Holy Family University Professor Receives $100,000 Grant

Professor of Education Anthony Applegate recently received a four-year grant, totaling $100,000, from the Marshall-Reynolds Foundation to study the effects that training in thoughtful responses to text may have on the early careers of pre-service teachers.

Dr. Applegate will serve as the primary investigator in this four-year longitudinal study that involves five East Coast Universities (Holy Family, Kutztown, St. Joseph’s, LaSalle, and Coastal Carolina).

The initial phases of the study will include the preparation and delivery of online modules designed to demonstrate how thoughtful literacy can serve as an organizing principle for literacy instruction at all grade levels.

Pre-service teachers will first study how to detect and use underlying themes in text as a springboard for their literacy lessons and discussions. They will have opportunities to view video demonstrations of effective classrooms and influential teachers in action. They will be shown how underlying themes can be modified to serve as tools for classroom organization and progress monitoring. Finally, they will be observed as student teachers by specially-trained professionals who will seek out evidence that both their teaching and the achievement levels of their students have been affected by high quality experiences that can be economically and coherently delivered to any teacher education candidate.