Mentoring Students to Present at NASP

Crystal Taylor, Appalachian State University

Lindsay Fallon, University of Massachusetts Boston

Presenting at conferences is a rite of passage for many graduate students. For school psychology graduate students, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Annual Convention provides a unique opportunity to showcase their work and engage with their peers, school psychologists, and academics. Below, we reflect on our experiences presenting at NASP as graduate students, acknowledging the support we received from our mentors. These experiences not only shaped our views on the process but also fueled our enthusiasm for supporting graduate students in their participation in conference presentations. 

Benefits Presenting at NASP

Beyond enhancing one’s curriculum vitae, presenting at NASP offers graduate students a platform to discuss their research with a diverse audience of experts (e.g., more senior scholars, practitioners, policymakers, etc.). This provides the opportunity to receive constructive feedback, suggestions for improvement, and alternative perspectives. Such input is instrumental in refining research methodologies, strengthening arguments, and improving the overall quality of one’s work. Further, conveying ideas concisely helps graduate students develop confidence in public speaking, a skill that is beneficial not only for academics but also for practicing school psychologists. 

For students engaging in thesis or dissertation work, presenting at NASP can take their work beyond the defense stage. Presenting may result in invitations to share their work at other conferences (or to other audiences) as well as open the door for subsequent publication and collaboration opportunities. Findings from dissertations and theses might be shared at sessions or forums specifically targeted toward graduate student research or during the general convening.

Identifying the Appropriate Fit

The first step to mentoring graduate students and preparing them to present at NASP is to understand the current skills of the students and then identify goals for moving them toward independence. To do this, we suggest a developmental approach to mentoring. This worked well for us as graduate students and the model we follow now as mentors and supervisors of graduate research. An example of this is to first involve a graduate student in a collaborative project and support their efforts to present a piece of the research with you or other more experienced members of your research team initially. As the student gains comfort and familiarity with the process, provide the opportunity for students to take on more of the development and presentation of materials, ultimately striving for first-author and/or independent proposals by the end of their training program (we discuss this further below).

Another example is to start graduate students with the opportunity to present a poster. A poster provides opportunities to concisely represent work without focusing on too many technical aspects of the project. Audience members may ask questions to probe a more technical description, but the overall expectation is that presenters describe the study briefly and then answer basic questions. Overall, speaking to a smaller audience introduces the student to the process with less pressure. Further, poster presentations offer the student the opportunity to share a project they may have completed outside of your lab (e.g., for a course). As an instructor, you might build these opportunities into your course instruction and encourage graduate students to pursue submitting and sharing their work accordingly.

As students progress through the program, they can transition to presenting a paper with increasing independence in subsequent years. Paper presentations are often given to larger audiences with the expectation that the presenter goes into detail about the study method and results while also diving deep into study limitations and implications for practice. In the beginning stages, students might be expected to create or present one section and later be expected to create or present multiple sections or the whole presentation. 

Creating the Presentation 

After identifying the right fit for students, collaborate closely with students to create the presentation. Start early. Especially if this is the first professional presentation because they might be nervous. Starting early allows students time to think through ideas, send multiple drafts, and feel more prepared at the onset. 

Having students create an outline with your help will get the process started. Involving them in building an outline will also allow them to identify areas that they are most comfortable working on or presenting. For example, in the beginning, I (Crystal) found the Results and Discussion sections the most difficult so I would ask to help with the Introduction and Method sections. Being a part of the data collection process made the method more tangible and easier to describe. As I became more comfortable with statistics and understanding the results of the studies, I started volunteering for other sections.

If a student has requested to help with a more challenging section such as a Results section, mentors might scaffold the support provided to their students. Outside of graduate school, presentations are often completed as a team, so modeling how you are part of their team and how you can support them in creating the presentation,  provides a more realistic example of the preparation process. 

Feedback on Revisions

You will probably be asked to provide feedback on one (or many) drafts. When providing feedback, base revision on constructive feedback. To reduce the workload, ask advanced graduate students to participate in the feedback cycle. This provides opportunities for advanced students to experience a different side of the process and allows them to learn how to refine content and strengthen arguments. Reviewing, editing, and providing constructive feedback is an integral part of the work we do so it becomes a great learning experience.

When it comes time to provide feedback, I (Crystal) begin by acknowledging the student’s strengths and then address any areas of improvement. I start with strengths to build the student's confidence and hopefully increase their responsiveness to my feedback. Feedback is a natural part of the graduate experience, but I try to use it as a teaching moment, not criticism. After providing written feedback, I meet with students to address my comments, answer questions, and provide specific suggestions for improvements in future drafts. I have found this helps students process the feedback and improves the quality of their work in the future. 

