Affiliated Faculty, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania  
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“I am the director of the Urban Teaching Residency Program, the program I went through at Penn to earn my teaching certification when I first came to Philadelphia in 2006.  

I teach courses about qualitative research and urban education, and I mentor and advise approximately 40 master’s students a year. My goal is to cultivate and retain excellent, student-centered teachers in Philadelphia. Not all of the students who go through my program remain in Philadelphia, and I have just developed a fully online master’s program in urban education, so now I am working with educators throughout the country. Regardless of where my students teach, I hope to help them develop an approach to students and families that is asset based and to cultivate a social justice approach to teaching and learning that is anti-racist and based on relationships.

Volunteering at the Austin College Saturday school and being an ACtivator definitely prepared me for my career as a teacher. I was a chapel intern during my senior year at AC, and I was an ACtivator all four years. I ran weekend camps for children and youth during my time with the ACtivators, and having fun with youth in structured ways to get them to think critically was such a formative experience in my approach to teaching and life. I was also part of the Leadership Institute at Austin College, which served me well in my role as a program director now (and when I got my doctorate from University of Pennsylvania in Educational Leadership). The professors I met in my very first semester as a part of the Leadership Institute, including Dr. Shelly Williams, shaped how I approach teaching and leadership. I also was in Model UN during my time at AC, and while I am not in politics, the skills of reading and making sense of thousands of pages of information so that you can communicate them with others also has served me well. Finally, I was a Mellon Fellow supervised by Dr. Roger Platizky. This research changed my life. I developed a deep love and appreciation for qualitative research that have influenced the three textbooks I have written about qualitative research. Roger is also an inspiration for the way that I mentor the graduate students who work with me at the University of Pennsylvania.”