Stephen Rushton, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
College of Education
Phone: 941-359-4345
Fax: 941-359-4778
Office: USFSM B315

Stephen Rushton is an Associate Professor at the University of South Florida, Sarasota-Manatee, where he supervises student teachers and teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses in creativity, classroom management, and the writing process.  He has twice been the recipient of the Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award (2001, 2007), and also winner of the Outstanding Professor Award (2003) presented by the graduating class.  Professor Rushton has participated, trained and supervised numerous workshops both nationally and internationally (most recently in Malaysia, the Philippines and India).  He specializes in communication skills and interpersonal relationship within the learning process. 

Education

Ph.D., University of Tennessee
M.Sc.,University of Tennessee
B.Ed., Queen's University
B.Sc., Trent University

Selected Publications and Research Interests

Throughout his career, Professor Rushton's research has focused on how teachers can become more effective.  His early work tracked the experiences of student-teachers in an inner-city school with culturally diverse populations.  He discovered that despite the differences between their own backgrounds and expectations, student-teachers developed substantial self-efficacy and succeeded as their year of special training progressed.  Some of his work in this area includes:

Professor Rushton has also examined the personality characteristics associated with being an effective teacher.  He identified teachers who had won Outstanding Teacher awards in elementary level education and found that most (but certainly not all) tended to be Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceptive as measured using established personality inventories.  He also found that the personality profile of an effective teacher differs depending on the type of course taught (e.g., in special education classes, effective teachers were more introverted).  Associated work in this area of research include Teacher of the Year Award Recipients' Myers-Briggs Personality Profiles and Teacher's Myers-Briggs personality profiles.

For the past few years he has also focused his research on incorporating the new knowledge emerging from the neurosciences on the developing mind to join already established practices such as developmentally appropriate practices and Cambourne's Conditions of Learning to create even more positive learning environments. Related work in these areas include the following:


 




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