On May 4, 2017, psychological foundations of education students: Reese Butterfuss, Nic VanMeerten, and Kelsey Will, along with quantitative methods in education students: Jonathan Brown, Kyle Nickodem, and Yadira Peralta Torres were awarded for their contributions to each program at the annual Psych Foundations and QME Awards and Recognition Ceremony.
Psychological foundations of education awards:
Reese Butterfuss has been awarded the 2016-17 Research Award for the psych foundations program. He is gradually developing a research program on the role of higher-order cognition in knowledge revision, with a current focus on the role of executive functions. Since joining the graduate program in 2015, Reese has co-authored three journal papers, has one more under review, and is preparing another two for submission. He has already presented 17 papers at professional conferences and will be presenting another three later this year.
Nic VanMeerten is 2016-17 Leadership Award recipient. As a third year graduate student in the Department of Educational Psychology, Nic continually shows leadership in his efforts to better the department, university, and Twin Cities community. He is the elected student representative for the psych foundations program and is an advocate for graduate students’ perspectives and ideas. Additionally, Nic co-founded GLITCH, a non-profit organization to support game designers and individuals interested in game based learning.
Kelsey Will received the 2016-17 Teaching Award for her work on developing a new undergraduate course, EPSY 1281 – Applied Psychological Science. She taught one lab section in both fall and spring semesters this year. Kelsey introduced many creative ways to engage and motivate students while working with a team of teaching assistants and the course instructor.
Quantitative methods in education awards:
Jonathan Brown has been awarded the 2016-17 Teaching Award. Since beginning the QME program, Jonathan has taught and developed curricular material for both the Introductory and Intermediate Statistical Methods courses for Master’s-level students. Students appreciate Jonathan’s teaching as he earns average course evaluation ratings of 5.6 or higher on a 6-point scale. In the summer of 2016, Jonathan developed and taught a section of the Introductory Statistical Methods course for the OLPD Executive Ph.D. cohort.
For a second time, Kyle Nickodem was awarded the Leadership Award for his leadership in the program and department. Through his work with the Educational Equity Resource Center and the Campbell Leadership Chair, he has made important contributions to schools, school leaders, and education communities regarding data and assessment literacy. In addition, he has contributed to presentations and presented to the University of Minnesota Principals’ Academy, Generation Next, the Minnesota Assessment Group, and a number of school districts across the state.
Yadira Peralta Torres received the 2016-17 Research Award. She has made numerous contributions to the field. Since 2016, she published or has in press four papers, including The American Statistician and Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods. Also, she has three papers under review (two of which she is first author for), is preparing two others for submission to a journal, and has presented or co-presented eight papers (three as first author) at national and regional conferences. Yadira has also developed a research program focusing on improving analyses of student growth, which is the basis of her dissertation.
