Over the course of Masten’s career in resilience science, which began in the 1970s, she has uncovered adaptive processes and factors that support the ability of individuals to overcome adversity and harmful experiences.
“As I studied children and families dealing with war, disasters, poverty, violence and homelessness, I found a consistent set of surprisingly ordinary but powerful factors at work,” Masten said in a release announcing her award. “Resilience didn’t depend on special qualities but on a capacity to adapt that we develop over time as we are nurtured, learn and gain experience.”
Some of the factors Masten coined as “ordinary magic” that encourage resiliency include supportive relationships, a sense of belonging, self-control, problem-solving skills, optimism, motivation, and a sense of purpose.
The Grawemeyer awards were created in 1984 with a donation from Kentucky entrepreneur H. Charles Grawemeyer. They honor seminal ideas in music composition, education, religion, psychology and improving world order, emphasizing the impact a single idea can have on the world. The award comes with a $100,00 prize.
Nicholaus Noles, the director of the psychology award at the University of Louisville, noted that Masten’s findings have shaped policy and practice in many fields outside psychology, including pediatrics, school counseling, social work, and disaster response. More than 40,000 people from 180+ countries have enrolled in Masten’s online course about resilience of children in war and disaster.
To read a Star Tribune article on Masten’s award, click here.
Chris Wing, PhD ’13, CCC-SLP, built on her career as a speech-language pathologist by pursuing a PhD in language development. She is currently developing a preschool curriculum that emphasizes communication. The curriculum was commissioned by The Family Partnership, a Minnesota nonprofit that provides early childhood education as well as mental health, home visiting, and other services. Wing is working with CEED evaluators Alyssa Meuwissen, PhD, and Mary McEathron, PhD, to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum, which is being piloted in preschool classrooms as well as in home visiting and parent education programs. In this Q & A, Wing shares information about the curriculum and about the science underlying its storytelling content.
What motivated you to pause your career and return to graduate school?
CW: I had been working with a population of young children at extremely high risk for speech and language delays. I observed that when we addressed these children’s communication needs, they were changing in ways that were not considered to be directly related to communication. I saw changes in self-regulation and executive functioning skills. I wasn’t familiar with how that worked. It moved me back to school for my PhD in speech-language-hearing science.
My total focus was to understand the relationship between overall development and communication. I had to merge separate sets of academic literature related to infant mental health and communication.
How is infant mental health related to language development?
Speech and language, attachment relationships, and executive functioning are all connected. Research shows that the ability to use internal state language is predictive of executive functioning. Internal state language is a speech pathology term. It refers to language like, “I wonder how you are feeling,” or, “I can see by the look on your face that you might be afraid.” In the infant mental health literature they call it “mind-mindedness”–being mindful of the child’s mental state.
In my research for my PhD, I found wonderful and fascinating information about how attachment is transmitted from caregiver to child. Parents with good executive functioning create secure relationships and are using this kind of language. The good news is that when we address children’s speech and language needs, we get spread across areas of child development that impact attachment and behavior.
How did the storytelling curriculum that you are designing come about?
John Till is senior vice president of strategy and innovation at The Family Partnership. He learned about the importance of executive functioning and self-regulation. He also learned about the need to develop a two-generation approach to strengthen these skills. We agreed that I would create a communication-based curriculum for both parents and children with personal storytelling as a key strategy. I wanted to get that process down to a concrete level: what does it look like? What does it sound like? What are the steps involved in helping children develop these skills?
The preschool storytelling curriculum is designed for direct delivery to children and also for parents to deliver to children. So one version is to be administered by preschool or child care teachers. The other version is to be used with parents either one-on-one in a home visiting context or in a group setting.
Often, the parents themselves have not had many opportunities to work on developing their own communication and self-regulation skills. We’ve actually gotten some data in from a pilot where we’re having home visitors listen to the parent’s narrative and prompt them with questions like “Who was there? When did it happen? Was there a problem? Was the problem solved? What was the sequence of events?” We saw changes in the parents in terms of how coherent their storytelling was. These skills don’t just happen on their own. They result from participating in interactions and from what we call scaffolding. Scaffolding means building on what they already know.
How does the curriculum build storytelling skills?
One of the major strategies is called “Telling My Story.” We don’t ask children to retell a story that they learned from a book or at school, such as a folk tale. Instead, we ask them to tell a story about their lives. In the academic literature, this is known as a personal narrative.
To determine the child’s skill level, we use a protocol where an adult shares an experience that involves getting sick or hurt. The adult then asks the children to share a similar experience. We’re not trying to upset them by asking about times when they got sick or hurt. We ask about these events because they have what we call emotional salience. Kids are at the top of their skill level when talking about these events. They show us everything they’ve got in terms of storytelling. That’s why sharing a story about a negative experience is part of the assessment process. But of course, the curriculum is not just about bringing up bad experiences. Throughout the curriculum, children have many opportunities to tell stories about a variety of events.
We help them tell their story by asking questions. We talk about words for physical states like hunger. We ask, “What were you thinking at the time?” Parents who really form secure attachments are conscious of their child’s mental state; they’re checking in and mirroring that.
After children finish telling their story, if they haven’t told us already, we ask, “How did you feel?” We ask this of both kids and adults. Some research shows that most of us adults really struggle with naming a feeling outside of some pretty concrete ones: happy, sad, afraid. We don’t get much better than that.
I recently went to a live recording of The Moth Radio Hour. Ten people told stories, and I was amazed at how few internal state words they used. To me, those are what connects us. I can’t really relate to the experience of someone who set a Guinness World Record canoeing on the Mississippi, but I can relate to how it made them feel. When we are able to name feelings, that ability correlates with emotional intelligence. So as parents practice naming their own and others’ feelings, that impacts their ability to engage with their kids.
A favorite definition of self-regulation I ran across that dovetails with what we’re trying to accomplish is, “Self-regulation is monitoring your internal states in relation to your external objective.” The regulating part comes in adjusting either your internal state or your external objective so that you have a match.
Our adult curriculum asks parents to tell their own story. It’s an opportunity to reflect, to problem solve, to process their internal state. With adults, we always end with an affirmation. We recognize something in their story that creates something coherent out of what can feel like chaos–many parents’ lives are chaotic. What we find in adult research on this kind of telling is that the important thing is not whether the storyteller felt successful in the story–it’s how they process it after the fact and see their own agency and what can be built on.
Your curriculum is currently being piloted. How is it going?
The curriculum is being simultaneously written, revised, and piloted. The original version was a six- to eight-week curriculum. Stakeholders gave us wonderful but sometimes painful feedback on that draft. One message that came through is that it needed to be a nine-month curriculum. The new version will last 30 weeks.
