On Thursday, November 13th, 30 of our ECE Music instructors gathered for a virtual professional development workshop. Attendees were joined by Justin McManus, the Director of Athletic Bands at the University of California, Los Angeles, for a guest lecture and Q & A session. Many thanks to faculty coordinator Shannon McAllister for her continued support for our ECE instructors and community! We look forward to the next workshop.
UConn Music Courses available through Early College Experience.
On Thursday of last week, ECE hosted our Library Media Specialists for their semiannual training, thanks to the organization and efforts of Anna Twiddy, Student Success & Engagement Librarian. As always, we were joined by a number of librarians from the UConn Library who shared their expertise in four unique sessions. Details are below!
| Session | Contributor |
| Student Search Success Tips: Demystifying the Library Website | Ery Caswell, Student Success & Engagement Librarian |
| Helping Students Transition to College Writing Expectations | John Rendeiro, Student Success & Engagement Librarian |
| Finding Primary Sources | Laura Smith, Archivist |
| Leveraging the Library’s AI Literacy Basics Modules in HuskyCT | Erica Charis-Molling, Instructional Design & Learning Librarian |
Thank you to all of our contributors, and for those of you who were able to attend!
To access information from the training, as well as a number of other helpful resources, please visit the ECE LibGuide (linked here: https://guides.lib.uconn.edu/ECE)
We will see you in March 2026 for another virtual training event!
On Friday, November 7th, our ECE Sociology Instructors convened on the UConn Hartford Campus for their annual professional development conference. Instructors were given the opportunity to engage in a lively discussion of current successes and challenges in their classroom, followed by a presentation of exemplar assignments by instructors Mike Barile and Karen Prager, and faculty coordinator Ingrid Semaan. We extend our thanks to our contributors, and to Ingrid for her continued efforts to support our ECE instructors and community!
Sociology (SOCI) courses available through UConn Early College Experience.
This past week, ECE took a field trip with our Environmental Sciences Instructors to the UConn Middlesex County Extension Center in Haddam, CT. Instructors were given lots of time to share resources and build connections with one another, as well as engaging in a keynote address entitled Building Connections to Urban Forests: Your Teacher’s Toolkit.
We extend our thanks to faculty coordinator Morty Ortega, as well as Dr. Mayra Rodriguez, the UConn Extension Center’s Assistant Extension Educator in Urban and Community Forestry for their efforts in creating a meaningful professional development experience for our instructors!
Environmental Sciences (NRE) courses available through UConn Early College Experience.
The event kicked off with an illuminating discussion led by Dr. Akeia de Barros Gomes, Mystic Seaport’s Senior Curator of Maritime Social Histories, which focused on the origins and sources of the museum’s current Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty, and the Sea exhibit.
Following this conversation, instructors broke into small groups and engaged in four activities across the museum. Beginning with a tour of the Charles W. Morgan, the oldest commercial ship still afloat in the US, our group then got some hands-on experience with rope-making, followed by an opportunity to observe primary sources from the Morgan’s heyday at the museum library. Finally, we explored the Entwined exhibit, which centers Black and Indigenous voices and histories and their interconnectedness, and unravels dominant, white-centric narratives of maritime history in Turtle Island, or North America.
This event was a new foray into offering interdisciplinary professional development experiences for instructors, allowing them to connect with faculty and instructors from several academic disciplines.
UConn U.S. History, American Studies, and Maritime Studies courses offered through Early College Experience.
This past week, ECE took a field trip with our Environmental Sciences Instructors to the UConn Middlesex County Extension Center in Haddam, CT. Instructors were given lots of time to share resources and build connections with one another, as well as engaging in a keynote address entitled Building Connections to Urban Forests: Your Teacher’s Toolkit.
We extend our thanks to faculty coordinator Morty Ortega, as well as Dr. Mayra Rodriguez, the UConn Extension Center’s Assistant Extension Educator in Urban and Community Forestry for their efforts in creating a meaningful professional development experience for our instructors!
Environmental Sciences (NRE) courses available through UConn Early College Experience.
This past week, UConn’s Human Rights Institute hosted their annual summit, titled “Sport and Human Rights”. Our ECE instructors were invited to the second day of the conference, convening on the UConn Storrs campus on Thursday, October 23rd. The keynote address was delivered by Pablo Torre, host of the acclaimed podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out” and a celebrated sports journalist and human rights advocate.
For a full overview of the summit schedule, review the link here: https://summit.humanrights.uconn.edu/2025-summit/
ECE extends our thanks to faculty coordinator Sandra Sirota, Ph.D., and the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, for their support of our ECE instructors and community!
Human Rights (HRTS) courses available through UConn Early College Experience.
Our ECE Economics instructors took a trip to the UConn Stamford Campus this past Wednesday (10/22) for a professional development experience spearheaded by Dr. Natalia Smirnova, our faculty coordinator for ECE Economics. Instructors were provided the opportunity to engage with and hear from a number of esteemed guest contributors throughout the day. Descriptions of the professional development sessions and the speakers can be found below!
