Dr Timothy Forde is the new associate director for science and engineering education at the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE, Oak Ridge, TN). ORISE is a U.S. Department of Energy facility that researches health risks from occupational hazards, assesses environmental cleanup, responds to radiation medical emergencies, supports national security and emergency preparedness, and is deeply involved in scientific and technical education. ORISE is managed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), a consortium of ninety-one research institutions.
In his new job at ORISE Forde will draw on his education and experience in computer science, chemistry, health care, communications, education and human development. ORISE provides support to undergraduate and graduate students, recent college graduates and K-12 teachers and students. Forde will be responsible for the management and oversight of the fellowship, scholarship, internship and other science education programs that are central to ORISE's educational mission. He will also continue his work on educational technologies that promote learning in multicultural classrooms.
Forde will hold a joint appointment with the University of Tennessee (Knoxville, TN) as an adjunct faculty member in its College of Education, Health and Human Services. At the university he'll be involved in projects that include the establishment of a new Institute of Public Health.
Forde wears several hats, but all his work is aimed at using the resources from both institutions to create new programs and partnerships. One new initiative is a professional development program for middle school math and science teachers. "To be revolutionary, we need to ask such questions as, 'What can we do differently with technology that we haven't done before? How can we think about teaching differently now that we have technology that can help us?'" Forde says.
"I love the opportunity to focus on many different projects here at ORISE," he adds.
Forde grew up in Huntsville, AL in a family that valued higher education but hadn't had much opportunity to get it. His mother finished college only after Forde completed graduate school. "My parents believed that their children should have what they didn't, so they really pushed us to pursue our academic interests," he says.
He stayed home for college, earning his 1987 bachelor of general science in computer science, chemistry and communications from Oakwood College (Huntsville, AL).
Oakwood's strong faculty included stars like a chemistry genius who graduated from college at nineteen and completed a PhD and several books before he was twenty-five. "He could have worked anywhere in the world, but he chose to teach in a small black college," says Forde. "The Oakwood faculty was such an inspiration."
Forde's initial interest was in medicine, but after a summer job in a hospital he switched to public health research. He attended the University of Alabama (Birmingham, AL) for his master of public health, which he received in 1989. His major in epidemiology prepared him for a research position at Meharry Medical College (Nashville, TN) that centered on underserved school children. He visited classrooms and conducted focus groups to determine what these children's lives were like and what impact their living conditions had on their health.
"I wanted to systematically study what was going on and try to understand the risk factors involved," he says. "Then I could attack it from a research and policy standpoint."
One of his accomplishments was the "I Have a Future" program designed to prevent both drug use and pregnancy. It was so successful in reducing teen pregnancies and the high school dropout rate that it was recognized as a "point of light" by President George H.W. Bush.
What Forde saw in the classrooms he visited through Meharry convinced him that his future lay in educational research. He decided to pursue a PhD in education and human development at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN). In 2003 he completed his dissertation on improving the mathematics achievement of inner-city African American students.
Forde observed that many bright students failed to perform. He explored educational theories and found that students achieve more by discovering things for themselves than by having information given to them for consumption. Education can strengthen students' innate talents and build on their interests if material is presented as part of an enjoyable, engaging experience rather than as isolated facts, he explains.
As a student teacher at Vanderbilt he was part of the Cognition and Technology group that developed the Jasper Woodbury video series, based on the concept of "anchored instruction." Anchored instruction, Forde says, is a technology-based learning approach that encourages students to use their problem-solving skills. Each of Jasper's dozen adventures is an entertaining story that ends by posing a complex problem. Each episode contains all the clues needed for the solution, but requires students to use logic and reasoning to get there.
Forde also worked on the Little Planet literacy series, which uses animated video stories and computer software to help teachers improve the reading comprehension and writing skills of young, at-risk readers. "When we used this approach, students' attitudes changed and then their academic performances improved," he says.
In 2000 Austin Peay State College (Clarksville, TN) added him to its faculty for a year. There he taught education students about technology, until Buffalo State College (Buffalo, NY) hired him in 2001.
"The focus in Buffalo was helping teachers integrate computing knowledge into the classroom and understand the different styles of cognition and how technology can enhance different kinds of learning," he says.
He returned to Tennessee to join ORAU in August 2005, happy to be closer to home and family. He lives in Oak Ridge with his wife and two daughters, ages three and four.
Forde's own early educational experiences taught him that he had to be twice as good and study twice as hard to be recognized. That's paying off for him now. "Two characteristics to being successful in this world are good work ethic and a positive attitude," says Forde. "I've been blessed and I'm thankful for the opportunities I've had."
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