The College of Education and Human Development welcomes six new faculty to the college and celebrates the new roles of three faculty for the 2020-21 academic year. With research interests ranging from program evaluation, to adolescent social-emotional wellbeing, to the effectiveness of co-teaching during student teaching, these faculty will take the College of Education and Human Development community to new horizons. Read their biographies below.
Casey Crass
Clinical Assistant Professor, Teaching and Learning
Academic Background: I have a BS in elementary education from Towson University, a MA in administration from Loyola University, Maryland and a PhD in educational leadership with a concentration on K-12 schooling from Temple University.
How do you define a successful teacher?
A successful teacher creates a safe space for all students to be themselves, demonstrates care and compassion through actions and motivates students by facilitating a love of learning and a desire to be a lifelong learner.
What can students expect to learn from you?
Students can expect to learn the value and importance of self-reflection, support in connecting theory and practice and that growth is continual.
What inspires you about education today?
There is so much to learn! I'm inspired by the innovative ways educators have adapted to virtual teaching. I find myself learning something new during every classroom visit and/or conversation with teachers. It's all about flexibility! This is new for all of us, so honest communication, understanding and flexibility are key. We're all in this together!
Cindy Cupitt
Clinical Instructor, Teaching and Learning
Academic Background: I graduated from The College of New Jersey with a BA in elementary education with a psychology concentration. While teaching full-time, I attended a post-baccalaureate program at Rowan University to obtain a teacher of students with disabilities certificate. After this and while still teaching full-time, I completed a master's program at Wilmington University for school counseling.
What inspires you about education today?
Every child deserves a great teacher, one who is confident and prepared from the start. Colleges and universities are recognizing the importance of providing pre-service teachers with more fieldwork experience, which gives them more opportunities to practice and refine their teaching skills. Temple's student teaching residency program inspires me, because of the marked growth I have observed in my student teachers who co-taught with a mentor for the entire year. The goal of this longer professional experience is that our first-year teachers will be competent and have a stronger start in the classroom.
How did you become interested in education?
My mom was a teacher, then a principal and finally, a professor/education department chair at Lincoln University before she retired. She loved teaching and never lost interest in learning and implementing best practices. Growing up with a parent this passionate about her job, made me want to pursue teaching as well.
What's the best advice you've received as an educator?
One piece of advice I received from an experienced teacher was so simple, but helped me out tremendously in my first year of teaching. He said the best way to build confidence is to be yourself when you teach, and plan lessons that you find exciting too. Children will know that you are being genuine and will buy into your enthusiasm.
Arthur Dowdy, PhD, BCBA-D
Assistant Professor, Teaching and Learning
Academic Background: Special Education and Applied Behavior Analysis
What are your recommendations for online learning this fall?
Lewis Katz was the invited speaker at the 2014 Temple commencement and spoke on how Temple's students are willing to succeed despite the barriers and odds, among several other excellent messages. His message resonates more now than ever given the current situation. I am confident that our Temple grit and determination will allow us to make the most of what is presented in front of us.
What excites you about the College of Education and Human Development?
As a Temple alumnus, I love Temple and truly wouldn't want to be anywhere else! First, we have wonderful, passionate, and inquisitive students. Second, the faculty are world-class and are eager to support their students in diverse ways to meet their individual goals. Third, we are an R1 research university; given this, each of us have an opportunity to make a significant impact on our respective fields. Very exciting stuff!
What can students expect to learn from you?
My hope is that students learn how to become passionate and effective teachers and behavior analysts who are diligent to include evidence-based practices and interventions into their classrooms that are driven by data evaluation and analysis.
Xu (Lilya) Jiang, PhD
Assistant Professor, Psychological Studies in Education
Academic Background: I obtained my PhD training in school psychology from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, including one year of pre-doctoral internship training in the Tennessee Internship Consortium at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Before I came to the U.S. for graduate school, I majored in psychology at Beijing Normal University.
How did you become interested in education?
Although my schooling experiences had been good for the most part when I was a young student, I witnessed some of my struggling peers being mistreated in school. I realized that important things are missing in education, and psychological service is one of them. When I was in college as a psychology major, I was trying to figure out how psychology could help students in the education system. I was fortunate to get to know school psychology and then pursue further down that path.
What excites you about the College of Education and Human Development?
I am excited to join this team of experienced educators who are committed to evolving Temple's programs in order to provide the most enriching educational experience possible to students. Contributing to the development of pre-service teachers and guiding them through the immense transition from student to professional is extremely rewarding.
What's the best advice you've received as an educator?
Finding ways to motivate students is more important than teaching the content itself. Inspired students will inspire teachers too.
