Education

The National Science Foundation has selected a collaborative proposal between the University of Alaska Southeast and the University of Alaska Anchorage for a $650,000 competitive award that will provide 22 scholarships for students pursuing 4-year STEM degrees at UAS. The 5-year grant, Increasing the Academic and Career Success of Alaska Native and Rural Students in Science and Math, is the product of a collaborative effort between UAS and UAA faculty and staff.

The Sitka Campus of the University of Alaska Southeast launched a new program in October designed to improve services for its students, particularly those who need extra support for their college experience. ISER’s Center for Alaska Education Policy Research (CAEPR) worked with a team at UAS Sitka to conceptualize the new project, which is called Strengthening Unique Potential for Progress through Opportunities, Relationships, and Transitions (SUPPORT).

Dr. Dayna DeFeo and Dr. Sarah Gerken have begun publishing preliminary findings from studies undertaken in Transforming Introductory Biology at UAA (TIBUAA), a three-year project funded by the National Science Foundation to help UAA infuse inquiry-based approaches into its undergraduate biology class for non-science majors.

Diane Hirshberg, Professor of Education Policy, wrote a thought piece on challenges in distance learning in Arctic postsecondary education along with Paul Wasko of UAA’s Academic Innovations & eLearning. Titled “Learning from the Crisis: Issues in Strengthening Online Learning for the Future,” the article highlights both the possibilities for transforming online learning, and the challenges facing faculty, students, institutions, and communities.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Dunleavy mandated that Alaska’s K12 schools closed to in-person instruction; later, these school closures were extended until the end of the 2019-2020 academic year. Across the state, educators worked not only to ensure they met their responsibilities for instruction, but also other key school functions including parent resources, meal services, and social-emotional learning. Concurrently, senior college students in teacher licensure programs at the University of Alaska (UA) were in classrooms fulfilling their clinical experience (student teaching) requirements. During the school closures, students were still “placed” in schools, but the nature of their internship experience changed fundamentally as classes were moved to distance delivery.

On Wednesday, March 18, Dr. Dayna DeFeo, Director of the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research, and Dr. Diane Hirshberg, Professor of Education Policy, testified to the Alaska Legislature’s House Education Committee. Their testimony wove together major findings from seven CAEPR research studies to explore teacher supply, demand, retention, turnover, and competition in Alaska and relative to the lower 48. They shared some of Alaska’s areas of opportunity in meeting the need to staff its classrooms with high-quality educators, including expanding efforts to grow our “homegrown” teacher pipeline, improving working conditions that drive turnover, particularly in rural Alaska, and ensuring that compensation structures are on par with other states. DeFeo and Hirshberg’s presentation followed a discussion of current educator turnover research from REL Northwest.

Faculty member Diane Hirshberg was interviewed by the High North News about challenges facing educators and students across the Circumpolar North as schools and universities are asked to move their teaching online.

Dr. Diane Hirshberg is co-author of a just-released report on how districts and schools use Title VI Indian Education Formula Grants. The study examines the implementation of the Title VI grants and addresses the services that Title VI funds support, how grantees work with stakeholders to identify program-eligible children, and how they measure progress toward their project objectives. This study, led by SRI International, was conducted for the U.S. Department of Education Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development Policy and Program Studies Service.