The Importance of Building Confidence 

When preparing graduate students to present their poster or paper presentations at NASP, build in time to support the student by having them practice with you (and potentially other members of your research team). This might include the opportunity to run through their portion of a presentation or share their brief description of a poster in a trusted space, such as a lab meeting. The benefit of these practice opportunities so the student feels comfortable sharing with an audience. I (Lindsay) set the stage for a mock presentation by reminding the students that they are an expert in this area. I encourage them by telling them they are ready to share their work with others and field questions. I listen actively and share any feedback I have (e.g., pace of delivery, clarity of descriptions). Feedback is offered in a supportive manner to convey my interest in their development. By building their confidence in a trusted space, the student might feel more prepared to present to a larger audience and field questions with greater ease when the time comes.

You might also support students to anticipate questions that could arise from audience members when they present. Practicing answering questions in mock presentations will help the graduate student feel more relaxed and confident on presentation day. I (Lindsay) also let students know that it’s OK if they do not have the answer to a question. Often I am with the student presenting, but if I’m not, I let them know that they can always say, “I appreciate that question and am unsure at the moment. May I contact you later when I find out the answer?”  This often helps the student relax and enjoy the prospect of presenting, too.

Supporting networking at NASP 

When NASP arrives, supporting students to network is another important mentoring opportunity. One way I (Lindsay) enjoy doing this is to attend sessions or walk-around poster sessions with students, taking the opportunity to make introductions when I’m able to do so. Several events and sessions are scheduled to encourage graduate students to network with others and discuss issues of relevance to them. Compiling and sharing a list with students in advance of the conference can allow them to schedule times to attend those sessions. Further, the Early Career Forum has a networking session for early career scholars. At NASP 2024, this will take place on the evening of February 15 from 4-6 PM CST at the Sidecar Patio & Oyster Bar. Registration can be found here.

Concluding Thoughts 

Preparing for and attending NASP can offer many opportunities to mentor student research. Check-in with colleagues within and outside of your institution and ask about their approach to this process. Consider ways of building infrastructure within your lab or research team to have students support one another to develop, engage in mock presentations, and connect at NASP to attend each others’ sessions. Supporting students to take advantage of the many rich opportunities for presenting research and networking with other scholars will help their professional growth and development in an impactful way. It can also be a time to connect and spend time together socially which may allow for stronger and more meaningful collaborations for years to come.

ECF NASP 2023 Roundup!

Thanks for joining us for the Early Career Forum’s sessions and events at the NASP 2023 Convention! Thanks to all the early career scholars who joined us as well as the panelists and mentors who contributed: Prerna Arora, Kathleen Aspiranti, Courtney Barrett, Tai Collins, Katie Ekland, Lindsay Fallon, Bryn Harris, Kamontá Heidelburg, Elise Hendricker, Lyndsay Jenkins, Lauren Kaiser, Jessie Kember, Tara Kulkarni, Tamara Lawson, Katie Maki, Celeste Malone, Antoinette Miranda, David Shriberg and Mollie Weeks.

We’re pleased to share handouts from our three sessions:

• Methods Matter: Research as a Tool for Social Justice Advocacy (Symposium 001)
• From Striving to Thriving in Academic Careers (Symposium 004)
• You're Hired: Supporting Trainees and Practitioners to Land Faculty Jobs (Paper 186)

If you have ideas for future conference programming or events, or topics you’d like to see us address here on the blog, please comment below.

Science Communication: It's a Dialogue, Not a Monologue

By Ryan Farmer, PhD, Assistant Professor, Oklahoma State UniversityUniversity faculty are often encouraged to engage in ‘outreach’ to increase the impact of their work locally, nationally, and internationally. While this may take many forms, such as working with local schools, providing professional development, and so forth, one increasingly popular approach is science communication. Science communication (scicomm) is communication aimed at engaging or informing an audience about science-related topics, and can serve a variety of traditional purposes such as (a) increasing awareness or (b) interest in specific topics; (c) developing understanding; and (d) providing information for decision-making. Throughout 2020 and into 2021, we saw a great deal of scicomm about COVID-19 including dashboards to relay information about the spread of the virus (e.g., https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/), information about the efficacy of mask-wearing (e.g., https://aatishb.com/maskmath/), and vaccine efficacy and safety (e.g., https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-vaccines-infographic). Other perennial topics have long been front-and-center of scicomm efforts, including climate science, GMOs, and health and dieting. While these efforts are intended to share information on controversial and important topics for the general public, science communication may target a variety of audiences for many different purposes. On a much smaller scale, individual researchers often share research within and between research communities, with practitioners, or target specific audiences such as policymakers and related professionals. School psychology researchers are well-poised to engage in science communication as they can assist with developing deeper understanding and awareness of important issues and influence their impact in real time. Why Should You Consider Science Communication?The most obvious ‘why’ of scicomm is the transmission of information from an expert to an audience. This dissemination paradigm is the most traditional approach to science communication and is captured well by university press releases, documentaries, science books, and interviews on news and podcast mediums. In the dissemination paradigm, information only--or primarily--moves in one direction. The Conversation is an exemplar of this approach and most scicomm efforts in school psychology have existed primarily within the dissemination paradigm (e.g., School Psyched Podcast) as well. In contrast, the public participation paradigm is built on the idea of a dialogue between the expert(s), public, and policymakers. Kappel and Holmen (2019) write about more-and-less involved approaches to the public participation approach, ranging from organized efforts to involve members of the public in an ongoing research project to public hearings. Perhaps the most obvious examples of the public participation paradigm in school psychology are the active school psychology communities on Twitter (#schoolpsychology), Practitioner Conversation sessions at NASP, and research-practice partnerships. The benefits of more traditional scicomm are clearer, though scicomm built around improving dialogue has the potential to improve research questions and methods, social validity, and involvement from stakeholders. Both approaches have a small but meaningful potential to narrow the scientist-practitioner gap.How to Get StartedThere are many ways to get started with scicomm, including posting information about a paper you’ve written on social media. Take, for instance, this tweet from Dr. Dan Cohen.