We did a “baby” pilot of the new version and found it was headed in the right direction. We were very encouraged, so we began our scheduled pilots at the beginning of the school year with 10 weeks of the curriculum complete. Now I’m writing ahead of the pilot. It feels like running in front of a speeding train, but there’s something about the content that has its own calming, mindful effect. Teachers have even said that the kids are being kinder to each other. One thing I like is hearing from teachers, “I like doing this. It’s fun. The kids like it.” That means it’s developmentally appropriate. We know neurologically that positive engagement facilitates learning. Fun is not optional; fun is mandatory!
Researchers at the Center for Early Education and Development (CEED) and the Department of Applied Economics were awarded a $1.4 million grant for Coordinated Evaluation of Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Payment Policies, a research project evaluating child care subsidies in Minnesota. The grant for the four-year project was awarded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Co-principal investigators Ann Bailey, PhD, director of CEED, and Elizabeth E. Davis, PhD, professor of applied economics, will lead the project to measure the effects of child care subsidy policies on families’ access to high quality child care.
Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) provides subsidies to low-income families with funding from the federal Child Care and Development Fund. About 30,000 children and 15,000 families receive child care assistance each month in Minnesota through CCAP. The purpose of the Child Care and Development Fund is to ensure that families who receive child care assistance have “equal access to child care services comparable to those provided to families not eligible” for such assistance. Having equal access means that families should be able to find care that meets several criteria. It should be:
Reasonably affordable
Reasonably convenient in terms of hours of operation and location
High quality; i.e., supportive of child development
“Quality child care opens doors to employment, education, and training for parents. It also supports children’s healthy growth and academic achievement,” says Bailey. “Its importance to the functioning of our society and our economy, as well as to individual opportunity, can’t be overstated. Yet so many families have a tough time finding quality child care that they can afford. That’s especially true for our communities of color, immigrant communities, and rural communities. CCAP is designed to address that issue.”
Since 2014, Minnesota’s Department of Human Services has made several major updates to CCAP. These updates create natural experimental conditions, representing an opportunity to evaluate CCAP’s impact before and after implementation of the changes. Bailey, Davis, and their research team will look primarily at changes to subsidy payment rates. Other policies of interest include family copays, payment for enrollment versus attendance, speed of payment, and the administrative burden of participation.
The researchers will partner with Minnesota’s Department of Human Services to compile and analyze data related to families who enroll in CCAP, such as demographic and geographic information. They will model the number of families eligible for CCAP and compare that with participation rates and county-level waitlists. They will also look at providers’ participation in CCAP as well as their participation and rating in Parent Aware, Minnesota’s voluntary child care quality rating and improvement system. In addition, the research team plans to measure CCAP’s effects on parents’ employment and children’s school success.
The project will also include a large-scale qualitative study. The researchers will survey and interview providers and families who participated in CCAP as well as those who did not. This will allow for a better understanding of how policies influence providers’ decisions to accept subsidies and families’ decisions to obtain subsidies. It will also shed light on families’ decision-making process as they choose providers.
“We believe that our evaluation methodology will result in actionable findings for Minnesota and for other states as well,” says Davis. “For example, some states use a market price approach to setting subsidy payment rates. Other states use a cost modeling approach. Our study will determine how an increase in payment rates affects families’ access to care regardless of the approach used to set rates. There is so much to learn about the policy levers that states can use to maximize the effectiveness of programs like CCAP.”
In addition to Bailey and Davis, the project team will include Jonathan Borowsky, JD, PhD (Department of Applied Economics); Alyssa S. Meuwissen, PhD (CEED); Mary McEathron, PhD (CEED); Meredith Reese (CEED); Aaron Sojourner, PhD (W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research); and Barbara Vang (CEED).
The Child Development Laboratory School is hosting its first Visiting Research Scholar through summer of 2024. Ozge Metin Aslan (she/her/hers) will be observing, studying, and collaborating on research projects with CDLS and will also guest teach.
Her educational background includes a PhD, MS and BA all in Early Childhood Education from Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey. During her PhD, she was a research scholar at the Institute of Child Development in Dr. Nicki Crick’s Social Lab from 2011-2012. She completed her postdoctoral research on shy and introverted children’s play behavior and peer relations with Dr. Kenneth H. Rubin at the University of Maryland’s Center for Children, Relationships and Culture between 2014-2016.
Here is a brief bio from Ozge:
I am a play researcher and also a free play activist. I believe that free play is the only way for learning and exploring. I have three sentences that I always mention in my class: “Children are learning by themself.” “Children are smarter than we think.” “We need not go down to the level of children, instead we must go up to the level of children.” My teaching philosophy is based on all children have the potential to and are capable of constructing their own understandings and learning. It is my responsibility to train teachers according to this philosophy.
The Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) field is growing and the Institute of Child Development’s programs—led by Elizabeth Carlson, PhD, U of MN Harris Program Director—have been at the forefront of ensuring that the Minnesota early childhood workforce and state policy makers have access to the latest scientific developments to support children and families. Most recently, ICD Harris programs, ZERO TO THREE Policy Center, and other national partners collaborated to sponsor a convening of the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Financing Policy Project at McNamara Alumni Center on Sept. 27 and 28.
Nearly 25 states and the District of Columbia sent representatives to discuss strategies for financing IECMH services, as well as learn from shared experiences and challenges. The convening was established in 2016 after a group of leaders from Zero to Three, the Irving Harris Foundation, the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS), and ICD formalized a planning group to work on supporting the early childhood mental health field. The goal is to develop a stable and sustainable infrastructure based in science that better serves children and caregivers, particularly high-risk families.
In Minnesota, Catherine Wright, the DHS Early Childhood Division Director, and Glenace Edwall, the former DHS Behavioral Health Director who now serves as an instructor in ICD’S IECMH program, have used research and practices developed at ICD to inform the state’s early childhood mental health system and policy. Partnerships between MN DHS and ICD have led to clinicians in the field completing ICD’s IECMH certificate program to ensure they are trained in the latest evidence-based practices and, in turn, serving as a site for current IECMH students to complete their internships. According to Carlson, the collaborations have been fruitful for everyone involved, serving to make Minnesota a leader in the IECMH field.
Dr. Sheila Williams Ridge, director of the Child Development Laboratory School, recently participated in a webinar on Climate and Young Children presented by the Stanford Center on Early Childhood. The webinar brought together leading voices from early childhood education, policy, and research to illuminate how climate change and extreme weather impacts young children, families, and communities.
