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Learning Environments & Educational Studies PhD


Fourteen members of EPC were commended at the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences Faculty and Staff Recognition Ceremony on April 25, 2018.

To see photos from the event, please go to the “EPC at the 2018 CEHHS Faculty & Staff Recognition Ceremony” album on our EPC Facebook page.


Awards

CEHHS Board of Advisors Faculty Support Award
Awarded to recognize current/past accomplishments or future projects of one outstanding faculty member for teaching/research/service efforts in any area within CEHHS.

Gary Skolits

Gary Skolits
Program Coordinator & Associate Professor in Evaluation, Statistics & Measurement

 

“It truly was a special privilege to be recognized in my role as an EPC faculty member. The nomination by faculty peers alone was a special honor to me; the subsequent commendation at the college level will always remain a highlight of my faculty career.”


Helen B. Watson Outstanding Faculty Research Award
Awarded to a full-time faculty member or team within the departments of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies; Edu­cational Psychology and Counseling; Kinesiology, Recreation, and Sport Studies; or Theory and Practice in Teacher Education.

Louis RocconiLouis Rocconi
Assistant Professor in Evaluation, Statistics & Measurement

“It is a tremendous honor to be selected for this prestigious award. I am truly humbled to receive recognition for my research and grateful to be a part of this esteemed department and college.”


Louie M. & Betty M. Phillips Faculty Support in Education
Awarded to a faculty member in the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences related to the preparation of teachers involved in K-12 education. This award serves to highlight outstanding research and teaching efforts.

Melinda GibbonsMelinda Gibbons
Program Coordinator & Professor in Counselor Education

“I am humbled and honored to be recognized for my research and outreach activities. I am also happy to have the opportunity for others to learn about the need for this type of engaged scholarship.”


Recognition

Casey A. Barrio Minton
Professor in Counselor Education

– Recognized under Presidents of National/International Professional Organizations for being President-Elect of Southern Association of Counselor Education & Supervision


Pamelia Brott
Program Coordinator & Associate Professor in School Counseling

– Recognized under Recipients of National/International Professional Awards for National Career Development Association Fellow


Synthia Clark
Administrative Specialist I

– Recognized under UT Support Staff Service Awards for five years of service


Stephanie Cowherd
Associate Director of Center for Literacy, Education & Employment

– Recognized under Grants & Contracts Recipients for the TN DHS-DRS, Tennessee Department of Human Services, Division of Rehabilitation Services, $797,060


Lisa Crawford
Associate Director of Center for Literacy, Education & Employment

– Recognized under Grants & Contracts Recipients for the Coordinated School Health Events, Tennessee Department of Education, $270,759
– Recognized under Grants & Contracts Recipients for the Partners in Education (PIE) Conference Support, Tennessee Department of Education, $1,308,909
– Recognized under Grants & Contracts Recipients for the TDOE Summer Trainings, Tennessee Department of Education, $621,980


Melinda M. Gibbons
Program Coordinator & Professor in Counselor Education

– Recognized under Recipients of National/International Professional Awards for the Counseling Vision & Innovation Award from the Association for Counselor Education & Supervision
– Recognized under Chancellor’s Honors Awards for Research & Creative Achievement


Craig Howard
Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology

– Recognized under Recipients of National/International Professional Awards for the Distance Learning Best Practice Award from the Association for Educational Communications & Technology Division


Robert Kronick
Professor in Counselor Education & Director of University-Assisted Community Schools

– Recognized under Authors/Editors of Books & Assessments for Community Engagement: Principles, Strategies, and Practices
– Recognized under Authors/Editors of Books & Assessments for Wicked Problems and the Community School Solution
– Recognized under Recipients of National/International Professional Awards for Counselor Education of the Year from American Mental Health Counseling Association


R. Steve McCallum
Professor for School Psychology

– Recognized under Editors/Co-Editors of Peer Reviewed Publications for being Co-Founder & Consulting Editor of Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment


Gary Skolits
Program Coordinator & Associate Professor of Evaluation, Statistics & Measurement

– Recognized under Editors/Co-Editors of Peer Reviewed Publications for being Co-Editor of The Qualitative Review


Qi Sun
Program Coordinator & Associate Professor in Adult Learning

– Recognized under Editors/Co-Editors of Peer Reviewed Publications for being Co-Editor of Adult Education Quarterly
– Recognized under Recipients of National/International Professional Awards for the Outstanding Service Award by The American Association of Adult and Continuing Education


Duren Thompson
Instructional Designer & Program Coordinator

– Recognized under UT Support Staff Service Awards for twenty years of service


Lisa Yamagata-Lynch
Program Coordinator & Professor in Instructional Technology/Learning Environments & Educational Studies

– Recognized under Recipients of National/International Professional Awards for the Distance Learning Best Practice Award from the Association for Educational Communications & Technology Division


Three students from the Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling received awards at the Graduate Student Senate Awards Ceremony and Breakfast on April 4, 2018.