Please also check out the Economics Department’s post about the day, including some great pictures! The post can be found here:
https://econ.uconn.edu/2025/10/29/ece-economics-workshop-2025/
| Session | Guest Speaker & Bio |
| At the Local Level: Classroom Activities for Microeconomics | Graham Long, Director of Curriculum & Instruction, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Graham Long’s portfolio includes conducting teacher professional development workshops, writing curriculum, and managing a suite of programs to improve the economic and financial literacy of teachers and students across the country. He was previously a curriculum and assessment specialist for the Maryland State Department of Education. Graham began his career as a high school social studies teacher in the Baltimore County Public School system, and in 2011 was a recipient of a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship to study economics and workforce development education in China. |
| Global Trade: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters | Ariel Slonim, Curriculum Designer, Marginal Revolution University (MRU). Ariel Slonim is sharing her passion for economics literacy by helping to improve resources for economics education in the US. Prior to joining MRU, Ariel taught economics to 8th grade students in Brooklyn and taught as an adjunct at King’s College, NYC. Ariel has a master’s degree in economics from George Mason University (GMU). |
| The Big Picture: Basics for Teaching Macroeconomics | Graham Long |
| The One Where No One Has a Job: Teaching Unemployment and Labor Force Participation Rates | Ariel Slonim |
| Teaching and Learning Economics with FRED Data in the High School Classroom | Diego Mendez-Carbajo, Senior Economic Education Specialist, Research Division, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Diego Mendez-Carbajo is a subject matter expert on FRED data. He leads outreach efforts to a broad range of FRED users and regularly contributes to the FRED Blog to tell the stories behind the data. Prior to his current role, Mendez- Carbajo was a college professor. His research on teaching and learning with data has been published in the leading field journals. Diego is FRED Economics Champion. |
| Moneyling – Financial Literacy Program for Schools | Jennifer Degenhardt and Savanha Brubaker (cofounders)
Jennifer Degenhardt is a Spanish teacher, author, and curriculum developer with more than 30 years of classroom experience. She is best known for her comprehensible novels that make language learning engaging and accessible for students. As Co-founder of Moneyling, Jennifer has expanded her expertise into financial literacy, creating multiple books and countless vignettes that form the foundation of the Moneyling curriculum. She oversees the relatability and student-centered approach across all program content, ensuring financial concepts are presented in ways that connect with students’ real lives and spark meaningful conversations. Passionate about storytelling as a tool for learning, Jennifer combines her decades of classroom experience with her writing to make financial education accessible, engaging, and impactful. Savanha Brubaker is a portfolio manager with decades of experience as a serial entrepreneur. At Paragon Strategies, she oversees a diverse portfolio that includes real estate, property management, angel investments, and operating companies. As co-founder of Moneyling, Savanha brings the financial and business expertise that underpins the program. She focuses on bridging finance, education, and innovation to make financial literacy accessible and actionable—particularly for underserved communities. Passionate about creating meaningful societal impact, she combines her background in finance and strategic investments with a philanthropic capitalist mindset to build programs that empower communities. |
We are so grateful to all of the guest contributors, and to Professor Smirnova for their efforts to support our ECE instructors and community! Thank you to all who attended, and we will see you next school year.
Economics (ECON) courses available through UConn Early College Experience.
We welcomed a group of 60 (!) ECE Physics instructors to the UConn Storrs campus this past week (10/22), and lots of lively discussion ensued. Our guest speaker was Dr. George Gibson from the UConn Physics Department, who delivered an address entitled “Integrating Music Learning in Introductory Physics”. Many thanks as always to Dr. Dave Perry, our ECE Faculty Coordinator for Physics, for his role in coordinating such meaningful professional development experiences for our instructors.
We were excited to have such a large turnout at this year’s event, and we look forward to seeing many more of you next school year!
Physics (PHYS) courses available through UConn Early College Experience.
This past Friday (10/17/2025), we welcomed our Mechanical Engineering instructors to the Storrs campus for their first ECE professional development experience! Many thanks to our joint faculty coordinators, Jorge Paricio Garcia, Ph.D. and Edward Weingart for their collaborative efforts to make this a session to remember!
Several guest contributors joined instructors on campus for a variety of resource demonstrations. First, Nate Delson from Grove Education delivered a demo of Spatial Vis, an engineering education software that helps students improve their 2D and 3D spatial visualization skills via an app on their personal devices. Next, Rachel Gregorio of Tech Ed Solutions provided a demonstration of SolidWorks, an industry-standard engineering technology used in the UConn College of Engineering.
The afternoon continued with a field trip to the Krenicki Arts & Engineering Institute, an “innovative, interdisciplinary nexus that offers groundbreaking classes in areas like entertainment engineering and industrial design” that was born out of a collaboration between the College of Engineering and the School of Fine Arts at UConn. Instructors shared lunch in the Institute, and then were given the chance to explore the 3D printers at the facility.
It was a jam-packed afternoon, and we are already looking forward to our next workshop! Thank you to all of our contributors, our faculty coordinators, and our attendees for their support of our ECE instructors, students and community. We’ll see you next year!
Mechanical Engineering (ME) courses available through UConn Early College Experience.