The other speakers in the webinar included:
Christy Merrick, Director of the Natural Start Alliance
Antwanye Ford, Co-Chair of the Early Years Climate Action Task Force
Nat Kendall-Taylor, CEO at the FrameWorks Institute
Laura Schifter, Harvard Graduate School of Education Lecturer and Senior Fellow at the Aspen Institute
Moderator Abigail Stewart-Kahn, Managing Director of the Stanford Center on Early Childhood
A main focus of the webinar was empowering children, families, and educators to explore solutions to the growing challenges of climate change. Williams Ridge shared how nature-based learning environments, such as the CDLS, promote children developing relationships with the world around them from a young age.
“What we really want to do is help children learn those early skills, like inquiry…problem solving and creativity,” Williams Ridge said during the webinar. “We want them to think of themselves as having the ability to do things to solve problems. We do that in their relationships with other young children, we want to do that when we’re talking about the climate. One of the best ways we can do that as adults, and really take our responsibility seriously, is to model those practices.”
You can find more about the webinar series, including resources and action items, here.
During her visit to CEHD, Melody Gonzales toured Campbell Hall. On the tour are Innovation and Partnership Officer Ryan Warren, Gonzales, Dean Michael C. Rodriguez, ICD PhD student Jasmine Banegas, and Melisa López Franzen, the University’s executive director of Government and Community Relations.
Melody Gonzales, executive director of the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics, was in the Twin Cities on October 11 to speak at an event and had time to visit CEHD with Melisa López Franzen, UMN executive director of Government and Community Relations.
Gonzales took a tour of Campbell Hall and heard from Institute of Child Development (ICD) PhD student Jasmine Banegas about her interdisciplinary work with School of Social Work Assistant Professor Saida Abdi to provide trauma-informed services to Latine children and families in Minneapolis Public Schools.
“Melody noted, after visiting with me, Ryan Warren, Tabitha Grier-Reed, and staff and students in ICD and FSOS, how readily we are able to translate research to practice in areas of critical need,” says Dean Michael C. Rodriguez. “She also noted the opportunities for underrepresented faculty, staff, and students to be engaged in this work—and how essential that will be to secure successful futures for so many students, families, and communities. She looks forward to working with us more in the near future.”
Maybe it’s the end of your workday and you’re picking up your young child from preschool. As you buckle her into her car seat, she starts telling you about something that happened on the playground. The order of events is hard to follow; plus, your mind is already on what to make for dinner. The most you can do is reply to her with an occasional, absent-minded “uh-huh” as you drive home.
Or maybe you’re a preschool teacher with 11 very active children running in literal circles around the room. Meanwhile, a twelfth preschooler chooses that moment to tell you a complicated story about his dog. Or is it his toy dog? Some of the basic elements just aren’t clear. You smile and nod, then rush to herd the rest of the class over to their carpet squares for morning meeting while the preschooler continues to narrate, apparently to himself.
Do these scenarios sound familiar? When we adults are feeling frazzled, it can be next to impossible to tune in to the stories that young children tell. But did you know that when children share stories about their lives–called personal narratives–they are doing important learning? When we engage with those personal narratives, we’re helping them grow.
Children’s stories do more than simply inform us about how they spend their days. Telling stories promotes children’s language development, along with their executive functioning. Executive functioning refers to the set of skills that allow us to control our behavior rather than acting on impulse. Following multi-part directions or working toward a goal are examples of skills that require executive functioning. So is refraining from an impulsive action that could cause harm or get us into trouble, such hitting a friend or yelling in the classroom.
So, why does storytelling affect executive functioning? It turns out that language development and executive functioning are related. Chris Wing, PhD ’13, CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist who has researched that connection. She has found that as we help children work on their communication skills, their executive functioning also improves. There is also evidence that learning to use the vocabulary of emotions and states of mind correlates with the ability to self-regulate. Self-regulation–recognizing our emotions and keeping them in check when we need to–is an important aspect of executive functioning.
“When I talk with kindergarten teachers,” Wing says, “They often tell me, ‘I don’t care if incoming kindergarteners know how to read or know their numbers. I want children to be able to attend, get along with their classmates, and relate to me as a new adult.’ What they are saying is they want children to have learned executive functioning and self-regulation skills.”
Wing believes that storytelling is a great way for young children to work on those skills. That’s why The Family Partnership commissioned Wing to create a preschool curriculum that includes storytelling. The Family Partnership is a Minnesota nonprofit that provides early childhood education along with mental health and other services. Want to make storytelling part of your everyday routine and help children get the most benefit from it? Here are pointers based on the curriculum that Wing developed:
Model storytelling for them by telling a simple story about your day: “Guess what happened to me in line at the grocery store! It was really funny.”
Tell a story with a child or children as a shared event. Start with a question: “Remember when we set up the bird feeder outside our classroom window? Who wants to share what happened next?” Then take turns adding details.
Meet the child where they are. We often ask children lots of questions about events or aspects of their day that we adults are curious about. If these are not the topics that most interest them, though, children likely won’t be as eager to tell about them. Try letting children direct the conversation and share what’s most meaningful to them.
It takes practice to provide the “who, what, where” context that a listener needs. If the child’s story is hard to follow or missing important details, ask questions to fill in the blanks: “Great story! Tell me, what happened first?” Ask about when and where the story occurred, who was there, and what the sequence of events was.
The most important question in Wing’s storytelling curriculum is: “How did you feel?” Try to help children describe how they felt physically and emotionally at the time of the story. Prompt them with words like excited, silly, frustrated, tired, surprised, and hungry.
It’s okay to have big feelings! Storytelling can be a way to work through our thoughts and feelings about negative events. Naming our feelings is an important part of self-regulation, and self-regulation is a major factor in resilience.
Have fun with it! Be as silly or as dramatic as you want. Maybe you want to act out what happened. Maybe you want to tell the story in silly voices. Research shows that positive engagement facilitates learning.
Storytelling doesn’t need to happen at a particular time of day. You don’t need any special materials to do it. And there’s no cleanup required! Storytelling is a simple activity that goes straight to the heart of some of the most important things children need to learn, like language and self-regulation. The next time a preschooler in your life starts telling you the saga of finding a feather on the playground or getting into an argument with a friend, see if you can give them your full attention. (If you’re that preschool teacher with a wild roomful of four-year-olds, it’s okay to ask your little storyteller to hold that thought and connect with him later!) Experiment with some of Wing’s strategies. You might just get inspired to share a personal narrative of your own. What stories do you have to tell?
Authentic Assessment is recommended practice for early childhood educators. It lets them see the big picture of a child’s development. The Authentic Assessment Cycle helps educators get a sense of the skills that the child has acquired and what they have learned. It also helps educators adjust their lesson plans to support children’s progress. (Learn more about how the Authentic Assessment Cycle works in our first Tip Sheet in the series.)
