2007 RECIPIENT OF THE LORNE H. WOOLLATT DISTINGUISHED PAPER AWARD

The Lorne H. Woollatt Distinguished Paper Award is presented annually in recognition of the paper deemed exemplary by the Award Committee. In 1990 NERA renamed its distinguished paper award to honor Lorne H. Woollatt, a distinguished New York State educator and active member of NERA. The award, presented to the author or authors, is automatically accepted for presentation at the subsequent American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting as part of the special session sponsored by the AERA/SIG: State and Regional Educational Research Associations (SRERA). The award also includes a stipend to defray travel expenses to AERA.

Congratulations to Drs. Mark Fenster of the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Diane Judd of Valdosta State University on receiving the 2007 Lorne H. Woollatt Distinguished Paper Award. Dr. Fenster will be presenting their paper, Relating Teacher Candidate Performance to their Students' Subject Specific Academic Achievement using TWS Methodology, at the AERA conference in New York on Wednesday, March 26th from 2:15 - 3:45 at the Hilton New York Hotel, Holland Suite, 4th Floor. Please come and support our NERA Distinguished Paper winners.

The abstract of their paper follows:

Teacher education preparation programs are under pressure from the public to provide evidence that their programs and teacher candidates are improving student achievement. However, the connections between teacher education preparation programs, teacher candidates' evaluation, and student achievement are often hard to disentangle from other educationally relevant effects. Teacher candidates were formally assessed by their university supervisor during their student teaching semester. Using Western Oregon University's teacher work sample methodology, we were able to assess the achievement of the teacher candidate's students. Results showed that students of teacher candidates' showed 52% gains in knowledge of learning goals. Additionally, improvement in teacher candidate's teaching ability as measured on an observation instrument was associated with higher gains by their students on the learning goals. Lastly, teacher candidates assessing their students' learning in the disciplines of science and math showed lower gains on the learning goals when compared to English/language arts, health or social studies.

Please come and support our NERA Distinguished Paper winners! Also, please join us at the reception for NERA/University of Connecticut Neag School of Education on Tuesday, March 25th from 7-9 p.m. in the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers/Riverside Ballroom, 3rd floor. We look forward to seeing you in New York!