December 5, 2025

EagleEye

A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff

Wells Receives a Virginia Open Educational Resource Impact Award

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Melissa Wells

Professor of Education Melissa Wells

College of Education Professor Melissa Wells and former faculty Courtney Clayton received the Virginia Open Educational Resource (OER) Impact Award for their text, Foundations of American Education: A Critical Lens.

Created in 2025, the award recognizes outstanding OER in Higher Education that have had a significant impact in Virginia classrooms. Since publication in 2021, the free online textbook has had over 190,000 visitors and over 430,000 page views. UMW education professors Janine Davis, Teresa Coffman, Christy Irish and Melissa Jenkins also made contributions to the text.

McCall, Hydorn and Clayton Receive Grant

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Dr. Venitta McCall, professor of the College of Education, Dr. Debra Hydorn, professor of mathematics and Dr. Courtney Clayton, assistant professor of the College of Education have received a $35,600 grant from the Virginia Department of Education. The purpose of the grant is to train 30 teachers from critical teacher shortage areas in Spotsylvania County, Stafford County and Fredericskburg City to become Clinical Faculty members for the College of Education.

Selected teachers will be trained in effective mentoring practices, in best practices for instructing English Language Learners and in using learning analytics – the appropriate collection, use and analysis of data to facilitate instructional improvement. Research has shown that having highly skilled Clinical Faculty is a key component in enhancing teacher retention.

Clayton to Serve as an Invited Reviewer

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Courtney Clayton, Assistant Professor in the College of Education, will serve as an invited reviewer for a special issue of the Educational Action Research journal to be published early next year. Educational Action Research is concerned with exploring the dialogue between research and practice in educational settings. http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=reac20#.VFvwF4fn07A

 

COE Faculty Present at AERA Conference

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Janine Davis, Courtney Clayton, and John Broome, all assistant professors in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, presented their research at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association on “The Power of Educational Research for Innovation in Practice and Policy” in Philadelphia on April 6, 2014.  Their study investigates the ways that action research impacts professional identity among preservice teachers.

AERA is concerned with improving the educational process by encouraging scholarly inquiry related to education and evaluation and by promoting the dissemination and practical application of research results. AERA is the most prominent international professional organization for educational researchers, with the primary goal of advancing educational research and its practical application. Its more than 25,000 members are educators; administrators; directors of research; persons working with testing or evaluation in federal, state and local agencies; counselors; evaluators; graduate students; and behavioral scientists.

Clayton Publishes Handbook Chapter

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Courtney Clayton, Assistant Professor of Education, has published a chapter in the SAGE Research Methods Cases handbook. Her chapter focuses on how to use Constructivist Grounded Theory in Qualitative Research. SAGE Research Methods Cases is a collection of case studies of real social research, specially commissioned and designed to help students and researchers understand abstract methodological concepts in practice.

Clayton Contributes to Research Handbook

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Courtney Clayton, assistant professor in the College of Education, contributed a case study to SAGE Cases In Methodology Handbook. SAGE Cases in Methodology will comprise of a unique collection of case studies for use in the teaching of research methods. The goal of the handbook is to provide students and faculty with examples of methods in action and research in action drawn from real research projects that can support teaching and learning in research methods.

 

Courtney Clayton Publishes Article

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Courtney Clayton, Assistant Professor of Education, publishes her article “Exemplary Teachers of English Language Learners: A Knowledge Base” in the 2013 Fall Issue of the Journal of Research in Education. The Journal of Research in Education (JRE) is a peer-reviewed journal that provides a forum for sharing scholarship among researchers and practitioners in education.

Courtney Clayton and George Meadows Publish Article

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Courtney Clayton, Assistant Professor of Education, and George Meadows, Professor of Education, published their article, Action Research in Preservice Teacher Education, in the Spring 2013 volume of The Teacher Educators’ Journal. The journal is published by the Association of Teacher Educators in Virginia. The Association of Teacher Educators was founded in 1920 and is an individual membership organization devoted solely to the improvement of teacher education both for school-based and post secondary teacher educators. ATE members represent over 700 colleges and universities, over 500 major school systems, and the majority of state departments of education.

Courtney Clayton Presents at VATESOL Conference

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Courtney Clayton, assistant professor of education, presented her research at the annual VATESOL conference. The presentation was entitled “Using Action Research to Improve Instruction for English Language Learners”. She presented with one of her former M.S. in Elementary Education students whose action research project focused on improving writing skills for English Language Learners using dialogue journals through EduBlogs.

VATESOL is a professional organization dedicated to promoting professional development, strengthening instruction, and supporting research opportunities at all levels for teachers and administrators of ESL/EFL/ESOL.