Educators also need to know whether a child is gaining skills and knowledge at a rate that’s typical for their age. To know that, they need to compare the child’s development with a set of guidelines. Our second Tip Sheet in our Authentic Assessment series is called Introducting It: Using the Early Learning Guidelines to Track Development for Assessment. It talks about two different sets of guidelines that educators can refer to: developmental milestones and Early Childhood Indicators of Progress (ECIPs). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer information on developmental milestones. The ECIPs, meanwhile, are from the Minnesota Department of Education. They describe what children should know and be able to do by the time they enter kindergarten.
Stephanie Carlson, Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Institute of Child Development, has been awarded $2.8 million by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The grant aims to align measures of personal attributes that best predict physical and mental health outcomes in youth.
Carlson’s research focuses on Executive Function (EF) skills – which include attention, working memory, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and reflection. Together with students and colleagues, she has been studying EF measurement, development, and social, economic, and cultural influences. This new grant will not only investigate the role of EF in children’s health, but also will incorporate measures of personality and risky decision-making to help inform (a) the alignment of measures of these personal attributes in early adolescence, and (b) how well they independently and collectively predict health outcomes in youth by age 17. One deliverable of this research could be a streamlined set of measures for school-age children that best predicts individual differences in their later physical and mental health.
The research team plans to enroll 1,200 families with youth ages 9-13 years old to measure these personal attributes along with family information. They will be followed annually for four years. Project leadership also includes James J. Heckman of the University of Chicago, Patrick Kyllonen of the Educational Testing Service, and Thomas Dohmen of the University of Bonn. Previous data sets involving similar measures of youth in China and Germany will be analyzed in relation to the new data collected at the University of Minnesota to address potential cultural variation in the measures of interest.
Maddie Fung, a 3rd year doctoral student in ICD, has been awarded a seed grant from the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain (MIDB). Fung’s project “Understanding Pathways Between Chronic Stress, Puberty, and Functional Brain Development” received a two-year $20,000 grant.
New research released this summer from a 30-year study shows that individuals who experienced childhood trauma and adversity — known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — had improved long-term educational outcomes when they had also participated in a comprehensive early childhood education program.
The Chicago Longitudinal Study, directed by Dr. Arthur Reynolds at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, has followed a cohort of children who entered the Child-Parent Center (CPC) preschool in Chicago in the 1980s. The outcomes of these children, who are predominantly Black and born in high-poverty neighborhoods, were tracked for 30 years to assess a wide range of life course and well-being measurements. This study, published in JAMA Network Open and led by Alison Giovanelli of the University of California, San Francisco, contributes to the evidence that young people at the highest risk for poor outcomes benefit from receiving access to high quality early childhood education. The CPC Preschool to 3rd grade model was established by the Chicago Public School District to provide comprehensive educational and family support services, primarily in low-income neighborhoods.
In this study, participants in the CPC who had experienced ACEs in early childhood, including abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction, attained either an associate’s or bachelor’s degree at rates similar to the CPC participants who had not experienced ACEs.
In a comparison group of children who had access to usual early childhood services, the children who experienced ACEs had lower rates of postsecondary education graduation than their peers without ACEs. Among ACEs-impacted participants, 22.4% of CPC graduates earned a college degree compared to only 5.6% for the comparison group enrolled in the usual early childhood services. This 4-fold improvement far exceeded the improvement found for CPC graduates vs the comparison group without ACEs (19.9% vs 17.1%; 16% improvement).
“Comprehensive [early childhood education] programs, such as [the Child-Parent Center] can foster resilience and mitigate the effects of early adversity,” the study said. “Such interventions are an established, evidence-based, scalable tool to level the playing field for the most vulnerable children.”
The opportunity to participate in the high-quality CPC preschool may have offset the negative impacts of childhood adversity. The study also examined an expanded set of ACEs, including neighborhood violence, family conflict, death in the family, and foster care or out-of-home placement.
The other researchers on the study were ICD PhD alumna Christina Mondi, now of Brazelton Touchpoints Center at Harvard Medical School, and Arthur Reynolds and Suh-Ruu Ou, of the University of Minnesota’s Human Capital Research Collaborative. Under Reynolds, the CPC program has been expanded in four school districts, including St. Paul, Minnesota, and Chicago, Evanston, and Normal in Illinois.
The study was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Institute of Child Development, Center for Early Education and Development (CEED), and the Child Development Laboratory School (CDLS) had a notable presence at the national Zero to Three LEARN conference, held in Minneapolis on September 19 and 20. The annual event brought together approximately 1,900 attendees from the fields of early childhood education, infant and early childhood mental health, and more.
Child Development Laboratory School
Staff of the Child Development Laboratory School
L to R: Sheila Williams Ridge, Ayuko Boomer, Jenny Hanlon
The staff of the Child Development Laboratory School had the opportunity to attend the LEARN conference as part of their annual professional development. Over the two-day conference, they were able to learn from experts around the country and share their knowledge in cultivating the development of young children, the support of families, and advocacy in early childhood.
Sheila Williams Ridge, Director of the CDLS, and Ayuko Boomer, Early Childhood Specialist and Parent Educator at the CDLS, also presented on outdoor play, along with Stillwater ECFE teacher Jenny Hanlon. Their presentation covered the benefits and challenges of outdoor education, as well as how the CDLS aligns outdoor learning with the learning domains in the state of Minnesota’s Early Childhood Indicators of Progress (ECIPs).
Institute of Child Development Alumni
Congratulations to ICD PhD alumnus Angela Narayan (PhD ’15) on receiving the Zero to Three Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Emerging Leadership Research Award. The award recognizes and celebrates a diversity of early- and mid-career leaders engaged in cutting-edge, transformative work to advance IECMH Practice, Policy, and Research. Dr. Narayan is an Associate Professor in the Clinical Child Psychology PhD program in the Department of Psychology at the University of Denver (DU).
In her talk titled Risk and Resilience across Generations, she presented her work on the Benevolent Childhood Experiences (BCEs) Scale.
ICD PhD alumnus Katie Lingras (PhD ’12) also presented at the LEARN conference. Dr. Lingras, associate professor in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department at the University of Minnesota Medical School, gave a talk titled Mind the Gaps: Approaches for Integrating Discussions on Bias into Reflective Supervision/Consultation.
Our new evidence-based Tip Sheets explore topics of relevance to early childhood professionals. Our latest Tip Sheet, Introducing It: The Authentic Assessment Cycle and Its Role in Early Childhood Education, is the first of a planned series exploring aspects of Authentic Assessment.
