Recent outreach grants and initiatives

Sponsor: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs
Award: $1.25 million (5 year award)
College faculty: Shanon S. Taylor, associate professor of special education; Lindsay Diamond, assistant professor of special education and Randall Owen, associate professor of special education, NCED director 

The University of Nevada, Reno, College of Education’s Special Education Program and the Nevada Center for Excellence in Disabilities (NCED) will work in collaboration to provide a leadership preparation program to address the significant national shortage of leaders in special education at the doctoral level. Project Special Education Leaders of the Future (SELF) will graduate scholars with a Ph.D. in Special Education who possess essential leadership competencies for conducting research, preparing highly effective teachers at the undergraduate and graduate level, preparing other future leaders at the doctoral level, and providing service. The SELF conceptual framework is based on the idea that scholars progress through stages of initiation, inculcation, incubation, and engagement (Adler & Adler, 2005) in their program and must move successfully through critical transitions or threshold activities (Kiley, 2009). The conceptual framework aligns with coursework, internships, and dissertation to result in mastery of Leadership Competencies, framed in the areas of instruction, research, and service. Read more.

Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Award: $850,000
College faculty: Leping Liu, professor of quantitative methods and learning sciences and Li-Ting Chen, associate professor of quantitative methods and learning sciences

Researchers from four distinct disciplines, engineers from Nevada Gold Mines, Kinross, and McClelland Laboratories and University Libraries will bring a new learning tool to students. The researchers will work together to design and build an immersive VR experience for students to better understand a metallurgical process called froth flotation. Read more.

Sponsor: Nevada Department of Education
Award: $825,000
College faculty: Megan Beckam, teaching associate professor; Mandi Collins, NevadaTeach master teacher, teaching associate professor and director of the Raggio Center for Advancement in (STEM)2; Eleni Oikonomidoy, associate dean of the College of Education and Human Development; Lydia Deflorio, associate professor of human development and family science; and Robert Ives, associate professor of special education,

The Nevada Institute on Educator Preparation, Retention, and Research two-year program includes approximately 90 hours of learning opportunities each academic year to support skill development as an emerging educational leader. The program takes a multifocal approach, providing enhanced preparation of pre-service teachers through programming, community engagement, participation in research and knowledge dissemination. Read more.

Sponsor: U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. Government and administered by IREX.
Award: $235,000
College faculty: Jennifer Mahon, associate professor of sociocultural education

The Fulbright Fellows are veteran teachers who have been selected from thousands of applicants. They represent 20 different countries and stay in Reno for six weeks attending professional development workshops in the College, partnering with Washoe County School District teachers and getting to know our community. The University is one of only eight institutions selected in the country to host this incredible group of people, and we hope you get the chance to meet some of them during their stay.

Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Award: $5 Million
College faculty: Glenn Waddell, Jr., Master Teacher, NevadaTeach

Get the Facts Out (GFO) is a five-year, National Science funded partnership of the Colorado School of Mines and four national societies: the American Physical Society, the American Chemical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators. GFO is a unique project that is designed to reach STEM majors in a large fraction of all U.S. mathematics, chemistry, and physics departments and has the potential to significantly address teacher shortages in these high-need STEM disciplines.  GFO produces research-based, user-tested resources and messaging to change the conversation around STEM teacher recruitment at institutions across the country and repair the reputation of the teaching profession so that faculty can use them help improve their teacher recruitment efforts. The resources and messages are designed to celebrate the positives of teaching and to provide students and faculty with facts that address misinformation and common misperceptions about teaching. The GFO Project Team and Change Agents continually work to update and improve these resources and messaging as well as provide support to the faculty who use them across the country.

Sponsor: National Institutes of Health
Award: $253,900
College faculty: Ruby Batz, assistant professor of special education teacher preparation

The goal of the project is to identify both strengths and structural disparities within the Early Intervention (EI) system in specific connection to early communication disorders. Ruby Batz role as co-investigator is to co-lead the process of examining and documenting families' experiences navigating EI through different research approaches such as systematic reviews, focus groups, and interviews. This is a multi-state, multifaceted transdisciplinary grant. 

