Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Interesting Article

Well, before I get into that, I just want to share something with you...

I'm doing an honors thesis (perhaps you know that honors students at the college have the opportunity and are encouraged to write a thesis during their senior year), and the research for this opportunity began this week. Dr. Hopkins of the math department is teaching the research methods course, which will lead us into defining our topics and doing copious amounts of research thereafter. I am doing an education related thesis and I have chosen Dr. Ayala as my advisor (I'm sure many in my class know how amazing she is).

For about five minutes this semester, I thought about going to interior design school after SPC. Decorating both living and commercial space has always been a passion, but something I never really thought of as a career path (mainly because it's so competitive! And if you can't start out on top, why bother?). So, I started thinking of ways to combine my passion for design and education so I could write a thesis about it and open up new doors for myself. I am going to write about environmental psychology and design in the classroom. I haven't found anything super useful on the internet (scary because this thesis has to be 50 pages, exciting because I feel like a pioneer!!). But my preliminary Google searches led me to "environmental psychology" http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rdeyoung/envtpsych.html. And now I am really excited to research and write this paper.

I plan on giving you guys updates as that process moves along...

(back to the "interesting article")
Another topic I love to research is autism. It is such a buzzword in the medical and educational worlds, and it fascinates me. I found this cool article about literacy development in autistic students. Take some time to read it now, and I'll post later in the week with my thoughts--leave comments!
http://www.paulakluth.com/articles/litdevautism.html

2 comments:

Dr. Luongo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dr. Luongo said...

So interesting, Susan! I cannot wait to hear more about this research endeavor. If you need any assistance, please feel free to ask. Remember-- you have access to a full class of future teachers here if you ever need to complete an informal survey or something else.

And, yes, autism is a quite popular topic right now. The article brought up many good points. Students with autism are often pushed to the side. They often are not fully included in all the "regular" activities. Having dealt with several mild autistic children (as well as ones who could have been undiagnosed), I can tell you it is frustrating for both teachers and parents.

Thank you for sharing this information with us.