College of Education
Lynda Paznokas
Developing Highly Qualified Teachers Through School and Community Collaboration

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Dr. Paznokas oversees College of Education partnerships with school districts, agencies, businesses, and communities. The College of Education’s School and Community Collaboration Center currently focuses on early childhood education, developing highly qualified teachers, Native American education, international education, and teacher certification. Program development and research projects are being developed in each of these areas.

Under her direction, the College of Education is taking a leadership role in university science and mathematics education reform as well as serving as the K-12 pipeline for future scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and science/mathematics educators. As co-director of the Washington Science Education Partnership, Dr. Paznokas also works to bring science education reform to small, rural schools. In addition, she works in national and international science education arenas, serving at chair of pre-secondary and informal science education for the International Council of Associations for Science Education. Her science education research interests include determining attributes of science courses that lead to student success, finding ways to transition pre-service teachers between science content courses and K-8 science methods courses, and studying ways to help K-8 university pre-service teachers understand the relationship between informal science education sites and their future formal classroom settings.

Through “Teachers of Teachers of Science,” Dr. Paznokas coordinates the Pre-Service Environmental Education Project to institutionalize significant environmental education into pre-service science methods courses taught by Washington’s universities. This project is in partnership with the new “e3 Washington” initiative centered on education, environment, and the economy. She also recently participated as an invited member of the National Dialogue on Children and Nature and served on the National Ecological Observatory Network Design Consortium. Research for this project involves determining effective ways to prepare K-8 university pre-service teachers to teach environmental education to their future students.

Contact Information
Lynda Paznokas, Ed.D.
Associate Dean
College of Education

PO Box 642114
Pullman, WA 99164-2114

Telephone: 509-335-0987
E-mail: lpaznokas@wsu.edu