Sponsor: NASA EPSCoR
Award: $49,000
College faculty: Rachel Salas, Ph.D., associate professor of literacy

The College of Education and Human Development's Center for Learning and Literacy is involved in a new one-year project led by Rachel Salas, Ph.D. This project focuses on providing access to integrated planetary science, robotics, and literacy lessons for Latinx, Native American, and other culturally and linguistically diverse fourth through eighth-grade students in Reno and Owyhee, Nevada.

Sponsor: Nevada Department of Education
Award: $30,000
College faculty: Jafeth Sanchez, associate professor of Educational Leadership; director, Latino Research

Jafeth Sanchez has partnered with Lance West, president of Indigenous Educators Empowerment, for a research study, Perceptions of Higher Education among Native Students and Families. In 2021, the Nevada System of Higher Education announced fee waivers for Native students through Assembly Bill 262. This strongly positions them to examine perceptions of higher education among Native students and families, specifically the reasons they opt-in (or opt-out of) attending higher education. The study will incorporate an Indigenous lens with Nevada tribal communities while rooted in higher education, and two undergraduate student fellows are being supported through this process.

Sponsor: Small Grant Program for Early Career Scholars, Society of Research in Child Development (SRCD). 
Award: $7,500
College faculty: Ruby Batz, assistant professor of special education teacher preparation

This is a multiple-method design stud to understand the experiences of 25 parents-educators raising children with disabilities receiving special education services under IDEA (2004).

Sponsor: Racial Equity Grant, The Spencer Foundation
Award: $74, 900
College faculty: Ruby Batz, assistant professor of special education teacher preparation

This is a comparative case study to better understand the constructions of culture, disability, language, and race/ethnicity in early intervention (EI) services as provided to Latinx Spanish-speaking families raising emergent bilingual children labeled as disabled (EBLADs).

Housed at a land-grant institution, the Dean's Future Scholars (DFS) program has a long history of partnering with the surrounding tribal communities to increase access and opportunities for Native American students. The Washoe County School District Family-School Partnership and Indian Education Program were recently awarded 3.7 million over five years where the DFS program will have an annual contract to add 70 new Native American students to the regularly scheduled DFS summer programming that takes place in the College of Education and Human Development each summer. Twenty-five students will attend the DFS middle school summer enrichment program. Thirty-five high school students will have the opportunity to take math courses or dual credit courses. Ten students will receive a paid internship, overnight leadership training, and two university courses. All summer offerings are provided at no cost to program participants.  

This grant will result in five years of internships for the NVTC students who participate. The project is currently in the curriculum development phase and will start recruitment of NVTC students later in the spring. The project includes also includes the University of Nevada, Las Vegas secondary education program and the University of Nevada, Reno's College of Engineering's educational outreach program (MELL).

Megan Beckam, teaching associate professor and Glenn H. Waddell, master teacher, NevadaTeach, are working with Richard Plotkin, assistant professor of physics, to assist in writing the broader impacts part of his National Science Foundation grant that was recently funded. They have hired a NevadaTeach physics major to work on writing lesson plans that will be taught at local and rural schools based on astronomy research. 

The Nevada First-Gen Network, established in 2022 with funding from Senate Bill 461, launched a summer pilot program for the students and families of Incline Village, Nevada. This rural community was identified as having a critical need because of the significant income gap between residents and the lack of support services and programs for low-income students beyond fifth grade. The 2022 summer pilot program served 15 students and partnered with 12 different organizations and university departments to offer engaging, hands-on learning to students in STEM, leadership, art, culture, careers, and college life. Next year, the Nevada First-Gen Network staff plans to host 45 participants at a four-week summer program in Incline Village. This early intervention and community outreach will target the rising 6th, 7th, and 8th graders from Incline Middle School. The goal is to build a pathway program modeled after the Dean's Future Scholars program that provides mentoring at the schools and summer programming housed at the University of Nevada, Reno, at Lake Tahoe. Learn more.

Glenn H. Waddell, master teacher, NevadaTeach, is the co-president of the Northern Nevada Math Council and an affiliate of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. They host mathematical socials, trivia nights, a 7-12 math competition, and an annual conference to be held in April of 2023 this school year.

Glenn H. Waddell, master teacher, NevadaTeach, has been presenting and giving webinars to faculty throughout the United States on recruiting mathematics teachers. He has presented at Get the Facts Out and the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators.