Colleen Davy, Psychology (Advisor: Brian MacWhinney)
2nd yr PIER, 2nd yr Psych
Colleen has spent the past 5 years down the street at the University of Pittsburgh, where she received a dual degree with a BS in Psychology and a BA in Linguistics and Spanish. As an undergrad, she started out teaching as an instructor of a Campus Conversation Course with the English Language Institute. Later, she focused her efforts on the research side of second language acquisition, working in various aspects of the Reading and Language Labs.
She also worked as a research assistant on two projects with the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center.  The one she worked on primarily is Nel de Jong's study on fostering fluency in the ESL classroom, which focuses on the use of the 4/3/2 task as a tool to promote fluent speaking. The study tried to identify what aspects of the task were most beneficial to students, then branched out to try to offer more support for students by training and/or priming on various vocabulary items and morphosyntactic structures, and to look at how control of these items developed over the course of the 4/3/2 task.
With the PIER program, Colleen hopes to continue to look at ways to improve second language learning acquisition in the classroom.  She hopes to do this by applying what cognitive psychology has learned about language acquisition to create tutors and activities to foster a more effective learning environment.
People may be surprised to know that Colleen played baritone in the Pitt Varsity Marching Band, and flute in the Concert Band.  She also plays saxophone and piano.