“It’s not just me telling them to do squats,” said Robilotta, GSE ’20, who works at the Reece School, a special education elementary school in East Harlem. “It’s Captain America showing them how to do squats, jumping jacks, and jumping rope without a rope.”

Robilotta is among thousands of teachers across the city who have been forced to find new ways to engage students amid the COVID-19 pandemic. As of now, schools under the New York City Department of Education will open this fall with a blended learning model: on-site instruction for part of the week and remote instruction for the rest. In phone interviews, Robilotta and his fellow alumni and faculty from Fordham’s Graduate School of Education reflected on their recent experiences with remote instruction and described how educators can be better prepared to face the new school year this fall.

‘Where Does the Line Get Drawn’?

Robilotta said some students loved the theme-based YouTube exercise videos that he screenshared in their remote gym classes. But others missed playing basketball, football, and Gaga ball with their classmates. Many students didn’t show up to class at all. Robilotta, who expected up to 36 students per class, said he saw as many as 15 students and as little as zero. It’s disheartening, but he knows his students and their families are dealing with a lot at home, he said. 

Robilotta said he favors hybrid instruction—a blend of in-person and remote instruction—because it gives families the choice to send their children back to school this fall, especially essential workers and those without childcare. But that doesn’t solve every problem. How does a child safely commute to school on a crowded bus or subway? How will he teach physical education when it’s too cold or wet to play outdoors? And how do you keep everyone in the school building safe?

“What’s the difference between me remoting in from the gym or an office than me remoting in from home?” Robilotta said. “And where does the line get drawn for who comes into the building and who stays home?”

For veteran teachers like Robilotta, teaching in a pandemic was tough. But for many novice teachers like Maureen Dougherty, GSE ’20, dealing with COVID-19 was a new bombshell. 

This past school year, Dougherty co-taught 30 second graders at Success Academy in the Bronx. When remote instruction started, Dougherty and a colleague split their class into two cohorts on Google Classroom and delivered live instruction through BlueJeans, a video conferencing platform. In their last online session, they reunited the whole class and played a slideshow of student photos from the school year. 

“You could see them laughing and giggling and beaming over seeing themselves … It was emotional for me and my co-teacher who put this together,” Dougherty said. “It was emotional for the kids, too, because I know they missed being all together and seeing their friends.”

But Doughterty said she’s worried about getting to know her new set of students virtually in a few weeks. 

“I think what made remote learning work last year was I had already established these relationships with my students. I knew their strengths, I knew what they struggled with, I knew their families,” said Dougherty, who will start school remotely. “Despite all the uncertainty surrounding the fall, the summer has been a bit of a gift because now I have all this time to prepare for the fall—to have somewhat of a sense of what’s coming.” 

Diverse Strengths, Needs, and Perspectives

As autumn approaches, educators are preparing for another school year in a world where COVID-19 still exists. Su-Je Cho, Ph.D., professor of childhood special education and chair of the childhood special education division at GSE, said she recently gave advice to 50 GSE students who might be teaching students with disabilities in a hybrid classroom.

“They really need to think about how they’re going to set up their classrooms … How many students they can accommodate while social distancing, things they need to prepare—hand sanitizer, masks—what kinds of policies are going to take place in their classrooms,” Cho said. 

But special education teachers were already facing unique challenges with their students. Many children with disabilities have behavioral issues, and it’s difficult to keep them all focused in the same room—and even harder from behind a computer screen, said Cho. 

“Keeping them all online and teaching them together remotely [as a class]—that’s not even possible,” said Cho. “[Teachers need to] tutor each individual student twenty or thirty minutes at a time online.” 

All educators need to maximize the positives of both in-person and remote environments, said GSE interim dean Akane Zusho, Ph.D. In a physical classroom, it’s easier to promote interpersonal relationships, collaboration, and connection. There’s a “more palpable sense of belonging,” and you can feel the energy of people around you, said Zusho. Educators should take advantage of their one-on-one time with students in person, she said. 

