School of Communication Science and Disorders Doctoral student Kiana Hines volunteered her time over summer collecting data for Gadsden County Public Schools with multilingual learners in the Migrant Education Program, as well as being recently awarded with a McKnight Doctoral Fellowship.

Hines told CCI that she has had the privilege of working with the multilingual learning students to improve their English grammatical skills through a grammar intervention to assess the best approach to teaching grammar skills.

“The summer program has allowed me to address the research questions of my dissertation, while also developing other research questions related to supporting the language and literacy development of multilingual learners,” says Hines.

“In addition, this program has allowed me to further assess the significance and practicality of my research within the constructs of the school schedule. Specifically, I was able to consider the integration of intervention into the busy schedules of the multilingual learners while ensuring that they were not missing too much instructional time.”

Both opportunities are helping Hines with her studies as the McKnight Doctoral Fellowship will provide additional funding to support the execution of Hines’ dissertation study, which involves the production of intervention materials and commuting to the school to conduct the intervention. Hines shared with CCI, “Moreover, the Mcknight Dissertation Fellowship will provide me with a community of scholars and mentors to support my development as a researcher.”

When CCI asked Hines what being a McKnight Fellow meant to her, she responded, “To be a McKnight Fellow means to be part of a scholarly community of researchers from underrepresented backgrounds who strive to increase representation within an array of academic spaces and provide voices to underrepresented populations in their research.”

Congratulations, Kiana! Keep up the fantastic work!