We collected data on the number suspensions received by each student in the sample & found that more exposure to ISS or OSS was associated with worse social, emotional, & behavioral outcomes at the end of the school year, accounting for the same measures collected in the fall.

— Dan Cohen (@DanRCohenPhD) February 4, 2021

In this thread of tweets, Dr. Cohen shares his research, tags relevant users on Twitter, and then describes--broadly--the findings of the paper through a series of tweets. While built primarily from a dissemination paradigm, this approach to scicomm has great potential for dialogue as readers can respond to each tweet in the thread with comments or questions.Using Twitter as a scientist may seem a bit daunting. For those who are interested in learning more, Dr. Daniel Quintana maintains Twitter for Scientists, which is a guide to using Twitter to get feedback on ongoing work, engage in scicomm, and build your reputation in an online community. Researchers may choose to have an individual account or a lab account, but the effect is largely similar. Ortega (2016) found that papers published by Twitter users were more likely to be shared on Twitter, and that “...it indirectly could influence the research impact because the visibility of academic outputs could benefit the citing of those materials” (p. 1362). It is likely that when papers are behind paywalls, the impact of sharing via Twitter may be diminished (cf. OA Citation effect). Twitter, however, is just one avenue. Researchers have been turning to other digital media platforms such as Facebook, Youtube (see How to Succeed as an Academic on Youtube), and blogs to share research and engage with audiences. More traditional approaches, such as posting material to college digital repositories and professional listservs also remain viable as approaches to promote your work, but may not create an open dialogue or provide users with an opportunity to expand or clarify.Before we jump into recommended practices, those interested in learning more about scicomm should check out these podcast episodes from Everything Hertz*:14: Science Communication107: Memes, TikTok, and Science Communication with Chelsea Parlett-Pelleriti*may contain explicit language.Early career faculty interested in learning more about the science behind science communication are referred to the journal, Science Communication, which has been publishing rich content since the late 1970s. Other sources of information include The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University and the AAAS Communication Toolkit. In addition, wonderful digital resources are available, such as Canva, PiktoChart, Sci Ani, and WordPress that can help people start building and sharing content.General RecommendationsThe School of Public Affairs at American University has shared an introduction to scicomm and outlined several recommended practices. Similarly, Choo and Lewis (2021) provided recommendations from their active scicomm efforts. Rather than copying their content here, I’ll provide a brief outline of their recommendations below.

1. Plan ahead (e.g., research the audience; prepare, practice, and get feedback).
2. Identify your goals.
3. Collaborate with other experts and organizations.
4. Communicate your content accurately, ethically, and clearly.
5. Engage on social media (e.g., in ongoing discussions).
6. Establish trust and build relationships with your audience.
7. Respect your audience.
8. Be flexible.
9. Seek out training.
10. Embrace what science can tell us (and what it can’t).
11. Be humble about what you know and don’t know (see Skipper’s The Humility Heuristic).

