Examples
Ethical Leadership
Research Based Practice
Research on Ethics and Professional Identity
A PhD in Education and Human Development faculty member has completed a case study investigation of ethics and professional identity in student affairs. The research highlights the social and political structure of ethically in higher education. It also establishes the need for enhanced awareness of ethical standards and development of reflective ethical reasoning.
Education Leadership Program
Ethical leadership is fundamental to the program. In fact, it is a specific performance standard expected of aspiring and in service school leaders. Students in the program study ethics and its relation to leadership practice, and prepare a personal platform of ethical leadership as one of the culminating performances in the program.
Center for International Education: Alliance for International Education
George Mason is a founding member of the Alliance for International Education (AIE), an organization devoted to establishing reciprocal partnerships across institutions of higher education and international schools. Read More...
Early Childhood Education: New Leaders Now
The Early Childhood Education program prepares doctoral students to engage in ethical leadership through a four-year grant, New Leaders Now, focusing on early childhood education and special education. As part of the grant, students are engaged in a monthly Educators Without Borders seminar that provides an opportunity to examine ethical and professional issues of the field.
Elementary Education: Professional Dispositions
The Elementary Education Program supports ethical leadership in two ways. Read More...
Special Education: Special Education Leadership
The special education program has received funding from USDOE to prepare educators who are already certified and practicing in special education, general education, school administration, or related services areas to earn doctorates from George Mason University (GMU) with a major in Special Education and a minor in Special Education Leadership. Read More...
School Counseling Leadership Team
The School Counseling Leadership team was formally established in 2001 as an effort to respond to the lack of information, tools, and resources to develop comprehensive school counseling programs within the Commonwealth of Virginia. Read More...
Initiatives in Educational Transformation
IET emphasizes ethical teacher leadership (the moral base of practitioners' professionalism) as foundational in transforming schools and communities to create more humane places to learn and live. Read More...
Science Education: Nature of Science in the Middle School
As a result of a partnership developed during a graduate class, one university researcher and two practicing teachers are co-teaching a middle school science course on the nature of science focused on environmental issues. During this class they are researching ways that students understand the nature of science through experiences such as science fair and citizen science. The culminating experience of the citizen science project is a 5-day trip to Henlopen, DE to gather population data of horseshoe crab for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Health and Physical Education: Integration of Research and Teaching
The PHED Program is guided by faculty who are researchers, authors and presenters at state, national and international conferences. They discuss research findings in their classrooms and inform students of current research findings pertinent to their content. Textbooks and other materials are selected based on their cutting edge content.
Kellar Institute of Human disabilities: Adapted Captions Through Interactive Video Project
The Adapted Captions Through Interactive Video (ACTIV) Project is funded through a Phase I Steppingstones of Technology Innovation for Students with Disabilities grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Read More...
DelPHE — Iraq Quality Assurance Program
The Ministry of Higher Education in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the College of Education and Human Development at Mason jointly submitted a successful proposal to the British Council to establish a system of quality assurance and accreditation for public and private universities in Kurdistan. The Center for International Education will help coordinate the Mason visit of two cohorts of Kurdish quality assurance faculty and administrators in the Spring and Fall of 2011.
Russian Professional Development Project for the STEM Disciplines
In collaboration with the Center for International Education, several CEHD faculty members have created a professional development program for visiting Russian teachers from the STEM disciplines. Read More...
Elementary Education: Professional Development Schools
In the Professional Development School Program, the partner schools function like teaching hospitals, where candidates learn on the job before becoming full-time teachers. Read More...
Special Education: Collaborative, Multi-Institution Distance Education
The Kellar Institute for Human disAbilities and Special Education Programs lead two innovative collaborative distance education technology based consortia for teacher preparation in Severe Disabilities and for teachers of the Visually Impaired. Read More...
Cognitive Strategies for Learning and Retention Research
Two CEHD faculty interested in how students with disabilities learn in school and have focused much of their research on cognitive strategies designed to promote learning and retention of school-related information. Read More...
Advanced Studies in Teaching and Learning: Education and Culture Course
The Advanced Studies in Teaching and Learning Program places an emphasis on social justice throughout the program, but particularly in the course, Education and Culture (EDUC 606). Read More...
Mathematics Education Leadership Program
Mathematics Education faculty cultivate the development of the next generation of mathematics education leaders and scholars. The faculty's research activity allows advanced graduate students to participate in ongoing inquiry projects that allow them to apply their course work to real educational research issues. Alongside mathematics education faculty, PhD students learn first-hand how to conduct educational research by participating in study design, instrument development, data collection, data analysis, manuscript preparation, and research presentations. [Financial support for students has come from the externally funded projects in the Mathematics Education Center, including funds for graduate research assistants and summer positions, tuition support, and travel support to attend and present at research conferences. These presentations and publications are truly collaborative, with students having direct opportunities to write and present in national and international venues.]
KIDLAB
KIDLAB (Krasnow Investigation of Development Learning and Behavior), a joint project with the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, is innovating ways to make the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) environment and experimentation more closely mimic learning environments and learning processes that occur in the real world. Research efforts are focused on investigating the cognitive neuro science of reasoning and attention processes. All of KIDLAB's practices are research-based and seek to provide interdisciplinary connections that will benefit health, medicine, and education.
Secondary Education: Professional Development Schools
Through a partnership with several secondary schools, more than 100 teachers have been trained as mentor faculty and 125 CEHD students have completed internships in English, math, science, or social studies since 2002. Read More...
