Literacy Center
The Literacy Center in the
Department of Learning and Teaching emphasizes the importance of
connecting research to practice. It sponsors programs to enhance
literacy development of children through a variety of activities that
capitalize on the expertise of Rutgers faculty, university professors
throughout the country, and administrators and teachers in school
districts.
The center has sponsored the Rutgers Reading and
Writing Conference for more than two decades. In addition, the center
sponsors the National Writing Project at Rutgers University, a
university-schools partnership dedicated to improving the quality of
student writing in the nation`s schools that is built on a model of
bringing successful teachers of writing together at invitational summer
institutes and preparing them to teach other teachers.
The
center offers summer institutes dealing with current issues related to
literacy development for in-service and preservice educators as well as
other courses offered at New Jersey schools through the Office of
Continuing Education and Global Programs. The center also coordinates
the America Reads Initiative by training undergraduate students to be
tutors of children in the Professional Development Schools in New
Brunswick, New Jersey, who need extra help with reading. Several
faculty members work in partnership with local school districts to
enhance their literacy programs. The center offers the Edward Fry
Fellowship once a year to help support the studies of an outstanding
doctoral student whose area of concentration is in the field of
literacy.
Robert B. Davis Institute for Learning
Director: Carolyn A. Maher
The Robert B. Davis Institute for Learning (RBDIL) combines research
and scholarship about learning and teaching with educational practice.
Its mission is to reform the teaching of mathematics and science toward
instruction that takes seriously the way students build their
mathematical and scientific understanding. Multidisciplinary,
intercampus, interinstitutional, and international links of the Davis
Institute foster innovative and academically strong collaborations,
contributing leadership nationally and internationally to address
critical needs in the teaching and learning of mathematics and science.
Institute faculty and staff are working in elementary, secondary, and
postsecondary education, and conducting research, which provides
leadership and long-term, school-based professional development
programs in urban and suburban school districts throughout the state.
Graduate students at Rutgers pursuing an Ed.M., an Ed.D., or a Ph.D.
degree become active partners in research with Davis Institute faculty.
A unique role of the Davis Institute is to provide close and detailed
studies of how individual learners think about mathematics and science
and how they build mathematical and scientific ideas and forms of
reasoning over time. For additional information, contact Carolyn Maher,
Robert B. Davis Institute for Learning, Rutgers, The State University
of New Jersey, 10 Seminary Place, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183
(732/932-7496, ext. 8262; cmaher@rci.rutgers.edu).
