Alicia Cotabish

Dr. Alicia Cotabish is an Assistant Professor of Teaching and Learning at the University of Central Arkansas.  Previously, she was the Associate Director of the Jodie Mahony Center for Gifted Education and Advanced Placement Professional Development Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) where she serves as one of two Principal Investigators and the Director of STEM Starters, a federally-funded Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented project.  From 2004 to 2007, Dr. Cotabish coordinated the Arkansas Evaluation Initiative in Gifted Education, a Javits-funded state-wide school district program evaluation initiative housed at UALR.  Before beginning her career in higher education in 2004, Dr. Cotabish taught eight years in the public school system as an elementary and middle school science teacher, a K-12 gifted and talented teacher, and as an award-winning district-level gifted program administrator.  In 2012, Dr. Cotabish received the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) Early Leader Award.  She has authored and co-authored more than 40 publications including two recently released books on the Next Generation Science Standards and gifted learners.  She has delivered more than 170 professional development workshops, presentations, and keynotes at local, state, national, and international venues.  Her recent work has focused on K-20 STEM and gifted learners, and examining the effects of virtual peer coaching on the quality of teacher candidates using Skype and Bluetooth Bug-in-the-Ear (BIE) technology. 

Speaker Topics:

• STEM
• Next Generation Science Standards
• Program Evaluation
• Problem-based Learning
• Project-based Learning
• NAGC PreK-Grade 12 Gifted Programming Standards
• Peer Coaching