College of Education Events
Education in Action | February 8, 2024
event overview
The Education in Action 2024 Luncheon is designed to spark important conversations about advancing student outcomes, elevating the education profession, innovation in schools, and the many forces enhancing and challenging the education space, and more. The theme of this year’s Education in Action 2024 Luncheon is Innovation. This signature event will feature a distinguished guest speaker. Proceeds will benefit the Bulls United for Education Fund which provides supplemental support for the goals and purposes of the College of Education.
The USF College of Education strives to be a leader in regional, national, and international education. USF’s leadership in education encompasses 1) research, scholarship, and inquiry that renews the educational process; 2) collaboration that serves communities, institutions, and individuals, and contributes to a just and productive society; and 3) preparation that builds on academic excellence, scholarship, and clinical practice.
EVENT DETAILS
Education in Action 2024 Luncheon
Thursday, February 8 | 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
University of South Florida – Tampa Campus
Sam and Martha Gibbons Alumni Center – Traditions Hall
11810 USF Sago Drive Tampa, FL 33620
At USF we celebrate Education and Innovation! Through our research, collaboration with experts in education as well as other fields, and school district partnerships, we prepare our graduates with cutting edge mindsets, strategies, and tools to empower their students and unleash powerful learning. Innovation embraces, but is not limited to, technology. Our faculty and students focus on problems facing education in a quickly changing local, national, and global landscape. Our goal is to provoke thought; to use inquiry, logic, and reasoning to generate ideas and identify solutions, and then to act on opportunities for improvement, advancement, and achievement. USF’s College of Education is, thriving, and celebrating innovation!
Innovation in Education: Letting Go, Reaching Forward, Summoning Courage
Teaching and its leadership are dynamic, not static, and in our schools right now, we’re in a whirlwind of intersecting forces, moving us towards – what? How will we see our way through the challenges and aspirations ahead? One of the clearest and most constructive paths forward is a direct focus on innovation. If we’re not careful, though, educators can develop survival-mode, tunnel vision, failing to recognize the positive solutions that come from divergent thinking, instructional versatility, and continued growth, despite the temptations to blanket in the familiar and the easy. In some cases, too, educators are told so much about what, when, how, and what not to teach, professional creativity atrophies. Join us for a quick, 30-minute keynote address that opens the door to how we dismantle that which would tether us to education mediocrity and ineffectiveness. We’ll look at innovative elements in education that help us find educator, “Oxygen,” minimize hypocrisy, build stamina, and move us closer to the constructive force we want to be in students’ current learning and meaningful achievement. Come on in, the water’s fine, the current’s strong, the tools are there, and the timing couldn’t be better!
Meet our Keynote Speaker: Rick Wormeli
“I teach to dispel the dark and remind the universe that we are not inconsequential. I teach because it’s infinitely compelling to watch dynamic souls punch through their not so elastic cocoons of childhood, daring the community to accept their forward motion. Brushing complacency’s dust from everyday ideas and objects by viewing them through children’s eyes opens our own, and it connects us to that golden, 'What if…?' superhero in our earlier selves. I teach because setting a constructive example for my students generates a greater ethic in me than I can achieve without their example or provocation. I teach because I am deeply, unrepentantly grateful for life, and the most potent way I know to express that gratitude is to build a world worthy of the next generation, then give them the tools to make it their own.” -- Rick Wormeli
One of the first Nationally Board Certified teachers in America, Rick brings innovation, energy, validity and high standards to both his presentations and his instructional practice, which include 44 years teaching math, science, English, physical education, health, and history, as well as coaching teachers, principals, superintendents, and other leadership. Rick's work has been reported in numerous media, including ABC's Good Morning America, Hardball with Chris Matthews, National Geographic and Good Housekeeping magazines, What Matters Most: Teaching for the 21st Century, national association journals, and The Washington Post. He is a frequent contributor to AMLE Magazine and ASCD's Education Leadership magazine. He is the author of the award-winning book Meet Me in the Middle as well as the best-selling books Day One and Beyond, Fair Isn't Always Equal: Assessment and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom (Second Edition), Differentiation: From Planning to Practice and Metaphors & Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching any Subject as well as the ASCD book, Summarization in any Subject: 60 Innovative and Tech-Infused Strategies for Deeper Student Learning. His book, The Collected Writings (So Far) of Rick Wormeli: Crazy Good Stuff I Learned about Teaching Along the Way, is collection of his published articles, guest blogs and more through 2013, and the 2nd edition of this is going to be published later this year. His classroom practice is a showcase for ASCD's best-selling series, At Work in the Differentiated Classroom.
With his substantive presentations, sense of humor and unconventional approaches, he has presented to teachers and administrators in all 50 states, Canada, China, Europe, Thailand, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Australia the Middle East, and at the White House. He is a seasoned veteran of thousands of virtual, national and international seminars, and he is Disney's American Teacher Awards 1996 Outstanding English Teacher of the Nation. He won the 2008 James P. Garvin award from the New England League of Middle Schools for Teaching Excellence, Service and Leadership, and he has been a consultant for National Public Radio, USA Today, Court TV and the Smithsonian Institution's Natural Partners Program and their search for the giant squid.
Rick lives in Herndon, Virginia, with his wife, Kelly, where they have successfully launched their kids into adulthood. While marveling at the love and wonder of being new grandparents, they are also happily spending their children’s inheritance on assorted adventures.
presenters
Csaba Osvath, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Instruction, Department of Language, Literacy,
Ed.D., Exceptional Ed., and Physical Ed.
Dr. Osvath will showcase the transformative power of virtual reality, illuminating
its potential to elevate instruction, learning, and research. Through a visually captivating
presentation, Dr. Osvath will highlight existing applications and groundbreaking use-cases,
providing a comprehensive understanding of how virtual reality can empower students
and faculty alike. This session is designed to inspire and equip participants to harness
the full potential of VR across various facets of the curriculum and academic life.
Sanghoon Park, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Learning Design and Technology Program
Dr. Park will demonstrate how innovation and technology converge to redefine the future
of education and digital learning experiences for our students. He will share two
examples of emerging learning technology projects he is currently working on, including
an AI-enabled chatbot for motivational support in learning AND augmented reality (AR)
integrated learning in science and social studies. The audience will learn innovative
design cases of revolutionizing education and also be engaged in thoughtful reflection
on the potential power of emerging technology in shaping the future of learning.
Thank you to our sponsors and Donors
Production
Hafer Family Foundation
Green & Gold
Florida Educator Insurance, LLC & GAC Wealth Management, LLC, Gary Cucchi, Owner/Financial
Advisor
Cindy & Luis Visot
WUSF
Table
Lou & RoseAnne Bowers
The Honorable Betty Castor – Community Foundation Tampa Bay
Eileen & Andy Hafer
Judith Ponticell
Ellen Stavros
Joe Tomaino
Chris Taylor
Donors
Liana Fox
Anila Jain
To discuss sponsorship opportunities, please contact College of Education Director of Development Lisa Riley at lisariley@usf.edu or 813-396-2673
For additional information, please contact Jennifer Fitzsimmons at fitzsimm@usf.edu or 813-974-4175