Meanwhile, schools teaching remotely should take advantage of available technology. Zusho recalled when she taught statistics at Fordham and posted videos where she explained tough concepts. Her students appreciated having the ability to pause her lessons and learn at their own pace, she said. 

“Technology is awful when teachers and faculty don’t really think about those constraints and affordances and basically just lecture. You’re not really taking advantage of all the things that you could do. And by doing that, you’re leaving a lot of kids behind,” Zusho said. “Leverage the power of technology or the physical classroom to make learning effective for all students.” 

Elizabeth Leisy Stosich, Ed.D., assistant professor in the educational leadership, administration, and policy division, agreed that educators need to maximize their limited in-person time with students. One way to do that is to organize hands-on activities that connect students’ personal lives to what they’re learning in school, she said. For example, elementary school students can participate in circle time and connect their personal lives to what they’re learning in school. 

“While covering content and meeting grade level expectations is very important, I think that it’s imperative for educators to make time for students to process their experiences,” Stosich said. “Children of all ages are grappling with not only the challenges presented by the pandemic and fears for their parents’ livelihoods, but also concerns about racial injustice. It’s important for educators to not sweep anything under the rug, but to really create an open space for dialogue.” 

It’s also important for school leaders to listen to everyone on their team, from teacher aides to the senior classroom teacher, said Shaundrika Langley-Grey, MC’95, GSS’96, principal of the Nassau BOCES Jerusalem Avenue Elementary School on Long Island. It’s been difficult for the whole team to adjust to online instruction and make it more engaging for students, she said, but together, they can make it work. 

“Everyone brings a different perspective and brings different solutions,” said Langley-Grey, a current Ed.D. student at GSE. “We all need to adapt and recognize that together, we can make [this school year]happen.” 

The International Symposium on Digital Scholarship took place from June 3 to 5 at Birkbeck College and Fordham’s London Centre. Sponsored by the University’s Office of Research, it featured a mix of lectures, workshops, and formal and informal gatherings geared toward furthering research opportunities and international collaborations.

If last year’s gathering illustrated how cross-border collaboration is key to tackling vexing challenges of our time, the London gathering showed how, in the digital realm, no one discipline can go it alone.

Bringing Technology and Scholarship Together

“Digital scholarship is notable for its interdisciplinary nature, since it involves not only IT and computer science, but also the humanities, social sciences, and schools of education,” said Maryanne Kowaleski, Ph.D., the academic coordinator for the digital symposium.

The Joseph Fitzpatrick S.J. Distinguished Professor of History and Medieval Studies and curator of Fordham’s Medieval Sources Bibliography, Kowaleski has deep connections to both London and the digital humanities.

In London, she delivered a keynote address, “Giving Credit Where Credit is Due: Acknowledging Collaborative Work in Digital Scholarship Projects.” She also presented a research project that touches on both London and the digital realm, titled “Prosopography, Database Design, and Linked Data in the Medieval Londoners Project.”

The project is a collaboration with Katherina Fostano, visual resources coordinator in the department of Art History, and Kowaleski said it was notable that Fostano presented at the conference, as did Elizabeth Cornell, Ph.D., director of communications at Fordham’s department of information technology. Adding professional staff such as librarians and graduate students to the mix, was key to the conference’s success, she said.

“One of the things that my research shows, and that I have experienced, is how crucial librarians are to digital efforts now. I’m grateful that Fordham has included them in this program,” she said.

London and New York, Working as a Team

Representing the Graduate School of Education (GSE), Professor of Childhood Special Education Su-Je Cho, Ph.D, and doctoral student Kathleen Doyle jointly presented “Using a Digital Learning Platform to Increase Levels of Evidence-Based Practices in Global Teacher Education Programs.” It detailed Project REACH, a U.S. Department of Education-funded initiative that makes widely available the best evidence-based practices for training prospective teachers.

