Staff Spotlight: Thomas S. Dickinson, Professor of Education Studies, FITS Faculty Coordinator (2008-2010)
Tom joins FITS this summer for a two-year period as the FITS Faculty Coordinator. He will be working with various forms of outreach involving the use of technology in teaching including FITS workshops and the campus-wide movement to Moodle.
Biography:
Tom is Professor of Education Studies at DePauw University. Educated at Wake Forest University (B.A., History) and the University of Virginia (M.Ed. and Ed.D., Social Studies Education and Supervision of Instruction), he taught middle and high school in his native Virginia before pursuing a college teaching career.
A former editor of Middle School Journal for the National Middle School Association (NMSA), he is the author and editor of a wide range of works dealing with a variety of middle school topics including most recently Programs and practices in K-8 schools: Do they meet the educational needs of young adolescents? (with Ken McEwin and Michael Jacobs, National Middle School Association, 2004), America’s middle schools in the new century: Status and progress (with Ken McEwin, National Middle School Association, 2003), and Reinventing the Middle School (Routledge, 2001). He maintains a special interest in middle school teacher education, state and national middle school standards, and the professional development of middle school teachers. A recognized national leader in middle schools, he was one of sixteen middle level educational leaders interviewed and videotaped as part of the Middle Level Education Legacy Project, a collaborative research effort by Appalachian State and Winthrop University, to identify and describe the factors that led to the development, evolution, and progress of contemporary middle school education.
Tom came to DePauw University in 2002 on a two-year leave of absence from Indiana State University where he taught masters and doctoral students in teacher education and was involved in ISU’s distance education program.
Tom’s current engagement involves teaching education studies courses such as the Foundations of Education, the American High School, the History of American Education, and Public School Law. In 2005 he received the DePauw University Nancy Shelly Schaenen Faculty Development Fellowship for 2005-2008. The fellowship was awarded for a study of three progressive educators—John Dewey, Jane Addams, and Maria Montessori. He has served on departmental and university committees including the Speaking (S) Committee, the Committee on Academic Policy and Planning (CAPP) which he chaired during the academic year 2004-2005, the Resource Allocation Subcommittee (RAS), and was the FITS Liaison for Education Studies Department (2004-06). Currently he is participating in the 2007 HP Technology for Teaching Leadership grant exploring the use of tablet pcs and writing instruction.