Two elementary education faculty members at Utah State University Eastern have earned awards from the Center for Intersectional Gender Studies and Research. Rachel Turner was awarded the 2021-22 Teaching Fellowship Award, while Katherine Vela earned an Intersections Research Fellowship. The pair are both assistant professors in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership.
Rachel Turner
Turner is in her second year as a tenure track professor, teaching courses in elementary education, social studies methods and classroom management. She came to USU after earning her doctorate degree in curriculum and instruction from Texas A&M.
The Teaching Fellowship Award provides support for faculty to revise courses and instructional methods. As a fellow, Turner will be able to revise her ELED 5105 course: Motivation and Classroom Management, specifically redesigning and organizing the course around Social Emotional Learning and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.
“I am honored to be chosen as a teaching fellow with the Center for Intersectional Gender Studies and Research,” Turner said. “I truly appreciate how the center values teaching improvements, especially at the statewide campuses. My goal on revising my course is to provide pre-service teachers with the needed knowledge, skills and dispositions to serve a diverse student population when they enter their first classroom. By incorporating more culturally relevant pedagogy and social emotional learning aspects into the course, pre-service teachers will be better equipped to serve their students.”
Originally from Texas, Turner came to USU Eastern in 2020. Prior to earning her doctorate degree, she earned her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Sam Houston State. After earning her master’s degree, Turner taught elementary school for four years before returning to college to complete her doctorate degree. Her research agenda includes the marginalization of elementary social studies, curriculum integration and social studies children’s literature.
Katherine Vela
As part of the research fellowship, Vela, along with her graduate student Sandra Miles, received a Research Innovations grant and will be conducting research on using recordings to determine the impact of virtual STEM role models for students’ STEM psychological dispositions, such as interest, self-efficacy and identity compatibility. The STEM professionals in the videos are racially diverse and come from a variety of STEM disciplines. This diversity will provide an opportunity for underrepresented gender and racial groups to identify with the STEM role model in the videos.
“Through the support of this fellowship, I will be implementing an intervention to highlight STEM role models from a variety of backgrounds so that students from underrepresented or marginalized groups can identify with a STEM professional and hopefully empower the students to pursue a STEM pathway,” Vela said.
Vela’s dissertation for her doctorate degree, which she earned in 2020 from Texas A&M, was titled “Empow’her’ing Female Students to Pursue STEM Fields.” In her dissertation, Vela investigated the impact of an all-female STEM Summer Camp on female students’ perceptions and self-efficacies toward STEM fields. The study highlighted the need for engagement in STEM informal learning opportunities, such as STEM summer camps, to empower female students to pursue STEM fields.
“These findings are important because increasing the number of female students pursuing STEM pathways is needed to close the gender gap in STEM fields and fill the need for a diverse STEM workforce,” Vela said.
Vela is continuing this line of research at USU and is currently a co-investigator in two fully-funded grants.
For more information on USU Eastern, visit eastern.usu.edu.