Education

Two University at Buffalo faculty members who have spent years researching a concept called contextual vocabulary acquisition, in which readers use clues to figure out meanings of unfamiliar words, plan to turn their findings into a curriculum designed to improve reading skills for students nationwide.

The Internet, mobile technologies and new-media technologies may be the most influential drivers of cultural change in American society today, according to University at Buffalo faculty members offering courses this semester exploring the social and cultural consequences of information and communication technologies.

The next generation of buildings at the University at Buffalo will be the "greenest" ones it has ever constructed, thanks to a new set of guidelines on constructing green, or environmentally sustainable, buildings, published recently by the university.

Freudian claims about the "meaning" of slips of the tongue not withstanding, when it comes to children, such errors reveal much more about what they know about the structure of language than they do about repressed thoughts, according to a University at Buffalo psycholinguist who is the author of a groundbreaking book on the topic.

Parents considering purchase of "must-have" electronic educational toys for their children this holiday season are reminded to include an extra component that's much more important than batteries: themselves.

One hot summer's day in 2003, a couple of days after the big blackout, the University at Buffalo was quick to respond to an emergency request from the regional grid to cut back its electricity use. Maintenance personnel took steps to turn off equipment and lights that were not absolutely necessary. When the university got the bill, it found that those steps, taken in a single day, had saved UB a lot of money.

Anyone who knows children, knows that you can't "make" them do something they don't want to do, and that holds true when it comes to reading, although reading itself is a requirement for academic, economic, social and future parental success. Parents can, however, help make reading a palatable, pleasurable activity, one that children ultimately will pursue on their own, to their own tremendous benefit, says a faculty member in the University at Buffalo School of Informatics.

Thomas J. Shuell, Ph.D., of Niagara Falls, professor in the Department of Counseling, School and Educational Psychology, University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education, has received a 2004-05 Fulbright Scholar Award from the J. William Fulbright Foundation.

Teachers nationwide say about five percent of children in their classrooms have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and they estimate another 5 percent have ADHD but are undiagnosed, according to a survey conducted by University at Buffalo researchers.

Applications for the professional pharmacy degree program in the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences for the upcoming academic year more than doubled over last year, reflecting a strong nationwide demand for pharmacists and the school's reputation as one of the country's top pharmacy schools.