Additional resources have encouraged the use of humor (Jocularity, jocularity, jocularity!) within reason, share information in images or videos whenever possible (e.g., a key figure from your paper), keep the text short and relatively jargon-free, use--but beware--metaphors, and consider the venue. Above all else: follow the evidence and be humble. Scicomm should not be limited to positive results, and we should embrace uncertainty in our outcomes. This might include specifying the boundary conditions of observed effects, the limitations of our design, and the potential for error. It may also simply be embracing uncertainty with a bit of humility. Communicating uncertainty can feel like a risk, especially when you want others to take your information and apply it to their research, their practice, or in policy change. However, there’s good reason to believe that communicating uncertainty is ethically appropriate (Lewis et al., 2020) and, at the very least, doesn’t significantly decrease our public credibility (Gustafson & Rice, 2019). Ultimately, school psychology is somewhat unique in that our audience is three-fold. We may be talking within the academy (i.e., to scientists), from the academy to persons outside of our field (i.e., non-scientists), and from the academy to practitioners (e.g., scientist-practitioners). We have to understand our goals in communicating, the background knowledge of our audience, and that even within each audience, the relevance of your work is going to vary. Each of these factors must be considered before any communication will be successful. Also, Eric Elias and Rebecca Comizio from the School Psyched Podcast team provided some general advice for people interested in engaging in scicomm.When asked about the biggest lesson they’ve learned doing scicomm, Rebecca Comizio said that “It’s hard because regular communication is even harder. People don’t speak science, or fully appreciate/understand it.” Similarly, Eric Elias commented said “I think one lesson is that as a practice, pseudoscience has its hooks in deeply. We often sink to the easiest common denominator in some aspects of practice. In other words, pseudoscience is easier to follow because it’s less challenging.” Both hosts seemed to come to the same general conclusion: science is hard, and communicating it is no easy task. When asked about the advice she would give to people interested in starting to engage in scicomm, Ms. Comizio said “...know what you don’t know and name it. Keep an open mind and keep learning. Shoot for understanding, not convincing.”Getting Credit for Your SciCommLet’s be honest with one another: If you’re on the tenure track, finding time to tie your shoelaces can be a challenge. Engaging in any kind of professional activity without a clear product to add to your annual or promotion materials is a hard sale. While traditional forms of scicomm (e.g., interviews, popular press articles) can be directly cited in your evaluation materials, this is less clear for scicomm efforts on social media. To address this (very real) concern, I’d remind you that scicomm can pay dividends. As we discussed earlier, it can lead to increased awareness of your work, and thus increased impact. It may also lead to additional opportunities to collaborate, speaking invitations, and a boost to your professional reputation. But what about the short game? One way to get immediate credit for your scicomm efforts is to use Open Science platforms such as Figshare or the Open Science Framework to host your scicomm products (e.g., infographics, videos). First, this produces a stable link which you can tie to a line on your CV or other materials. But perhaps more importantly, both systems can produce digital object identifiers for your work. Take for example this infographic that our research team produced regarding remote ability testing during COVID-19. Not only is that figure shareable, but it can also be cited. Thinking outside the box, using some of the resources produced by the open science movement, and looking toward the future may help in evaluating the impact of your scicomm efforts.ConclusionThroughout this blog post, I’ve tried to embed resources on various topics, where to find research on effective communication strategies, general recommendations, and a bit of advice from people doing the work. There’s no debate: scicomm takes effort, persistence, and time. However, the payoff can be completely worth the effort. What benefit could scicomm have for your research? How might school psychology faculty use scicomm to increase the use of culturally-responsive and evidence-based practices? 

NASP 2020 Recap & Handouts

Thanks for joining us for the Early Career Forum's sessions and events at the NASP 2020 Convention! Thanks to all the early career scholars who joined us as well as the panelists and mentors who contributed: Scott Ardoin, Stacy Bender, Amy Briesch, Elaine Clark, Bridget Dever, Tanya Eckert, Lindsay Fallon, Randy Floyd, Daniel Gadke, Sally Grapin, Bryn Harris, Bridget Hier, Shane Jimerson, Janine Jones, Steve Kilgus, Dave Klingbeil, Katie Maki, Amity Noltemeyer, Andy Roach, and Ethan Van Norman.We're pleased to share handouts from our three sessions:

• SS024 - Effectively Mentoring Student Research: Leading a Productive Lab
• SS003 - Methods Matter: The Promise of Empirical Research to Inform Practice
• PA176 - Careers in Academia: Aligning Research, Teaching, and Service

If you have ideas for future conference programming or events, or topics you'd like to see us address here on the blog, please comment below.

