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ProfessorGail Fitzgerald
Information Science & Learning Technologies“I think bagpipes are always fascinating for people,” she says. “It’s an unusual instrument to play, especially for women.”
A member of the Boone County Fire Protection District Pipes & Drums band, Fitzgerald pipes at parades, weddings, funerals, civic functions in Jefferson City and the statewide Special Olympics. She also played for last year’s dedication of the Allen Institute at MU.
“It’s very meaningful to me because I come from a Scottish heritage,” she says. “My mother came from a Scottish clan, and I grew up thinking that learning to play the bagpipes would just be the greatest thing.”
After attending a work conference in Scotland this past summer, she stayed an extra week to take classes at the Institute of Piping, the internationally recognized piping school. In addition to training pipers, the Institute offers multiple levels of certification for those who want to play or teach professionally.
“It was so motivating to meet all these gold medalists and have them as teachers,” she says. “Out of 25 students in the school, there were only three women. The rest were all Scottish boys.”
Her experience playing the bagpipes dates back to her college years at the University of Iowa, where she joined an all-women’s bagpiping band. But after graduation, she laid her pipes down. She picked them back up seven years ago through Columbia’s adult education classes.
Beyond the music
During the 35 years in between, Fitzgerald began a career in child psychology and special education that eventually led to her current position as a SISLT faculty member. Her research falls into two main areas of interest.She has been creating multimedia training materials for teachers for the past 15 years. She helped build ten interactive case files based on children’s emotional and behavioral problems. Each case is designed around a different student; program users are able to observe each child in the classroom, read school records, get input from experts and talk with the child’s parents before testing their problem-solving skills.
Additionally, for the past decade Fitzgerald has been making computerized tools to enhance children’s learning. Templates allow students to break new concepts into chunks, work out solutions to personal problems and get organized.
“We have the belief that children can learn to control their own behavior. They don’t always need adults to tell them what to do,” she says. “We didn't’t find software for kids with behavioral problems, so we created some.”