Authentic Assessment is recommended practice because it allows educators to gain a holistic picture of a child’s development. The data compiled through Authentic Assessment is used to adjust instruction and even to make changes to the child’s environment. Download Introducing It: The Authentic Assessment Cycle and Its Role in Early Childhood Education below, and learn about:
Please join us in welcoming ICD’s new class of PhD students. We are thrilled to have the following students join us at ICD and are looking forward to working with them across the next several years!
Tyler comes to ICD with 10 years of experience as a speech-language pathologist and infant/early childhood mental health consultant. Before that, he completed undergraduate and graduate work close to home in culture rich Southwest Louisiana, a region called Acadiana. Prior to coming to Minnesota, he served children and families in Chicago and mentored clinicians and educators around the globe in relationship-based models of early childhood.
His research interests revolve around early childhood adversity and resilience. He is particularly interested in macro systems level adversity related to racism, poverty, violence, and other harmful forms of othering that disproportionately affect marginalized communities.
Emily is a first year PhD student in the developmental psychopathology and clinical science program. Through her research she would like to characterize how negative life experiences during sensitive developmental periods affect emotional functioning. Toward that goal, she hopes to use skills in neuroimaging (fMRI and fNIRS) to better understand how stress can influence emotion-related psychophysiology and risk for psychopathology.
Angelina is a first-year doctoral student in the Developmental Psychopathology and Clinical Science track working primarily with Jed Elison. She is interested in understanding the neural underpinnings of cognitive deficits in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. She aspires to investigate neuropsychological profiles and identify biomarkers of cognitive deficits during early childhood to be used as objective measures in order to individualize treatment development in these individuals.
She has a B.S. in Psychology from The University of Alabama.
Beyza is a first year PhD student working with Dr. Charisse Pickron and Dr. Melissa Koenig. She previously worked with Dr. Elizabeth Spelke and Dr. Ashley Thomas at Harvard University, focusing on understanding social relationships. She is interested in how infants and children make inferences of the world within social contexts.
Beyza has a B.A. in Psychology and Psychological Counseling and Guidance from Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, Turkey.
Timothy Martin is a doctoral student in the Developmental Psychopathology and Clinical Science program. His research interests include developmental cognitive neuroscience and executive function. He is especially interested in educational practices and clinical interventions, such as self-reflection and mindfulness, which promote children’s cognitive functioning.
Prior to his studies at the University of Minnesota, Tim worked as a licensed professional counselor (LPCC) in New Mexico both in private practice and as the Director of Outpatient Services at Taos Behavioral Health.
Ngan (Nora) Nguyen is a first-year doctoral student on the Developmental Science track. She is interested in studying the impacts of intergenerational transmission of risks (e.g., parental psychopathology and adverse childhood experiences) on child and adolescent key regulatory processes and mental health outcomes among Southeast Asian populations and their diasporas. Additionally, her interests include looking beyond the nuclear family system to better understand intergenerational trauma by accounting for broader ecological contexts and interpersonal settings.
Shi Xin is a first-year doctoral student on the Developmental Science track. Her research interests include cognitive development; culture, cross-culture; early childhood; language development; and social and emotional development.
She has a B.S. degree in Psychology and Neuroscience from the University of Michigan and an Accelerated Master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Michigan.
Ayah is a first-year doctoral student collaborating with Dr. Glenn Roisman. Ayah’s main research interests are focused on the relationships that young children cultivate in their early years of schooling, both at home and in school, and how they impact development and educational achievements/beliefs. Particularly, Ayah is interested in the role infant attachment plays in teacher-student relationship quality and how the relationship quality can be improved, especially among historically underserved children.
Ayah has a B.S. degree in Psychology from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Jaylen worked as a research assistant with the Center for Critical Public Health conducting qualitative interviews with young adults living in rural Northern California about their alcohol and substance use. Jaylen also worked with Dr. Emily Reeder at Southern Oregon University creating a decision-making matrix analyzing how jurors make decisions in a criminal trial. Before coming to the University of Minnesota, Jaylen worked as a Juvenile Justice Specialist at the Jackson County Juvenile Detention Center in Jackson County, Oregon.
At ICD, Jaylen is interested in exploring the relationship between youth resilience, decision-making, and substance use. Jaylen is currently working with Dr. Sylia Wilson on the Social Inequality Project.
Akira will be working with Dr. Sylia Wilson in the Developmental Psychopathology and Clinical Science program. Her research examines the biopsychosocial consequences of early life stress in children, with an emphasis on parental characteristics. She is particularly interested in using data-driven approaches and behavioral genetics to study how stress alters the normative trajectory of brain development, leveraging neuroimaging techniques to identify prodromal indicators of psychopathology. She is also interested in delineating individuals’ differences in their susceptibility and resilience to mental disorders through investigating neural structures, connectivity and how individuals are embedded in the society at the interpersonal and societal levels.
The Institute of Child Development (ICD) would like to congratulate our 2023 PhD student graduates! In celebration of our students we’d like to take a look back at their time at ICD and learn more about what their next steps are.
Lauren Eales
“I will always be grateful to have worked under the mentorship of Dr. Gail Ferguson, whose arrival at ICD in my second year brought so much hope and helped ignite my passion for my research topics of media use, mental health, culture, and racial socialization. I am also grateful that I was able to get my degree in the very unique developmental psychopathology area, where I got great training in both developmental and clinical topics. The ICD student body also enabled me to hone my advocacy and leadership skills through being involved in the graduate student committee, Growing Brains, Next-Gen Psych Scholars Program, and Diversity in Psychology Support program – all of which contributed to my ICD experience. I am currently a psychology intern at the University of Minnesota Medical School, and I look forward to continuing both my clinical and research training once I complete this final step of my degree.”
Jasmine Ernst
“During my time at ICD, I had the privilege of being mentored by Drs. Stephanie Carlson and Michèle Mazzocco where I studied the associations between executive function and STEM achievement in early childhood. I am immensely grateful for all the faculty, students, and staff I had the opportunity to work with at ICD. I am excited to continue this line of research in my new position as a postdoctoral researcher on the Purdue University Research Program On STEM Education Postdoctoral Training Initiative with Dr. Robert Duncan.”
Cara Lucke
“I am grateful for my time at ICD, and in particular, working with Ann Masten as my primary mentor. I also collaborated with Minn-LInK and was fortunate for the opportunity to contribute to community-based research projects and policy-oriented work. For this upcoming year, I am completing my pre-doctoral clinical internship at Children’s National Hospital in Washington D.C. where I am focusing on intervention and assessment with young children and their caregivers. I will miss the amazing graduate students at ICD, but I am lucky to carry with me lifelong friendships!”