Post-convention productivity: Turning presentations into publications

By Katie Maki (Ball State University) and Ethan Van Norman (Lehigh University)You’ve returned home from NASP. You’re likely experiencing a range of emotions. In the back of your mind you have a creeping sense of anxiety as you take a look at your inbox for the first time in nearly a week. At this point it is great to take a step back and acknowledge a major accomplishment. You presented your research at a national conference! Although almost every university expects presentations at a national conference to demonstrate scholarly productivity as part of promotion and tenure decisions, the reality is that the priority for demonstrating scholarly productivity is the publication of your research in peer-refereed journals. As such, the purpose of this post is to offer advice to carry forward the momentum from NASP to transform those poster and paper presentations into peer reviewed journal articles.Curb Your Enthusiasm If you are like us, you left the NASP convention feeling professionally energized (although perhaps physically exhausted) and excited about new research projects and collaborations. Many of us spent the week networking, connecting with other scholars in the field, and attending thought-provoking sessions at the convention. These connections and experiences likely left you ready to jump into new project conceptualizations. There is a hardly a better feeling, perhaps especially as an early career scholar. Therefore, it may sound counterintuitive when we suggest that you consider pumping the brakes on diving fully into new projects at the expense of your existing projects. This is not to say that you should drop your new project ideas. On the contrary, record your new and exciting ideas by outlining your concept and any details you have already worked out. Consider setting up a meeting with colleagues in the next month or so. Then, switch your energy back to the projects on which you presented at NASP but have not yet written up. As we stated before, even if you are not at a research-intensive university, publications in peer- refereed journals are likely still part of how you will be evaluated for promotion and tenure. Thus, you want to be sure that you not only engage in research, but that your research projects come to completion through publication.Work Smarter Not Harder The good news is, you have already done much of the work for writing new manuscripts. Capitalize on the work and effort you already put into your projects by using the projects you presented at NASP as a foundation for manuscript preparation. If you presented studies at the NASP convention, you already outlined the method and results sections for your presentation that can then be translated into text for the study manuscript. Then, revisit the proposal you submitted for the convention back in June to begin writing the introduction of the manuscript. Your proposal should have included a rationale for, and purpose of, the study so take the arguments you already made in your proposal and expand upon them to develop the manuscript introduction. Finally, you likely already outlined implications and other sections of a discussion section for your presentation, which can be expounded for the manuscript discussion. Do not recreate your project for the manuscript; use the work you already put into the project to turn it into a publishable manuscript.Using Feedback Meaningfully  Finally, your presentation likely included a Q&A portion. Use information gleaned from this experience to improve your paper. That is, capitalize on audience feedback and ideas that may have arisen while preparing for the presentation while the information is still fresh. Was there a recurring theme that audience members noted as a strength? Emphasize that aspect of your investigation in the paper. Were there multiple questions about the methodology you used? Revisit and clarify what you did in the manuscript. Were audience members all too eager to point limitations of your project? Get out in front of potential reviewer comments by strengthening your paper or identifying said issues in the limitations section of your manuscript. Given that NASP is largely a practitioner-oriented conference, if your presentation for lack of better terms “fell flat,” consider journal outlets that have a less applied focus (see previous blog post on how to identify appropriate journals for your research). If your presentation lends to a practitioner-orientated publication outlet, consider turning your presentation into a manuscript for the Communique or other similar outlet, particularly if such outlets are appropriate for your promotion and tenure requirements.Planning Ahead Although hindsight may be 20/20, in our experience the best strategy to ensure that conference paper presentations do not stay conference paper presentations is prevention. We have found that submitting the paper you will be presenting for publication prior to the conference circumvents the nasty problem of post-conference procrastination. You will likely be playing catch-up in the weeks following a conference (responding to emails, prepping for a class on a shortened schedule, etc.). Similarly, you may be experiencing conference fatigue where the last thing you want to think about is the paper presentation you have spent substantial time prepping last month. Submitting a project for publication prior to the conference may also alleviate anxiety in having an idea “scooped” while presenting your project to peers. Submitting your work before the conference will also help “prime” you so you are not scrambling to finish a project before the convention or put together your slide show a few days (or hours) before you are set to present.You Can Do It! We hope that you found these pointers useful. A major challenge in academia is that we receive few and infrequent external prompts to encourage us to engage in the behaviors necessary to achieve promotion and tenure. In turn, we must be able to prioritize those things that are most influential in achieving our goals, sometimes at the expense of immediate competing demands. Although carving out time to write immediately after a conference may seem counterintuitive, in many ways it makes sense to strike while the iron is hot. If an email is responded to four hours later than normal, your class lecture has a few less graphics, or the mission statement you were assigned to help refine is a little less eloquent than you would like, all for the sake of preparing your NASP presentation for publication, the world will not stop turning. We promise.Do you have any thoughts about these points? Are there any other strategies you use that we did not mention? Please comment below!

NASP 2019 Save the Date! (and APA 2018 Handout)

The SSSP ECF is excited to announce the following NASP 2019 sessions and events:SS014 - Hitting the Ground Running: Maximizing Your First Years in Academia (special session)Tuesday, February 263:00-4:50 pmHyatt Regency Atlanta, Atrium/International Tower, Conference Center LL3, Peidmont RoomTarget audience: prospective faculty and individuals who have recently started or will soon be starting a faculty position.Format: 1-hour symposium followed by discussion in breakout groupsPA344 - Academic Parenthood: Perspectives from Early Mid and Senior Faculty MembersWednesday, February 27th4:30-5:20 pmHyatt Regency Atlanta Atrium/International/Conference Center Level LL3/MariettaTarget audience: prospective faculty, graduate students considering academic careers, pre and post tenure academics, faculty membersFormat: Panel Presentation with Q & ASY054 – Straight Talk about Faculty Careers: Opportunities and Strategies for Success (symposium)Thursday, February 288:00-9:20 amAtlanta Marriott Marquis, Atrium Level, A701Target audience: prospective faculty, including practicing school psychologists and graduate students, who would like to learn more about the diversity of faculty/graduate educator career options and opportunities in school psychology.Format: Symposium with Q&AEarly Career Faculty Lunch & Networking (free!)Thursday, February 2811:30 am - 1:00 pmTin Lizzy’s DowntownTarget audience: new and pre-tenure faculty, including those recently hired who’ll start their positions in the fall. You are welcome to join for all or part of the event.RSVP: https://ucdenver.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_82nDuNw5zWq4aS9SY017 - Methods Matter: The Promise of Empirical Research to Inform PracticeThursday, February 283:30pm - 4:50 pmAtlanta Marriott Marquis, Atrium Level, A701Target audience: prospective faculty, early career faculty, practicing schoolpsychologists, and graduate students who are interested in translating research to practice. Special emphasis will be placed on helping early career researchers ensure their research is understood by applied audiences and strategies to translate their research to practice.Format: Symposium with Q&AAlso, thank you to everyone who joined us at APA 2018 for the symposium, Acquiring Foundation and Non-traditional Grant Funds. You can download the handout here.

