Current Initiatives and Research
Departamental & Faculty:
Department of Curriculum & Instruction (EDCI)
Dr. Spencer Benson (Director, Center of Teaching Excellence and Affiliate Associate Professor in EDCI) spent 2008-09 academic year as Visiting Fulbright Scholar at the University of Hong Kong working on the Hong Kong General Education Initiate and the 3-4 Hong Kong Education Reform. During his sabbatical in Asia, he participated in more than 30 seminars and workshops on general education, assessment, and outcomes based education (OBE). In 2007, he spent several weeks visiting universities and high schools in Taiwan as part of a Taiwan Ministry of Education science education project. He routinely interacts with the international faculty delegations when they visit UMD.
Dr. Dianne Bradley (Lecturer and Director, Creative Initiatives in Teacher Education) is the volunteer coordinator for all of the Maryland families and high school exchange students with Youth for Understanding USA. This is a wonderful opportunity for cultural exchange for both the students and the families. The students love living in the DC area and attending the multi-cultural high schools in this area. Many of them visit colleges and universities while they are here. She and her husband have hosted 10 high school exchange students from a variety of countries—Germany, Japan, China, Greece and Russia over the last 15 years and subsequently have visited all those countries. Two of their “children” are currently attending college in the U.S.—one undergraduate at Azusa University in California and one working on a Ph.D. at Virginia Tech. Their host daughter from China will attend college in the US next year. Together, she and her husband have attended three weddings in three different countries and have learned much about others’ cultures over the years.
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Dr. Mariam Jean Dreher (Professor, Reading) has been conducting ongoing, collaborative research with Dr. Riitta-Liisa Korkeamäki of the University of Oulu, Finland on Finnish early literacy instruction, particularly as it applies to informational text and teachers' implementation of the new national curriculum framework. Together they have published numerous articles and presented at several research conferences. Dr. Dreher was a Fulbright Senior Specialist to the University of Oulu in April 2006.
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Colleen Gallagher (Lecturer and Coordinator, TESOL) recently published a co-authored chapter in an edited volume on Spanish-language narration and literacy. The chapter was an analysis of mother-child conversations recorded in the Andean highland region of southern Ecuador.
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Dr. Jim Greenberg (Director, Office of International Initiatives) is currently Chair of the College International Committee and Project Director for our GATE Fellows Program, funded by the Longview Foundation to enhance global dimensions in teacher education. His expertise is in teacher education, school-university partnerships, and university teaching and learning. Jim has been a Fulbright Scholar in South Africa, a Visiting Fellow at the University of Pretoria, and was recently named Profesor Emerito at the Universidad Tecnológica Equinnoccial in Quito, Ecuador. He has taught study abroad courses in Europe, and he has recently been an invited keynote speaker at international conferences in Australia and Chile.
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Dr. David Imig (Professor of Practice, Interim Associate Chair) is currently a consultant on teacher education with Naruto University of Education in Nakashima-Takushima, Japan. Dr. Imig attended the Board Meeting and World Assembly for the International Council for Education and Teaching (ICET) at the University of Minho in Braga, Portugal in July 2008.
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Dr. Stephen M. Koziol, Jr. (Interim Associate Dean) has oversight for international initiatives in the college. He joined the faculty at the University of Maryland in 2003 as Professor and Chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Previously, he was a faculty member (1970-97) and department chair of Instruction and Learning (1985-93) at the University of Pittsburgh, and subsequently Professor and Chair of the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University (1997-2003). He has participated in World Bank and UNICEF-sponsored reform projects in Egypt and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
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Dr. Roberta Z. Lavine (Associate Professor, Spanish and Associate Adjunct Professor, Second Language Education and Culture) has worked for over twelve years on projects promoting change and leadership in higher education in Latin America, both alone and in collaboration with Dr. James Greenberg. She also works with teachers of English as a Foreign Language and curriculum development in that region. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Chile in 2005, and led an initiative using Teaching Portfolios at the Universidad de Concepción which has had a continuing and significant impact on Chilean universities. Another ongoing effort is a computer-enhanced simulation focusing on business and intercultural communication with UMD students and those in either the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, in Mexico City, Mexico, or the Universidad Tecnológica Equinoccial in Quito, Ecuador. Lavine and her Mexican collaborator won a University of Maryland Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology or the project in 2000. In addition, Lavine is one of the first group of GATE fellows and is developing electronic exchanges between teachers of English as a Foreign or Second Language at UMD and in Ecuador and Chile.
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Dr. J. Randy McGinnis (Professor, Science Education) served as a Peace Corps Volunteer for nearly four years as a teacher in Swaziland, Africa as a newly graduated college student. More recently, he was selected as a GATE Fellow to promote a global perspective in his science methods courses. Dr. McGinnis is also an editor of the Journal of Research in Science Teaching (JRST) which has an international readership.
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Dr. Connie North (Assistant Professor, Teacher Education/Professional Development) participated in the Deliberating in a Democracy program from September 2007 to March 2008, collaborating and working with NGOs primarily in the Republic of Macedonia but also in the Czech Republic, on a cross-national dialogue program with high school students on public policy issues. Dr. North conducted this work through the Constitutional Rights Foundation, Chicago.
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Dr. Rebecca Oxford (Professor, Second Language Education and Culture) is a Senior Fellow of the Confucius Institute at the University of Maryland. She has presented her research in 50 countries and on all continents except Antarctica and has ongoing research relationships with colleagues in China, Taiwan, Korea, Canada, and Germany. She has authored books, including Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know, Patterns of Cultural Identity, the forthcoming Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies, and others; served as series editor for the Tapestry English program, currently in North American, Middle Eastern, Chinese, and Japanese editions; and edited books, including Language Learning Strategies around the World: Cross-cultural Perspectives, Language Learning Motivation: Pathways to the New Century, and others. She is excited to be editing an international book on the "multilevel language of peace" for Dr. Jing Lin's Peace Education Series and, with Dr. Lin, is working to integrate East and West in a major undergraduate course.
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Dr. Jennifer Turner (Assistant Professor, Reading) was also a part of the inaugural group of GATE Fellows. Her work currently focuses on multicultural materials for children and young adult readers to which she aims to bring a more international/global focus in teaching and teacher education.
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