Sophia Magro
“I am immensely grateful to have had six wonderful years at ICD, where I worked with incredible faculty, collaborated with brilliant students, and made friends for life! I was mentored at ICD by Dr. Glenn Roisman, who I greatly admire for his careful thinking, deep respect for his colleagues and students, and tenacity. I was also lucky to collaborate with Dr. Betty Carlson, who is an incredible example of a researcher building bridges between the clinical, research, and policy worlds. I hope future students will benefit from their mentorship as much as I have. Currently, I am completing my doctoral training with a clinical internship at Duke University, where I am receiving advanced training in clinical supervision, early autism assessment, and early intervention. I hope my professional journey will bring me back to Minnesota before long!”
Marissa Nivison
“During my time at ICD I had the privilege to be advised by Dr. Glenn Roisman where I studied the legacy of early experiences on wellbeing across the lifespan and how we measure those experiences. I specifically focused on attachment theory and childhood experiences of abuse and neglect. I will always be thankful to Dr. Glenn Roisman for being such an outstanding mentor. I am now continuing my research career as a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Calgary working with Dr. Sheri Madigan.”
Emmy Reilly
“My time at ICD greatly advanced my scholarship, research training, and individual growth. I am incredibly grateful for the many mentors who supported me, especially Dr. Megan Gunnar. I continue to be in awe of my fellow ICD graduate students, and would encourage future grad students to build up strong connections with your peers- they will help you persevere and add to your work immensely. During my graduate studies, I focused my program of research onto the interconnections between compassion, parenting, and stress. I am currently working as a Research Scientist at the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University with Dr. Ken Dodge, with plans to pursue a faculty position at a research university.”
Danruo Zhong
“I am currently working as a research scientist at NYU Langone Health/NYU Grossman School of Medicine on a nation-wide parenting intervention program promoting health and development in children from low-income, racial and ethnic minority families. I have enjoyed the five years I spent in ICD- the training, winter camping, grill-out, and parties with my lovely ICD friends and colleagues, and I am immensely grateful for the warm and collaborative ICD community that has supported me throughout my graduate school years.”
Meriah DeJoseph
Dr. DeJoseph is starting a postdoctoral position at Stanford University.
Carolyn Lasch
Carolyn will be completing her clinical internship at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in Georgia.
Liz Sharer
Dr. Liz Sharer completed her clinical internship at Wasatch Behavioral Health in Utah and will move onto a postdoctoral fellowship at Fraser in Minneapolis.
Landmark study will seek to answer unknowns about long-term effects of prenatal exposure to opioids and other substances.
MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (09/05/2023) —University of Minnesota researchers are launching enrollment for the largest long-term study of early brain and child development in the United States. The HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) study, is now enrolling individuals from around the United States, including in Minnesota, who are in the second trimester of pregnancy.
The University of Minnesota was selected as one of 28 recruitment sites across the country for the project, and also serves a key role in the central HBCD Data Coordinating Center. The study will enroll about 7,500 pregnant people nationwide and follow them and their children for up to 10 years through infancy and childhood. The HBCD study is part of the broader National Institutes of Health Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative, to learn, in part, more about the long-term effects of prenatal exposure to opioids on infant and child development. In addition, it is expected to identify key developmental windows during which both harmful and protective environmental factors have the most influence on later neurodevelopmental outcomes.
“Many mental health disorders that appear later in life have developmental origins in the first 1000 days. Understanding how to get kids off to a healthy start and identifying which kids are at risk is key to protecting the brain across the lifespan and an investment in our future generations,” said Michael Georgieff, co-director of the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain (MIDB).
In Minnesota, the researchers will collaborate with a network of about 20 birth and addiction treatment centers to connect with participants across the state, with the goal of including rural residents and historically underrepresented populations. Information gathered during pregnancy and at various points throughout early childhood will include:
Pictures of the brain
Measures of physical growth
Samples of blood and saliva
Medical and family history surveys
Information about social, emotional, and cognitive development
“This is a pivotal moment for our society to begin gaining a deeper understanding of child development, including the potential long-term impacts of substance exposure during pregnancy, and a host of other environmental factors, on the developing brain,” said Sylia Wilson, an associate professor in the Institute of Child Development. “This research will give us a more complete picture of healthy brain development for all children.”
The University of Minnesota received two grants expected to provide $26 million over five years for the HBCD study. A $6 million, 5-year grant led by Wilson, Georgieff, and Anna Zilverstand, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Medical School, establishes Minnesota as one of 28 data collection sites across the country. The study aims to include recruitment of pregnant people from regions of the country significantly impacted by the opioid crisis.
The second grant, expected to total $20 million for five years, includes Damien Fair, co-director for the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, along with collaborators Christopher Smyser from Washington University in St. Louis and Anders Dale from the University of California San Diego. They are charged with leading and managing the state-of-the-art, longitudinal data set that will address crucial questions about the impact of environmental factors on brain and behavioral health. This landmark study is expected to shape research, clinical care, and public policy for decades to come.
“This study is providing an unprecedented look inside the earliest stages of brain development with the most advanced neuroimaging technology to date,” Fair said. “It will provide the foundation for understanding and optimizing brain health in our youth for years to come. The establishment of the MIDB and investments in interdisciplinary research here in Minnesota has allowed us to play a lead role in establishing this prominent national study.”
The HBCD Study is funded through the Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative, and by numerous institutes and offices at the National Institutes of Health, and is led by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The University of Minnesota’s work is supported by the NIH through grant numbers 5U01DA055371 and 5U24DA055330. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
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About the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain
The Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain (MIDB) is a one-stop clinic, research, and outreach location specializing in children and youth with neurobehavioral conditions. By bringing together University of Minnesota experts in pediatric medicine, research, policy and community supports to understand, prevent, diagnose, and treat neurodevelopmental disorders in early childhood and adolescence, MIDB advances brain health from the earliest stages of development across the lifespan, supporting each person’s journey as a valued community member. Learn more at midb.umn.edu.
About the University of Minnesota Medical School The University of Minnesota Medical School is at the forefront of learning and discovery, transforming medical care and educating the next generation of physicians. Our graduates and faculty produce high-impact biomedical research and advance the practice of medicine. We acknowledge that the U of M Medical School, both the Twin Cities campus and Duluth campus, is located on traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of the Dakota and the Ojibwe, and scores of other Indigenous people, and we affirm our commitment to tribal communities and their sovereignty as we seek to improve and strengthen our relations with tribal nations. For more information about the U of M Medical School, please visit med.umn.edu.
About the College of Education and Human Development The University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) strives to teach, advance research and engage with the community to increase opportunities for all individuals. As the third largest college on the Twin Cities campus, CEHD research and specialties focus on a range of challenges, including: educational equity, teaching and learning innovations, children’s mental health and development, family resilience, and healthy aging. Learn more at cehd.umn.edu.