Resources from NASP Funding Symposium and EC Meeting

February 29, 2016

It was wonderful seeing so many early career faculty at NASP! Thank you to Ed Shapiro, Rob Volpe, Erin Dowdy, and Katie Eklund for presenting in the ECF’s NASP Symposium, Strategies for Securing Funding as an Early Career Scholar! And thanks to all of the early career scholars who attended. Below are several useful websites and resources mentioned during the session. If you know of other great resources, please feel free to share via the comments. Websites to Explore for Funding Opportunities

1. Your university – Take advantage of internal grant opportunities to support pilot projects and develop your research program in order to increase your competitiveness for external funding.
2. General sites for both pre-doctoral and post-doctoral scholar

• gov
• Community of Scholars
• APA Awards, Grants, and Scholarships
• AERA Fellowships and Research Grants
• Science’s Where to Search for Grant Funding(also includes advice on grant writing)
• SocialPsychology Network’s Sources for Research Funding

3. For Graduate Students

• NASP Awards, Grants, and Scholarships
• UCLAGrad Student Funding Search Engine

4. Select Non-Profits That Administer Research Grants and Fellowships

• MacArthur Foundation
• The Spencer Foundation
• William T. Grant Foundation
• Lumina Foundation
• Ford Foundation
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• Joyce Foundation
• The Teagle Foundation
• The Chicago Community Trust
• The Foundation Center

5. Other Resources on Grant Writing

• Nancy Guerra’s Preparing Research Proposals in Psychology: The Graduate Student Guide to Funding
• The Chronicle of Higher Education: Debunking Some Myths about Grant Writing
• UW-Madison’s List of Grant Proposal Writing Resources
• TAMIU’s Grant Writing Resources

Thank you to all the new faculty who participated in the Early Career Faculty meeting at NASP on Thursday, February 11. Below is the resource list discussed during the meeting. We look forward to seeing you all—and many new faces—next year!General Early Career Scholar Resources

• Akin-Little, A., Bray, M., Eckert, T. L, & Kehle, T.J. (2004). The perceptions of academic women in school psychology: A national survey. School Psychology Quarterly,19, 327-341. doi: 10.1521/scpq.19.4.327.53404
• Ammerman, C. & Tseng, V. (2011). Maximizing mentoring: A guide for building strong relationships.New York, NY: William T. Grant.
• Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Berstein, D. A. & Lucas, S. G. (2004). Tips for effective teaching. In J. M. Darley, M. P. Zanna & H. L. Roediger (Eds.), The complete academic: A career guide 2^ndedition (pp. 79-115). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
• Boice, R. (2000). Advice for new faculty members. New York: Pearson.
• Darley, J. M., Zanna, M. P. & Roediger, H. L. (Eds.). (2004) The complete academic: A career guide2nd edition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
• Grapin, S. L., Kranzler, J. H., & Daley, M. L. (2012). Scholarly productivity and impact of school psychology faculty in APA-accredited programs. Psychology in the Schools, 50,87-101. doi: 10.1002/pits.21658
• Harris, B., & Sullivan, A. L. (2012). Faculty roles: A primer for students and professionals interested in careers in academia.NASP Communiqué, 41(2), 20-21.
• Harris, B., & Sullivan, A. L. (2013). Work-life balance in academic careers. The School Psychologist, 67(2), 23-26.
• Lucas, C. J., & Murry, J. W. (2002). New faculty: A practical guide for academic beginners. New York: Palgrave.
• Martínez, R. S., Floyd, R. G., & Erichsen, L .W. (2011). Strategies and attributes of highly productive scholars and contributors to the school psychology literature: Recommendations for increasing scholarly productivity. Journal of School Psychology, 49,691–720.  doi: 10.1016/j.jsp.2011.10.003
• McKeachie, W. (Ed.). (2003). Teaching tips(10th ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin.
• Schoenfeld, A. C., & Magnan, R. (1994). Mentor in a manual: Climbing the academic ladder to tenure. Madison, WI: Magna Publications.
• Silva, P. (2007). How to write a lot. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Ward, L. & Wolf-Wendel, L. (2012). Academic motherhood: How faculty manage work and family. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Fostering Research Partnerships as New Faculty: Making Inroads with Local Agencies and Communities