Jennifer Moralejo at GSS Awards

photo contributed by the Graduate School

Jennifer Moralejo | Excellence in Teaching

Jennifer is a PhD Candidate in the Counselor Education program and a Graduate Teaching Associate for COUN 480 – Skills for Counseling. She said, “I am honored by this award, it is rewarding to be recognized for something you truly enjoy. The department faculty have been excellent mentors and role models in teaching. It has been an honor to learn from them and have them be such a huge part of my development as an instructor.”

This award is given to graduate teaching assistants/associates for extraordinary performance in teaching.


Erin Garty | Excellence in Service

Erin is a PhD Student in the Learning Environments and Educational Studies program and has been working with UT Service-Learning since 2014 and has served on the Graduate Student Advisory Board the last two years. She said, “I am grateful for this award. It’s wonderful to receive recognition for meaningful work.”

This award is presented to graduate students who are extraordinary campus leaders or participate in service learning and other community initiatives.


Kala Taylor at GSS Awards

photo contributed by the Graduate School

Kala Taylor | Excellence in Research

Kala is a PhD Candidate in the School Psychology program and focuses her research on reading interventions and diversity issues. She said, “I am honored to receive this award, and so grateful for the strong mentors who have encouraged me to grow as a researcher during my time at UT.”

This award is presented to graduate students who have received national and/or international recognition in their fields and show professional promise in their areas of research and creative achievement.


Learning Environments &
Educational Studies

Jaewoo is currently seeking his PhD in education with the Learning Environments and Educational Studies (LEEDS) program. Originally from Seongju County, South Korea, he received his BS and MS in educational technology at the Andong National University. He came to Knoxville, TN and joined EPC in 2012. We asked him to reflect on some past and current experiences. Read his responses below.

Awards

2016, Selected Best Paper at the Convergent Research Society among Humanities, Sociology, Science, and Technology’s 10th International Interdisciplinary Workshop for Development of CS Course for Improving Creativity based on CPS Model: Focusing on Image-Making

2015, Certificate of Appreciation by Bill Haslam, Governor of the State of Tennessee

2014, Certificate of Appreciation by the Consul General of the Republic of Korea in Atlanta for organizing and managing Korean Culture Show for Korean War Veterans

2013, Honorary Citizen by the City of Knoxville

Accomplishments

Publications

  • Do, J., & Yamagata-Lynch, L. C. (in press). Designing and Developing Cell Phone Application for Qualitative Research. Qualitative Inquiry.
  • Yamagata-Lynch, L. C., Do, J., Deshpande, D., Skutnik, A. L., Murphy, B. K., & Garty, E. (2017). Narrative Inquiry with Activity Systems: A Story About Net Neutrality. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16(1), 1-11.
  • Howard, C. D., & Do, J. (2017). L2 (Im) politeness in the Synchronous Chat of Elementary School Learners. Teaching English with Technology, 17, 17-45.
  • Kim, J. & Do, J. (2016). Exploring the national competency standard curriculum of graduate school professors. Asia-Pacific Journal of Multimedia Services Convergent with Art, Humanities, and Sociology, 6, 145-153. (in Korean)
  • Yamagata-Lynch, L. C., Skutnik, A. L., Garty, E., & Do, J. (2016). Interactionist qualitative research as a semiotic mediation activity. SAGE Open, 6(3). doi:2158244016666889
  • Kim, J., & Do, J. (2015). Analysis of Blackboard system in Korea and the United States universities. Journal of Education and Culture, 21, 27-56. (in Korean)
  • Yamagata-Lynch, L. C., Do, J., Skutnik, A. L., Thompson, D. J., Stephens, A. F., & Tays, C. A. (2015). Design lessons about participatory self-directed online learning in a graduate level instructional technology course. Open Learning, 30, 178-189.
  • Kim, J., Kim, Y., Heo, S., & Do, J. (2017). University life and self-development. Seoul, Korea: Academia. (in Korean)

Current Occupation

Graduate Teaching Assistant
Instructional Training & Development
Office of Information & Technology
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

I design and deliver technology training, develop instructional materials, and provide technology consultations to faculty. Each project I have conducted has provided me an ideal learning environment for developing skills that are required for a prolific instructional designer.