Contact: Rachel Cain, University Relations, rcain@umn.edu
Recent ICD graduate Magdalen “Maggy” Deschane (she/her) spent part of her summer at the RISE (Research Institute for Scholars of Equity) fellowship program at North Carolina Central University. She’s returning to ICD this fall as a Project Coordinator in Dr. Gail Ferguson’s Culture and Family Life Lab and continuing the year-long fellowship. Read more about Maggy’s time at ICD and what she has learned from this unique summer research opportunity.
Tell us a little about yourself and your time at the U of M.
I recently graduated from the College of Education and Human Development. I did the Integrated Degree Program, so I graduated with a Bachelor of Science, concentrating in Early Childhood Education and Social Justice, and a minor in Developmental Psychology. I grew up in northern Wisconsin on a small hobby farm.
During my time at the U of M, I have been involved in quite a few community-engaged learning classes. I really appreciated my experiences in these classes, as I had thoughtful professors who integrated the community work in a way that respected the community and also gave me a chance to try out different education styles.
How did you choose your major and area of study?
Honestly, my relationships with other teachers and educators, and the relationships I have formed and continue to form with children.
Both of my parents are educators, I grew up seeing the ins and outs of academic settings. I came to college and was influenced by an awesome preschool environment, and then I was also interacting with amazing scholars and professors here at the U of M – everything to me comes back to the relationships I have been able to form in proxy to or literally through education. I find a lot of joy in building relationships and this is something I hope to continue to draw from as I work with students and other educators.
Tell us about your work in Dr. Gail Ferguson’s Culture and Family Life Lab.
Joining Dr. Ferguson’s lab has been one of the biggest blessings in my college career. I only wish I would have gotten involved sooner! Dr. Ferguson and my grad student mentor, Lauren Eales, have been beyond helpful in mentoring me in professional development, research methods, and post-graduate career options. I found out about this fellowship through them and am so thankful for the support they continue to give me.
Being a part of the Culture and Family Life Lab is so joyful. I really appreciate how interdisciplinary, intersectional, and transnational the work being done in our lab is. I have always felt very welcome in the lab; the ICD grad students are all very supportive of undergraduates. They frequently share resources or opportunities that allow undergraduate students such as myself to feel involved and able to ask questions or contribute to the conversation. Some of my favorite memories in the CFL lab are attending the 2022 Minnesota Symposium and getting to hear Dr. Beale-Spencer speak, and all of the whole lab meetings.
Tell us about what you hope to do through the RISE fellowship. Any particular areas of focus for your research?
I hope to continue to grow as a researcher through this fellowship by gaining skills in mixed-methods research, practicing developing research questions and carrying them out through research projects, and growing as a professional. I also am looking forward to meeting other people my age thinking about mixed-methods research and education.
There are so many things I am interested in when it comes to education research! I am inspired by scholars such as bell hooks, Bettina Love, and Akiea Gross. I want to research abolitionist early childhood education options and use this research to advocate for increased access to these alternative options. I also want to research white racial identity development in order to look more specifically at the implications for white teachers as socialization agents and use this research to develop interventions that help white teachers talk about race and develop more equitable academic environments.
This fellowship is focused on addressing issues of social equity and improving schooling experiences and academic attainment of African-American and Latino students. How does this align with your goals for the future?
In order to create improved schooling experiences and increase academic attainment for Black and Latinx students, we have to start by listening to them. As a researcher and educator, most of my work relies on these interpersonal relationships with students. It is my goal to make those relationships the best practice for all educators and researchers. By doing this, we can begin to think more expansively about our schooling techniques and environments, which will in turn promote academic attainment.
What is next for you now that you’ve graduated?
I’m so grateful for the multitude of experiences and opportunities that unfolded this summer during my tenure as a fellow in the RISE Fellowship program. Drs. Lee and Smith’s warm welcome and unwavering support were invaluable, and becoming a part of the NCCU community was a rewarding experience. The fellowship not only allowed me to explore my research interests but also prepared me for the road ahead in graduate school. I’m appreciative of the chance to connect with peers and gain hands-on research experience through the fellowship, and the friendships formed within our scholars’ cohort were a definite highlight. Looking ahead, I’m excited to share that in addition to completing the year-long fellowship, I will also be serving as the Project Coordinator for The CARPE DIEM Study here at ICD, and fulfilling an educator position at Southside Family School. Finally, I’m aiming to apply for graduate school this term as well, focusing on a program that emphasizes Educational Leadership and Social Justice.
Jasmine Banegas and Mirinda Morency were awarded the NIMH’s T32 Predoctoral Training Fellowship for 2023-24.
Erika DeAngelis was awarded the CEHD Seashore Graduate Fellowship for the 2023-24 academic year.
Emily Padrutt was a recipient of the 2023 American Psychological Association of Graduate Students Psychological Science Research Grant (PSRG).
Padrutt also received the 2023-24 Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain Predoctoral Fellowship in Developmental Science.
Recent presentations
Ekom Eyoh at the International Society for Autism Research’s Annual Meeting, May 2023
Ekom Eyoh presented her first-author poster “Deriving subgroups based on school age outcomes in children with an increased familial likelihood for developing ASD” at the International Society for Autism Research’s Annual Meeting in May in Stockholm, Sweden.
Other posters presented at the International Society for Autism Research’s Annual Meeting include:
Koirala, S., Burrows, C. A., Eyoh, E. E., Elison, J. T. (2023, May 3-6). Examining the measurement properties of Social Responsiveness Scale in a convenience community sample of preschool-aged children [Poster presentation]. International Society for Autism Research 2023 Annual Meeting, Stockholm, Sweden.
Margolis, R. N., Pelech, L., Eyoh, E. E., Burrows, C. A., Lee, C. M., Garic, D., Piven, J., Hazlett, H., Schultz, R. T., Botteron, K., Dager, S. R., Estes, A. M., Zwaigenbaum, L., Pandey, J., St. John, T., & Swanson, M. (2023, May 3-6). Autistic children have elevated clinical symptoms when compared to non-autistic peers. [Poster presentation]. International Society for Autism Research 2023 Annual Meeting, Stockholm, Sweden.
Zoltowski, A. R., Convery, C. A., Eyoh, E. E., Quinde-Zlibut, J. M., Keceli-Kaysili, B., Lewis, B., Cascio, C. J. (2023, May 3-6). Putting the self in context: A preliminary study of interoceptive-exteroceptive integration on autistic and neurotypical individuals [Poster Presentation]. International Society for Autism Research 2023 Annual Meeting, Stockholm, Sweden.