George Magoulas, Ph.D., Alex Poulovassilis, Ph.D., and Andrea Cali, Ph.D., members of Birkbeck College’s Knowledge Lab, helped them collect and analyze data through the website.

Working with a partner in London made sense for this project, Cho said, because one of her goals is for Project REACH to get more use internationally. She, Doyle, and the GSE’s Alesia Moldavan, Ph.D., assistant professor of mathematics education, will collaborate with Christine Edwards-Leis, Ph.D., associate dean of research, and enterprise and doctoral student Jennifer Murray from St. Mary’s College in London on a new endeavor geared toward student teachers’ mental health. Once finished, it will be incorporated into Project REACH.

“The student teaching experience is very stressful, because it’s not their own classroom they have to student teach in. It’s someone else’s classroom. By providing this kind of platform, they can also share their concerns and knowledge and frustrations with the students overseas,” she said.

For Doyle, the trip was an opportunity to see how colleagues from other disciplines assemble collaborative teams.

“I really appreciated learning across the fields. Being in the Graduate School of Education, I’ve been mainly focused on that field. It was refreshing to hear about the other ways digital scholarship is utilized in other disciplines,” she said.

Urban Challenges That Cross Borders

Gregory T. Donovan, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication and media studies, presented “Keeping Place in ‘Smart’ Cities: Situating the Settlement House as a Means of Knowing and Belonging in the Informational City.” The project, which he is developing with the assistance of Melissa Butcher, Ph.D., reader in social and cultural geography at Birkbeck College, will highlight the efforts of New York City’s Lincoln Square Neighborhood Center and London’s Toynbee Hall.

The project will focus on the “settlement house” model of community center that was founded a century ago to confront segregation and displacement and promote belonging.

“New York City and London are examples of global cities that are going through significant technological change, both in terms of the cities themselves becoming more digitized as well as the economy and the kinds of jobs and the kinds of education that’s being elevated. With that comes all kinds of difficult changes and gentrification that causes displacement,” said Donovan, who is also organizing November symposium at Fordham called Mapping (in)justice.

“We’re going to look at how we might network [Lincoln Square and Toynbee] through digital technology and think about how they’re managing to keep pace in these communities that are often being displaced in this kind of digital gentrification.”

Photos by Bruce Gilbert

Six distinguished faculty members were honored on March 13 for their achievements in securing externally funded research grants at the third annual Sponsored Research Day on the Rose Hill campus.

The University Research Council and Office of Research presented the Outstanding Externally Funded Research Awards (OEFRA) to recognize the high quality and impact of the honorees’ sponsored research within the last three years and how their work has enhanced Fordham’s reputation—both nationally and globally.

Faculty were honored in five separate categories and were given awards by Jonathan Crystal, Ph.D., interim provost, associate vice president, and associate chief academic officer.

Humanities: George Demacopoulos, Ph.D., professor of theology and the Father John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies, and Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., professor of theology and the Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture

Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou, co-directors of Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center, shared the award for the Humanities category. Demacopoulos has received awards totaling $928,000 in the past three years, while Papanikolaou has received a total of $888,000. Last April, they secured two grants totaling $610,000 that will be used to fund a multiyear research project devoted toward the issue of human rights.

Interdisciplinary Research: Su-Je Cho, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Childhood Special Education at the Graduate School of Education.

Cho, an expert in the field of special education, has received two external grants totaling more than $2.7 million from the U.S. Department of Education and other foundations in the past three years. Her interdisciplinary project will produce approximately 40 professionals in special education and school psychology, which are the greatest shortage areas in the field of education.

Junior Faculty Research: Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology

Gribetz has received six external grants totaling $55,000 from the prestigious National Endowment for Humanities and other foundations in the past three years. Her research focuses on the history of time in antiquity and the important role that religious traditions and practices have played in the history of time. In 2017, she received the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise, alongside nine other young scholars, from the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

Sciences: Steven Franks, Ph.D., Professor in Biological Sciences

Franks has received five grants totaling more than $5.3 million from the National Science Foundation in the past three years. The results of the studies funded by these grants have been published in 17 peer-reviewed scientific publications since 2016. The papers, which are in high impact journals such as Evolution, Molecular Ecology, and American Journal of Botany, have been widely cited. His work has helped to advance our understanding of responses of plant populations to climate change and the genetic basis of these responses.

