2020 News Stories

David C. Anchin Center announces new Scholars-in-Residence, STEM Fellow

TAMPA, Fla. (July 22, 2020) — The David C. Anchin Center for the Advancement of Teaching welcomed two new Scholars-in-Residence and a STEM Fellow for the 2020-21 academic year.

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Scholar-in-Residence Program

The Anchin Center, housed in USF’s College of Education, welcomes USF faculty members each year to participate in the Scholar-in-Residence Program. The program provides an opportunity for scholars to spend one academic year exploring critical issues in education by conducting research, submitting articles to research journals, writing grant proposals, and giving presentations about their work to the education community.

For the 2020-21 academic year, two faculty members were selected for the program.

Vonzell Agosto, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

Dr. Agosto is an associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies in the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Lifelong Learning at USF. Her research interests include curriculum leadership, disability studies, and cultural studies. Her publications include multiple book chapters and articles in journals such as “Review of Research in Education,” “Race, Ethnicity & Education,” “Educational Researcher,” “Teachers College Record,” “Journal of School Leadership,” “Journal of Curriculum Theorizing” and “The Journal of Negro Education.”

During her residency year, Dr. Agosto will research how educators engage in "the race talk" with their students as a way of bridging the home/community-school gap and to increase racial equity, race-consciousness, and race-conscious relationships. She will also draw on her ongoing practice and research with “Theater of the Oppressed” to facilitate professional development opportunities for teachers and school administrators and will make a presentation in the Anchin Center’s speaker series. 

Karl Jung, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Science Education K-8

Dr. Karl G. Jung is an Assistant Professor of Science Education K-8 in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Learning at USF. He teaches the Elementary Science Methods course in the Science Education program. His work in the area of coaching, examines the role of coaching partnerships in supporting STEM teacher learning.

Dr. Jung’s research focuses on examining and seeking to understand how elementary science teachers support their students in using and developing the academic language needed for talking and writing during science instruction and identifying innovative strategies for teachers to leverage the language resources their students bring to the classroom to ensure more equitable participation, engagement and meaning-making in the STEM classroom.

In addition to his teaching and research in the Science Education Program, Dr. Jung is also a faculty facilitator for the Tampa Bay Wipro Science Education Fellowship Program, a multi-year project funded by Wipro Limited that provides science teachers in the Tampa Bay region with the tools they need to become more effective instructors, advance science education curriculum and achieve greater student success. He is also co-principal investigator for the NSF-funded project, “Responsive Instruction for Emergent Bilingual Learners in Biology Classrooms,” which seeks to support emergent bilingual students in high school biology classrooms.

While an Anchin Scholar-in-Residence, Dr. Jung will pursue several research activities that relate to supporting the learning of both pre-service teachers and their cooperating teachers in STEM education, seek external funding to support his work in this area, provide professional development for teachers and make a presentation in the Anchin Center’s speaker series. 

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STEM Fellows Program

New this year, the Anchin Center’s STEM Fellows Program welcomes USF faculty to explore research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The STEM Fellows Program is a two-year appointment in which participants help drive the work of the Anchin Center’s STEM initiatives.

David Rosengrant, Ed.D., Associate Professor of STEM Education

Dr. Rosengrant is an associate professor of STEM education in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Learning on the USF St. Petersburg campus. His research interests include physics education, eye-tracking technology, implementing video games and virtual reality as tools for teaching in the classroom and multiple representations in problem-solving.

Dr. Rosengrant helped spearhead the STEM INQ Lab, a state-of-the-art facility on USF’s St. Petersburg campus that features robotics, 3D printing, laser printing, coding and virtual and augmented reality systems. The space allows aspiring educators and current faculty to infuse the latest in STEM into their teaching methods.

As a STEM Fellow, Dr. Rosengrant will engage in activities that will strengthen the Anchin Center’s professional development offerings in STEM fields for classroom teachers. Additionally, he will lead and assist in the development of grant proposals to support STEM education, continue the conduct of research in his areas of interest and will make a presentation in the Anchin Center’s speaker series. 

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About the David C. Anchin Center for the Advancement of Teaching:
The mission of the David C. Anchin Center for the Advancement of Teaching is to collaborate with teachers, school leaders, districts, and other educators to improve the quality of education for students and to transform the teaching profession to attract, retain, and develop quality educators. We achieve this mission through partnerships with schools, the broader educational community, business and industry, and the community at large. For more information, visit our website at www.usf.edu/anchin.