L to R: Mirinda Morency, Sarah Gillespie, Lisa Purcell, Elizabeth Fajemirokun
ICD doctoral candidate Sarah Gillespie and ICD doctoral student Mirinda Morency presented a talk at CEHD’s Leading in Equity, Action, and Diversity for PreK-12 System Improvement Annual Conference. Their interactive dialogue titled “What do the students and the science say about ethnic studies?” included ICD research fellow Elizabeth Fajemirokun and Minneapolis Public Schools Assistant Principal Lisa Purcell.
Sophia Magro presented the following symposiums at the American Educational Research Association’s 2023 Annual Meeting:
Magro, S., Mondi-Rago, C., Rihal, T., & Carlson, E. (2023, April 16). Predicting expulsions from Minnesota early care and education sites: Site and provider characteristics. In C. A. Wiltshire (Chair), Policies and practices impacting children [Symposium]. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL, United States.
Magro, S., DeJoseph, M., & Roisman, G. (2023, April 15). Using MNLFA to test and adjust for measurement noninvariance in the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale. In J. Mee (Chair), Measurement invariance [Symposium]. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL, United States.
Recent publications
Sophia Magro had the following papers published:
Mondi, C. F., Magro, S. W., Rihal, T. K., & Carlson, E. A. (2023). Emotional burnout and perceptions of child behavior among childcare professionals. Early Childhood Education Journal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-023-01518-3
Magro, S. W., VanMeter, F., & Roisman, G. I. (2023). Attachment, regulation, and the development of coping. In E. A. Skinner & M. J. Zimmer-Gembeck (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Development of Coping (pp. 79-108). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108917230
Kroupina, M., Dahl, C. M., Magro, S. W., Stuppy, J. J., & Georgieff, M. K. (2023). A complex case with Axis I co-morbidity: Leah, 2 years old. In K. Mulrooney, M. Keren, & J. D. Osofsky (Eds.), DC:0-5 Casebook (pp. 255-272). ZERO TO THREE.
Emily Padrutt had the following papers published:
Padrutt, E. R., DeJoseph, M., Wilson, S., & Berry, D. (in press). Measurement invariance of maternal depressive symptoms across the first two years since birth and across racial group, education, income, primiparity, and age. Psychological Assessment.
Padrutt, E. R., Harper, J., Schaefer, J., Nelson, K., McGue, M., Iacono, W. G., & Wilson, S. (2023). Pubertal timing and adolescent outcomes: Investigating explanations for associations with a genetically informed design. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 64, 1101-1259. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13808
In our latest staff Q & A, Project Specialist Barbara Vang discusses her passion for supporting others as they develop skills, abilities, and knowledge. She also shares her thoughts on the way a shared desire to learn can transcend language barriers and lead to magical classroom connections.
What was the career path that led you to your current role at CEED?
I graduated from UMN in 2010 with a bachelor of science degree in sales and marketing as well as human resource development. I had a high interest in training and development. After graduating, I spent five years in Seoul, South Korea, teaching English as a foreign language in suburban public elementary schools.
What I missed while in Korea was my family and community. Looking back, when I left Minnesota, my grandpa said, “Don’t grow flowers outside your home.” My grandparents are Hmong; there’s no country that they can say they come from. So, where do I plant my roots? I knew I wanted to start my own family and what my grandfather said resonated. I realized I wanted to plant my flowers here in Minnesota.
To make my transition back into the American workforce, I discovered Americorps and joined the Community Technology Empowerment Project as a digital literacy advocate through the Saint Paul Neighborhood Network. I taught 20 classes a week in computer literacy and English as a second language (ESL) to adult refugee participants through the Hmong-American Partnership, which is centrally located for the Somali, Karen, and Hmong communities. The oldest people I worked with were in their 70s or 80s, and the youngest were probably 18. My grandparents don’t speak English or use computers, so it was easy to relate to the people in my classes. I was also reminded of teaching Korean students, because everyone was learning English. The Karen and Hmong had a shared understanding of Thai because of time spent in refugee camps, but even with language barriers, students connected because they were all seeking the same skills in English and computer literacy.
I noticed that once a light bulb turns on for one student, it’s a ripple effect: everyone else’s light bulbs go on. Those were my favorite moments of teaching. That’s why I have a passion for sharing knowledge.
After my time with Americorps, to maintain my service to the community and Minnesota, I worked in the training spaces of a couple of agencies within the State of Minnesota. In my last position, I was responsible for coordinating the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s leadership development program. I also facilitated and consulted for their workforce development units.
What does your role at CEED entail?
I provide technical and other project support in all aspects of the department’s work. I’m on the path to becoming a learning management system (LMS) administrator. Canvas is the LMS that we use, so my job will include building out Canvas sites for our online courses, self-study modules, and other training we create and offer. My job supports almost every project we have at CEED, so I am able to use different skills and abilities for each of the different projects.
What is new for you in your work at CEED?
Not being an instructor is new for me. This is another pivot moment in my career. Right now, I’m saving my teaching for my kids. Teaching definitely prepared me for motherhood; it gave me patience. Like being a parent, being a facilitator is exhausting. You hear stories, go home with them, and say to yourself, “How can I help my student find a path through this transition in their life?” My kindergarten-age daughter is constantly asking questions and learning every day. So is our little puppy! And a few months ago, our son joined our family too. So all my teacher energy is going into my family.
Additionally, this role offers me the opportunity to work on online courses at a higher tier than what I’ve done previously. I’ve used various learning management programs at different agencies and I’ve played with Google classrooms on my own as a volunteer ESL teacher, but my background is more in uploading materials and managing registration and tuition. I’m excited to get involved in designing e-learning.
What are you most looking forward to in your role?
One thing that I’m looking forward to is working with new software. Another is managing the student experience. During the pandemic, I did Zoom producing for online instruction. I enjoyed being on the sidelines and watching how classrooms operated and interactions flowed. I also enjoyed being able to step in and offer technical help. So I’m looking forward to being an advocate for students when they need help to answer questions from “How do I reset my password?” to “Do I need this course?”
I love being online. That’s where I’ve always wanted to be—it’s where my brain is. I’m always trying to push for efficiency and convenience and whatever will make life easier. When the pandemic hit, it was simple to match all my interests up together—putting together my passion for human development with that interest in ease of access.
What are some of your interests and hobbies outside of work?
I enjoy cross stitching Hmong tapestry (paj ntaub) and building Lego sets. I started with the intention of building Legos together with my daughter, but it ended up being “mommy time”—and when I’m done building, she can take my sets apart and play with them! I also love traveling with my husband and our family. Our favorite family destination is Walt Disney World. We hope to visit the world’s six Disneyland parks in the future.