Personal Interests

I am a coffee lover. I am enjoying my doctoral student life with a coffee adventure in Knoxville. At home, I make coffee with various methods, such as using an espresso machine, Kalita, and Aeropress. Each cup of home brew deserves to be savored with my unique coffee cups. Collecting coffee cups is one of my hobbies. Another hobby of mine is searching for local coffee shops in Knoxville. You never know when you will find a hidden gem. I’ve visited all local coffee shops in Knoxville, as well as a few surrounding areas, and have enjoyed their coffees. Some of these coffee shops are perfect places for writing a paper.

Future/Vocational Goals

Recently, I decided to start my teaching career in the U.S. At the moment, I am seeking a faculty position by working on my dissertation. In addition, I’ve designed education programs and education systems for universities and companies in Korea as an instructional technology (IT) consultant. This position has helped me to reduce the gap between IT theory and practice. I’d like to conduct both an educator’s and a practitioner’s role in the field of instructional technology.

What sold you on this program?

When I prepared for studying abroad, I searched many universities that had an IT program. To me, UT’s LEEDS program looked like a new approach to IT, and it was. The LEEDS program is a unique interdisciplinary program. LEEDS is a blend of educational psychology, instructional design, and cultural studies in education. I believed that this interdisciplinary nature will give me more opportunities to learn new topics that are unfamiliar to me but can contribute to develop my ability for future endeavors in the field. Additionally, unlike other traditional IT programs, LEEDS curriculum includes new and interesting topics of IT that provide a new approach to IT research and practice.

What would you tell an incoming student who joins the program/department?

Before I started the program, I was in the instructional technology field for 10 years as a student and an instructional designer. From those experiences, I entered this program with a tentative future research topic. This topic was “improving student’s learning skills though a quantitative approach”. But now, my dissertation topic is “understanding instructor’s course design experiences with a qualitative approach”. As you see, there is a dramatic change in my research interest. The experiences in EPC including courses, GRA, collaboration, and research experiences have helped me to expand my view on research and to find what I want to investigate as a researcher. IT in the LEEDS program has its own unique characteristics compared to IT programs at other universities. Please be open and expand your view of IT with our programs.


Congratulations to the 2017-18 fellowship/scholarship recipients from the Educational Psychology and Counseling Department!

<strong>Brenna Berry</strong> <em>Evaluation, Statistics &amp; Measurement</em>
– Tennessee Graduate Fellowship Excellence

<strong>Ben Gaertner</strong> <em> School </em><em>Counseling
</em>- Eugene and Mary Sue Akins Graduate Fellowship

<strong>Takuya Hayakawa</strong> <em>Learning Environments &amp; Educational Studies
</em>- Travis Hawk Fellowship

<strong>Douglas Johnston</strong> <em> School </em><em>Counseling</em><em>
</em>- Eugene and Mary Sue Akins Graduate Fellowship

<strong>Ashley Kennedy</strong> <em> School </em><em>Counseling</em><em>
</em>- Helen Carter Murray Scholarship

<strong>Rachel Ladd</strong> <em>Evaluation, Statistics &amp; Measurement
</em>- Travis Hawk Fellowship

<strong>Jessica Marzi</strong> <em>Counselor Education</em>
– Access &amp; Diversity Fellowship
– Dr. Stephen Lee Alderton Graduate Fellowship

<strong>Sara Nasrollahian</strong> <em>Adult Learning
</em>- Travis Hawk Fellowship

<strong>Christina Nesbit</strong> <em>Clinical Mental Health Counseling</em>
– Charles Lowell Thompson Fellowship

<strong>Alex Price</strong> <em>School Psychology</em>
– Tennessee Graduate Fellowship Excellence

<strong>Jonah Ruddy</strong> <em>School Psychology</em>
– Dr. Richard Yoakley Fellowship

<strong>Lynnette Whitsitt</strong> <em>School Psychology</em>
– J. Wallace &amp; Katie Dean Graduate Fellowship

<strong>Mary Wynn</strong> <em>Clinical Mental Health Counseling</em>
– Charles Lowell Thompson Fellowship