April 27, 2015

During the early career faculty meeting at NASP, participants asked for ideas on how to build research partnerships when they are new to a university and the surrounding community. Below, two early career faculty share their experience for doing just that. By Daniel Gadke& Kasee Stratton, Mississippi State UniversityIn November, Milena Keller-Margulis wrote a great post on developing a research agenda. As junior faculty we find ourselves regularly honing our research agendas and determining how to build them from the ground up.  Personally, our broad strokes research agenda involves the exploration of strategies rooted in applied behavior analysis to address behavioral and academic needs in children with disabilities. Depending on which of us you approach, you may find that we spend most of that time targeting children with autism spectrum and related disorders, or children with complex genetic disorders (e.g., CHARGE Syndrome) and children who present as deaf-blind. As new faculty, we recognize that starting up at a new university and getting your agenda to take off can prove difficult.It is our experience that successful research agendas, particularly in school psychology, involve positive partnerships with local agencies (e.g., schools, daycares, hospitals, etc.). Developing these partnerships and getting your name out there may be difficult regardless of your institution; however, we found this to be particularly difficult joining the faculty at a major university in the rural south. The number of local agencies within the town is limited, and other major cities are at least 100 miles away.  We had heard that many academics working with schools and other agencies in the area sometimes offered pro-bono services in hopes that this relationship would lead to a collaborative arrangement allowing the faculty member to engage in research at the location. Some mentors told stories of their efforts taking several years before paying off, and, in some instances, not working out at all.  They were often lost in the service only shuffle without seeing the benefits to their research agenda.  That being said, we took a different approach: we decided to figure out a way to bring as many agencies representatives to us as possible by offering them continuing education units. Our goal was not only to be able to go out to these agencies and conduct research on-site, but to have these agencies send participants to us for our on-campus labs.Capitalizing on Practitioners’ Need for Continuing Education. At one of our alma maters, Illinois State University, the faculty host an annual School Psychology Appreciation Day where professionals from around the state are offered free CEUs at a workshop held at the university every April. For school psychologists in the state, NASP-approved CEUs are provided at no cost, as they are a NASP-approved CEU provider. Additionally, Illinois State Board of Education CEUs were offered at no cost. We took a similar approach by offering a two-day workshop for educators at Mississippi State University in January 2014, which was our second semester as faculty.  In order to recruit additional school personnel and those familiar with autism, we partnered with a speech pathologist colleague who was well known for assistive technology to offer speech pathology CEUs as well.  Our presentations included talks on classroom behavior management, changes to autism criteria in the DSM-V, sleep maintenance, and creating individualized behavioral goals for BIPs.  All of the topics aligned well with our research interests, allowing us to capitalize on sharing our expertise and research outcomes.Participant recruitment.Our college assisted with advertising on the university website and we sent the information to schools, hospitals, and other agencies across the state.  We were also sure to send personalized emails to directors of special education.  When it was all said and done, we ended up with 100 professionals in attendance from all over the state. We had now shared our research endeavors with 100 individuals who showed their excitement by staying after the workshop to ask questions and to inquire about assistance and research for their employer.Seeing results.As new faculty, the payoff was huge. We quickly had folks inviting us into their schools to do additional staff development trainings or to help with individual students. Those 100 attendees also told their other colleagues about how we could collaborate and parents about how we could help. By the end of the semester, our programs of research were positively impacted in a variety of ways. We were able to establish partnerships with schools, which allowed for our students to engage in research on-site and in additional practicum activities.  We also have a waitlist for all service and research activities, which is not a bad problem to have—a built in control group.Unanticipated benefits.We have had so many clients referred to us, we were able to formalize what we now refer to as our School Psychology Service Center on campus. The Service Center allows us to actively engage in research, training, and service to the community.  Additionally, our practicum students have been provided with a wealth of experiences through the Center from difficult psychoeducational evaluations, challenging behavior cases, to first-hand intervention experience with some extremely rare genetic conditions.  More recently, the upper-level students have begun to express what a unique addition the Center has been to the program and their training experience. The clinic has become so active in the areas of research, training, and services that administrators have started to take notice, now considering it an integral part of the college.Making this approach work for you. We hope this simple idea can be particularly useful for junior faculty in establishing collaborative relationships with community agencies.  We leave you with a few tips; some of which we learned along the way and others that we would have changed if we did it all over again.Gain the support of your department head and college.  Do not be shy about your ideas.

• Identify early on a location on campus to host the event (our location was free, but we had to book early!).
• Determine if you are going to offer the CEUs free or charge a fee (we would suggest offering them for free, especially if you are able to avoid any overhead costs with the university). This may vary state by state and university by university.
• Partner with other colleagues on campus whom might enrich the topics you are able to provide or who are well-respected in the community.
• Offer trainings that map directly onto your areas of expertise and research interests and plug your research needs throughout your presentations.
• yourself ample time to market the event throughout your state or region (we had approximately 3 months, but wished we had longer).
• Leave time for lots of questions and answers or offer a post-workshop reception to allow more informal connections while your research is fresh on the attendants’ minds.