Special Education: 325T Program Improvement Personnel Grant
In 2008, the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in the Department of Education (DOE) awarded George Mason University's special education program for students who access the general education curriculum a five-year 325T program improvement personnel grant (PI, Kelley Regan). Read More...
Literacy: Reading Specialist Candidates Tutor Diverse Learners
At the graduate level, more than 100 students per year in the Literacy Program are involved in preparation to become reading specialists in diverse schools. One aspect of this program is an intensive 6-credit practicum experience working with children and adolescents in local schools. Read More...
Secondary Education Program: Capstone Action-Research Course
The Secondary Education Program offers multiple opportunities for studying their own practice and/or gathering data on their impact on student learning. The program culminates with a capstone course in which students conduct their own action-research projects. Read More...
Multilingual/Multicultural Education: Summer Institutes for Arabic and Chinese Teachers
The Multilingual/Multicultural Education program is actively engaged in filling the need for highly qualified teachers in languages identified by the United States Department of State as critical need. Read More...
Early Childhood Education: Social Justice Embedded in the Program
The Early Childhood Education Program emphasizes social justice across its courses and field experiences. Read More...
Counseling and Development: Counselors Without Borders
The Counseling and Development Program's Counselors Without Borders (CWB) organization is committed to providing culturally responsive humanitarian counseling in post-disaster emergency situations. Read More...
Diversity Research Action Consortium
The Diversity Research and Action Consortium (DRAC) was established in 2005 to integrate research, consulting, and coordinate diversity services nationally, internationally, and in Northern Virginia. Read More...
Early Childhood Education: Partnerships with Community Service Providers
The Early Childhood Education program values input from community service providers, schools, and family members and involves them as an advisory group for program development and evaluation. Read More...
Science Education: Making the Global Local
Erin Peters Burton is a co-Investigator on the NSF-Funded Grant, Making the Global Local - Unusual Weather Events as Climate Change Educational Opportunities. Read More...
Educational Leadership's course, Using Research to Lead School Improvement
As of the Fall 2007 term, students in the Education Leadership Master's program are required to enroll in a newly designed course, Using Research to Lead School Improvement. Read More...
Multilingual/Multicultural Education: Impact on Student Learning Assessment Project
Multilingual/Multicultural Education's Foreign Language program engages teacher candidates in research-based practice utilizing the Impact on Student Learning Assessment Project. Read More...
Center for International Education: Institute for Research and Exchange: Teaching Excellence and Achievement Award
In collaboration with the Center for International Education, several CEHD faculty members have been awarded Teaching Excellence and Achievement Award Projects for the last four years. Read More...
Early Childhood Education: Collaborative Team Projects
It is a core belief of the Early Childhood Education program that no one professional possesses the knowledge and skills necessary to adequately serve culturally, linguistically, and ability diverse young children and their families. Read More...
Special Education: LIFE Program
The LIFE (Learning into Future Environments) Program provides an innovative postsecondary program for young adults with intellectual disabilities. These young adults have traditionally been excluded from higher education because their cognitive challenges render them ineligible for traditional matriculated admissions paths. Built on the social justice principles of opportunity and access, the LIFE Program affords these young adults an inclusive university experience that furthers their literacy skills and prepares them for independent living in their communities, while also providing an opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students to engage in financially supported authentic learning experiences as instructors and residential advisors. The Higher Education Act of 2009 accorded financial aid to the LIFE students through Pell grants and workstudy funding.
Counseling and Development Program Social Justice Action Projects/Courses
The Counseling and Development Program students are asked to participate in several service learning projects in the community that involve working with underrepresented groups who lack access to resources. Read More...
Health and Physical Education: Field Experiences
The Coordinator of Student Teaching collaborates with faculty to provide field experiences at elementary and secondary levels and sites for student teachers. Read More...
The Establishment of the Center for Digital Media Innovation and Diversity
Given that diverse communities spend a lot of time with media, but the amount of media specifically created for them is relatively small, the Center for Digital Media Innovation and Diversity (CDMID) was established in 2009 to be a resource for research, design, and dissemination of digital media for diverse populations. Read More...
Special Education: Web-based Community Resources
Training/Technical Assistance Centers (T/TAC) Online is a web-based community linking people and resources to help children and youth with disabilities developed by the Instructional Design and Development Immersion Program and the Kellar Institute for Human disAbilities. Read More...
The Initiatives in Educational Transformation Program
The IET program demonstrates social justice as a core programmatic value (1) in its curriculum and (2) in its collaborative relationships, and (3) as an essential component of faculty research. Read More...
Literacy: Collaboration with New Century College and Local Schools
At the undergraduate level, the Literacy Program collaborates with Mason's New Century College to offer a program in which undergraduates provide 45 hours of service to local school children in the area of literacy. Read More...
Center for International Education: Greek Professional Development Project
In collaboration with the Fulbright Scholars Program, the Center for International Education has created a professional development program for visiting Greek teachers from all disciplines. Read More...
Center for Restructuring Education in Science and Technology: CREST Science Camp
Students in partnership schools participate each summer in developing problem-based learning curriculum for students in the Center for Restructuring Education in Science and Technology's (CREST) science camp. The day camp offers science exploration for students entering grades 5, 6, and 7. Literacy Access Online Read More...
Advanced Studies in Teaching and Learning: Learning Communities
The ASTL Program has a committed focus on collaboration across the core courses. Read More...
Elementary Education: Professional Development Schools Program
The Elementary Education Professional Development Schools (PDS) program consists of three cohort models, and the entire program is dedicated to and demonsmenttrates our commitment to a deep collaboration between teacher education and individual elementary schools and districts. Read More...
Social Justice