delhi.

For three weeks, Salas will wind his way through Delhi’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods, working with secondary school instructors to improve the way they teach English.

A rowdy mob walked shoulder to shoulder with Dorothy Counts-Scoggins as she neared the doors of Harding High. Some yelled slurs, threw rocks or spat. It was the first day of class in 1957, and integration had started in Mecklenburg County. Counts-Scoggins was one of the first four black students to enroll at formerly all-white schools in Charlotte. In the years since, the area has been at times been a model for both what can go right, and at others for what can go wrong, when balancing a school district.

Bill Anderson, former executive director of the public education advocacy group MeckEd, is joining the University’s College of Education as special assistant to the dean for community relations.

Anderson, a veteran teacher, administrator and educational policy leader, has nearly four decades of experience. He completed a master’s degree in education from the University in 1989 and a doctorate in 2001.