How do you see this idea working for you? What other approaches have you taken to foster research partnerships in your community?

Follow Up to the ECF Sessions at the 2014 NASP Conference

February 26, 2014

The Early Career Forum had a productive week at the NASP Convention. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the ECF session and to all the participants who attended the sessions. Interested individuals can access handouts and information on the presenters each of our sessions below.Our first activity of the conference was the panel, Dollars and Sense: Advice for Early Career Scholars on Grantsmanship, featured four distinguished speakers: Edith Arrington, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Connections; Jacquelyn Buckley, Institute of Education Sciences; James Griffin, National Institutes of Health; and  Jessica Hoffman, Northeastern University. The panelists provided guidance on current federal and foundation funding opportunities, and strategies for navigating the funding process and developing compelling proposals.Next, Rob Volpe, Amy Briesch, Julia Ogg, and Maria Rogers led a conversation hour, Developing and Sustaining Research Collaborations. Participants engaged in an informal discussion surrounding how to foster productive research partnerships with peers and students.The session, Academic Motherhood: Perspectives from Early Mid and Senior Career Faculty, was a resounding success. Panelists Bryn Harris, University of Colorado Denver; Jessica Hoffman, Northeastern University; Shannon Suldo, PhD, University of South Florida; Beth Doll, University of Nebraska Lincoln discussed strategies for navigating the tenure clock, increasing research productivity, teaching strategies, negotiating parental leave, and forming supportive systems while parenting.In the symposium, Straight Talk about Faculty Careers: Preparing for the Role,Bryn Harris, University of Colorado Denver; Amanda L. Sullivan, University of Minnesota; Janine Jones, University of Washington; Jamie Zibulsky, Fairleigh Dickinson University, discussed the variety of career opportunities available to prospective faculty in school psychology, the common roles and expectations of faculty in different types of institutions, and strategies in which graduate students and practitioners can engage to prepare themselves for this career track.In the final offering of this conference, Making Mentoring Work for You: Advising and Collaborating with Students, ECF Committeemembers Amanda Sullivan and Rob Volpe, with Amy Briesch provided an overview of various faculty roles in mentoring and advising, tools for facilitating positive mentoring relationships with students, and strategies for initiating and maintaining productive rewarding individual and group mentoring relationships. Rob also discussed how to develop a research team, complete with a team website for recruiting and dissemination.We think these sessions were successful, but we’d love to hear from participants. What worked? What didn’t? What topics would you like us to address in the future? Please let us know!

Making the Most of Professional Conferences: More than Presentations

January 27, 2014

Many early career scholars attend conferences to present their research and learn about the work of others, but there is much more to conferences than just research. With the NASP convention fast approaching, scholars should plan to take advantage of the numerous networking and professional development opportunities offered. In particular, these conferences provide distinct occasions to network with individuals from throughout the nation around topics related to one’s professional interests and goals. Early career scholars should keep in mind the value of breakfasts, business meetings, social hours, receptions, and other social events as opportunities to meet scholars and clinicians whose interests overlap with their own. In addition, do not underestimate the value of the informal networking that occurs in hotel lobbies, lounges, and restaurants. Sometimes the best experiences can happen when you are just hanging out.Attending conferences is a valuable chance to meet people, so early career scholars should take the time to get to know other scholars, be it introducing oneself to respected researchers, potential mentors, prospective collaborators, or future colleagues. Conferences are also a great place to become acquainted with people with whom you might later interact with when applying for internships, post-docs, or faculty and clinical positions. You can prepare for these interactions by planning your “elevator speech” to quickly (approximately 1 minute) summarize your training and interests to others. It is useful to think ahead about how you want to present yourself to others in the field, even though you may tailor it for specific individuals.For more introverted individuals, this can be challenging, so it may be helpful to set goals to encourage mingling (e.g., 1. Introduce myself to Dr. Smith, 2. Talk to three interventionists, 3. Attend the SSSP Early Career Forum events, etc.). The key is to be as intentional about networking as you are in selecting sessions to improve your knowledge or skills in a particular substantive area of research or practice.Conferences also often provide opportunities for very targeted professional development relevant to early career scholars. At some professional meetings, these include methods or statistics workshops from brief workshops to multiday intensive trainings focusing on the development of technical skills, typically at reasonable costs. Professional conferences also offer diverse career development opportunities relevant to pursuing academic positions in school psychology and related fields, such as conversation hours and speed mentoring. We at the Early Career Forum are busy preparing such events for school psychology scholars attending NASP and APA.For graduate students and other prospective faculty, conferences can provide valuable opportunities to learn more about faculty roles and the nuances of engaging in the various stages and responsibilities of academic positions. Make time to talk to current faculty (most people are happy to meet up for coffee) or attend relevant sessions.So now that NASP is just a few weeks away, take some time to think about all of the non-presentation related activities you’ll be doing at NASP. What’s on your list?An earlier version of this blog appeared in the July 2013 issue of APA Division 16’s The School Psychologist.