Social Sciences: Janna Heyman, Ph.D., Professor of Social Service and Endowed Chair of the Henry C. Ravazzin Center on Aging and Intergenerational Studies at the Graduate School of Social Service

Heyman, who is also director of Fordham’s Children & Families Institute center, has received 10 grants totaling more than $3 million from a variety of external foundations in the past three years. Last year, she co-edited, along with Graduate School of Social Service Associate Dean Elaine Congress, D.S.W, Health and Social Work: Practice, Policy and Research (Springer, 2018). She has taught social work research, advanced research, and social welfare policy courses in Fordham’s master of social work program, as well as policy implementation in the doctoral social work program.

Organized by the Office of Research and the University Research Council and sponsored by the University Research Compliance Council and the Office of Sponsored Programs, the daylong event featuring a keynote speech by Denise Clark, Ph.D., Associate Vice President for Research Administration, University of Maryland at College Park.

A forum of science researchers featured Thomas Daniels, Ph.D., director of the Louis Calder Center, Deborah Denno, Ph.D, director of the Neuroscience and Law Center, Silvia Finnemann, Ph.D., director of the Center for Cancer, Genetic Diseases, and Gene Regulation, J.D. Lewis, director of the Urban Ecology Center, Amy Roy, Ph.D., director of the Pediatric Emotion Regulation Lab, and Falguni Sen, Ph.D., director of the Global Healthcare Innovation Management Center.

The Graduate School of Education’s (GSE) Division of Curriculum and Teaching will receive $1.25 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (U.S. DOE – OSEP) for Project PACTS (Preparing Affirmative Collaborative Teachers and School Psychologists for Students with High-Intensity Intervention Needs in Elementary Schools).

Under the leadership of project director Su-Je Cho,Ph.D., associate professor of curriculum and teaching,  the 10 Fordham faculty members and supervisors implementing the project will help address the issue of demonstrated existing shortages of highly trained, qualified special education teachers and school psychologists in the field. Even more specifically among school psychologists, there is a chronic shortage of those who are bilingual.

To address these critical needs, Project PACTS will prepare a total of 35 scholars in two cohorts over a five-year period. Of those, Dr. Cho expects that 27 scholars will work on earning a Master of Science in Education (MSE) degree with a New York State (NYS) certification in Students with Disabilities for Grades 1-6, and eight will earn certification in School Psychology with a Bilingual Extension. Tuition support from the Graduate School of Education and the grant will fund approximately 70% of costs for special education degree candidates and approximately 50% of costs for the school psychology scholars.

Upon completing the program, graduates will be expected to demonstrate the practical knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for productive work related to their respective certificates and degrees as well as collaborative work with professionals in related fields.

“This is exactly the kind of structured interdisciplinary program needed to provide vital training for teaching and psychology professionals who are faced with more and more young children in classrooms with extensive learning needs,” said GSE Dean Virginia Roach.

“Our goal in preparing GSE graduates in this way is to make a meaningful impact on their professional skills that will in turn result in significant positive outcomes for the students they teach.”

Overall, the program’s five segments will provide targeted, interdisciplinary learning to aid scholars in becoming effective collaborators in designing and supporting focused instruction and intensive individualized interventions for New York City (NYC) elementary students with high-intensity needs. In addition, scholars will become skilled in behavioral interventions based upon the framework of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA). PBIS is a proactive approach to establishing behavioral supports and social culture needed for all students in a school to achieve social, emotional and academic success. Functional behavioral assessment (FBA) is a set of procedures developed to ascertain the purpose or reason for behaviors displayed by individuals with severe cognitive or communication disabilities (e.g., individuals with autism).