Paul Jones, PhD
Assistant Professor, Psychological Studies in Education
Academic Background: BA in psychology from Villanova University; MSc in psychology from Nottingham Trent University; CAGS in school psychology from Eastern University; PhD in school psychology from Temple University
What are your research interests?
My research focuses broadly on the impact of chronic health problems on academic performance and social-emotional well-being among school-age children. More specifically, my interests lie in determining how researchers and clinicians can better measure chronic pain in school-age children and improve the assessment of the impact of chronic pain on indicators of academic performance, peer relationships, and mental health, among other factors. In addition, I am interested in social determinants of health, particularly those factors that limit access to health care among school-age children of color and their families.
What inspires you about education today?
Educational institutions have the potential to improve outcomes in almost every domain I can think of, not just academic outcomes. Schools can be centers for the community to deliver physical health services, mental health services and social services, to name a few.
What recommendations do you have for students and faculty for online learning this fall?
Remember that we are all in this together. When students are feeling down, so are the faculty, and vice versa. When things get frustrating, be wary of thinking about your feelings. Take a breath, acknowledge your feelings, and say what you are thinking.
Sue Kelley, PhD
Clinical Assistant Professor, Teaching and Learning
Academic Background: BS in educational secondary chemistry from West Chester University; MA in mathematics teaching and learning from Drexel University; PhD from Temple University
Research Interests: My research interests are about online learning specific to math. My specific area of interest has to do with how students learn math by watching videos. I have also been involved in research related to teacher reflective practices and the use of worked examples to improve math learning in urban high school students.
What inspires you about education today?
Young teachers. They are so bright and motivated. They really want to make a difference in their classrooms and with their students.
How do you define a successful teacher?
One of my students once told me at the beginning of the year, "I hate math." At the end of the year she told me, "I still hate math, but I like you." I think I would have been a truly successful teacher if she had been able to like math by the end of the year, but at least I made a connection with her in some way.
What's the best advice you've received as an educator?
Keep learning. The best teacher is always learning, growing and trying new ideas. You never arrive as a teacher. You are always working on something.
Kelly McGinn
Assistant Professor, Psychological Studies in Education
Academic Background: PhD in Educational Psychology
What excites you about the College of Education and Human Development?
I am very excited about the college's name change. The addition of "Human Development" truly captures everything the college has to offer.
What can students expect to learn from you?
In addition to the content of the course, students can expect to learn a number of professional skills in my classes as well. For instance, I focus heavily on helping students improve their writing, communication and time management skills.
What's the best advice you've received as an educator?
The best advice I've received related to teaching is if it doesn't work the first time, try again. For instance, if students don't seem to grasp the material the first time I present it, I try again in a different way.
M. Meghan Raisch, PhD
Assistant Professor of Instruction, Policy, Organizational and Leadership Studies
Academic Background: I received my BA in English and secondary education from Saint Joseph's University. Then, I became a teacher in the School District of Philadelphia where I instructed students labeled with emotional and behavioral disorders and learning disabilities. I taught at several schools in North Philadelphia during the day and at night I worked on my Master's in elementary and special education. I completed my PhD in educational psychology at Temple University so I am also an alumna of the college.
How did you become interested in education?
During my Sophomore year of college when I was just an English major, I enrolled in a course that created a writing center on campus. We cleared out an empty classroom and set it up as a walk-in space for students who were seeking support in terms of editing their papers and becoming stronger writers. This was my first experience working as a tutor and from there I instantly knew I wanted to become a teacher.
What can students expect to learn from you?
I think field-based course work creates authentic experiential learning opportunities through the application of pedagogy and research strategies in real time. More simply, we learn by doing. Creating student-designed projects in these contexts promotes agency within students to direct their own more salient learning.
What's your advice to future educators?
I identify as a white, cisgender, straight woman and with each of these identities I bring a history of power and oppression that I can either replicate or dismantle through my interactions with students. [I encourage educators to] decolonize their curriculum by doing an equity audit of course materials to ensure that they decenter whiteness, remove white supremist, patriarchal, and binary language, and infuse multiple perspectives that represent the array of human experiences.
Jason Travers, PhD, BCBA-D
Associate Professor, Teaching and Learning
Academic Background: Special education
How do you define a successful teacher?
[A successful teacher is] one who reliably produces measured improvements in student academic, social, emotional and behavioral outcomes and who adjusts instruction and supports for students based on student responses.
What recommendations do you have for students and faculty for online learning this fall?
Do what you can, but be reasonable about what you can accomplish and be kind to yourself.
What excites you about the College of Education and Human Development?
The dynamic faculty in the departments, shared value for promoting outcomes for traditionally marginalized children and youth and passion for lifelong learning.