College of Education and Human Development

George Mason University was ranked as one of the nation’s top institutions for diversity, innovative learning and a campus atmosphere that allows its students to thrive, in U.S. News & World Report’s 2019 rankings, released Monday. For a second consecutive year, Mason is the top-ranked institution in Virginia for campus diversity and tied for 25th nationally. Mason also tied for 28th nationally for educational innovation and was one of only 96 national institutions listed as an “A+ School for B Students,” a category that identifies universities that create an atmosphere in which spirit and hard work fosters student success. Read more...

A new NSF award was granted to Amy Hutchison and colleagues for a project that brings together faculty from George Mason University and Old Dominion University, the non-profit group CodeVA and Norfolk City Public Schools (NCPS) to broaden participation in Computer Science in Virginia. Read more...

For the past four years, Seth Hunter has been researching teacher evaluations and teacher observations in Tennessee. Before coming to Mason just a few months ago, Hunter worked in partnership with the Tennessee Department of Education while he was a doctoral candidate at Vanderbilt University. It was his extensive work with Tennessee education standards that brought him back to the state in July, when Hunter was invited to a Tennessee Education Research Alliance (TERA) summit to discuss his research findings. Read more...

When the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture began planning its sports gallery, the first call museum director Lonnie Bunch made was to Dave Wiggins. Wiggins, a professor of sport history at George Mason University, is Bunch’s longtime friend. But he is also an acknowledged authority on the African American experience in American sport. Read more...

Thanks to digital technologies such as laptops, smartphones and tablets, students are creating personal learning environments in which they choose the tools, times and methods by which they learn. Institutions should help students make the best use of those technologies, George Mason University professor Nada Dabbagh said. Read more...

When the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture began planning its sports gallery, the first call museum director Lonnie Bunch made was to Dave Wiggins. Wiggins, a professor of sport history at George Mason University, is Bunch’s longtime friend. But he is also an acknowledged authority on the African American experience in American sport. Read more...

For the past 25 years, Gregory Baldwin has seen his work in Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) as a calling—and an opportunity to pay it forward to his students. The city of Alexandria recently recognized Baldwin’s passion with its second annual Champions of Children Award, which he received in June. Read more...

For Shelley Wong, an associate professor of multilingual and multicultural education at George Mason University, music is an important tool in the teaching of languages. “It’s a way to lose your inhibitions,” she said. Music, or songs, to be more precise, are central to the proposal Wong used to win a Fulbright Fellowship, which will allow her to travel to the West Bank in Palestine, where she will teach grammar to students majoring in English and instructors at Birzeit University in Ramallah and also engage them in discussions about justice, peace and reconciliation. Read more...

Problem-based learning is useful in identifying high-ability middle school students from underserved populations who historically are left out of honors, advanced and gifted programs. That is the conclusion being drawn by Project ExCEL, a five-year study led by Anne Horak, an assistant professor in George Mason University’s College of Education and Human Development. Read more...

Dennis Nolasco’s parents immigrated to the United States from El Salvador. His father reached the 4th grade before dropping out to work on the family farm. His mother had never seen a school until she came to the U.S. Years later, Nolasco used his family’s experience as inspiration to get his license to teach English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). Read more...