Professor of Education Michael Kamen was an invited presenter, along with Retired Project WILD State Coordinator Kiki Corry and Leander ISD Elementary Science Coordinator Jennifer Kaszuba, to lead “Hike Through the Guide” for the first of the WILD Webinar series, a professional development webinar for Project WILD facilitators.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and his Faculty-Student-Project student, Sydney Jackson ’27, virtually presented a poster, titled “Successful Play-Based Programs: Case Studies,” at the International Society of Cultural-historical Activity Research Conference 2024: Inclusiveness as a Future Challenge, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. They reported on their analysis of twenty interviews with teachers, parents, and administrators from three play-based programs in New York City, Oxford, UK, and Billund, Denmark.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen is one of seven co-authors of the recently published chapter “Teacher Educators’ Perspectives, Beliefs, and Practices,” in the book Re-Exploring Play and Playfulness in Early Childhood Teacher Education: Narratives, Reflections, and Practices. His section is titled “Playing to Learn and Teaching with Play in a Science Methods Course at Southwestern University.” The book can be found here.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen, Retired Project WILD State Coordinator Kiki Corry, and Leander ISD Elementary STEM Coordinator and Project WILD Facilitator Mark Corry presented “Polishing the GEMS: Improving PD through Lesson Study” at the 2024 Coordinator Tri-Conference and Training for Project WILD, WET, and Learning Tree state coordinators and facilitators. Kamen and Corry were also invited facilitators for state coordinators observing and collecting observation data on combined WILD, WET, Learning Tree at a pre-conference workshop for local educators.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Associate Professor of Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Debra Plowman published “There Are No Word Problems in Real Life–To Keyword or Not to Keyword” in the Summer 2024 newsletter of the International Consortium for Research in Science and Mathematics Education. Their quarterly column tells the ongoing story of the fictional character, Ian Quiry, as he studies and struggles to learn how to be an effective elementary school STEM teacher. The newsletter can be read here.