How would you finish the following sentence: being an instructor at Trinity means…

having the opportunity to collaborate, facilitate, and scaffold experiences and learning for all students, from first year students to graduate students. It's such a gift. 

Your research background is so rich and includes a wide array of topics including but not limited to multi-tiered systems of supports (MTSS), social and emotional learning, disability studies in education, inclusive education, general education and special education collaboration, school reform, social justice, experiential learning, service-learning, and community partnership. What brought you to these interests and how do you keep the ethos of these topics alive not just in your research but also in the lessons that you give to students who are future educators?

One of the things about being a learner, and I would definitely include myself in that group of learners, is I've had opportunities through different positions, from Classroom Teacher to State Reading Specialist to directing higher education professional development. Before I became a professor, as each of those roles developed, what made me want to continue to be a researcher and then to seek a doctorate at a later age was the questions. The way that the research was informing all the [questions] that were really important. I think my work is [centered] around a framework that recognizes the importance of the literature and curricular focus on all of those things that you can't study in a bubble. You have to understand the people. I would add that as an undergrad, I did a lot of work in sociology here at Trinity. My work is informed by a social model of disability or a social model in general, that is very much centered on the people, the practices, and the experiences. If I defined myself in my research 15 years ago, it was very singular, it was about multi tiered systems of support. But in studying that prevention model, through my US Department of Education Doctoral fellowship, I really started to realize the impact or the need for applying [Bronfenbrenner’s] ecological model, which  recognizes what happens at every level in the model. I think that my scholarship serves to continue understanding systems, the individual voices, and how we impact learning and growth.. I think ultimately someday it will lead to a very cohesive study or center that reflects all of those bodies of literature that I've been lucky enough to continue to study and engage with, but it's about people. 

When you read about it, you're like, how can one person do all those things, but I think they all very much inform each other. I still find other topics that I need to look at and to understand more clearly to be able to move the model that I'm thinking about and designing in iterations. 

In the wake of new educational policies across the country that target diversity, equity, and inclusion in education at all levels, what have you observed to be some of the new challenges associated with being an educator in this country and how are you preparing your students for this new educational landscape as it unfolds?   

In my research, there is an emphasis on experiential learning and service learning. My introductory courses help unpack foundational frameworks. The first five weeks, [which encompass] the first unit of my Learners with Disabilities course, studies the laws, the theoretical, and legal foundations for it so that it gives us a space to talk about the models of disability. The social model [and] the medical model, [which are] trying to fix the environment [that] is disabling. But then there are cultural models, religious models, and I'm grateful for a newer text that has deepened conversations and understanding in class. I used to have to try to explain models. There wasn't a text. So the changes have led to more literature and more voices entering the classroom. What's been fun for me is finding how to bring those into the space in meaningful ways. I feel like we're moving further as a class in understanding  because of these new resources addressing inclusive pedagogy, ableism, and anti-racist principles. 

For the teachers, we have to honor that everybody arrives with their experiences and if I can create a classroom environment that is curious and joyful, thanks to Bell Hooks for this framing- she’s amazing.  I work to create the conditions for a classroom or learning environment that invites people to be curious and joyful and, safe and brave. It's whether the room does. We talked about it in Universal Design for Learning (UDL), there's an engagement piece that is about access. It's optimizing some conditions, but also minimizing and removing threats and distractions if I can. Recently in class, we did a reflection about UDL to name some of what we're noticing in this class and how the class invites us to be engaged in the learning. I was just so in awe with how students see opportunities for UDL and inclusion. There can be many barriers for future teachers understanding the complexity of how inclusion works. Belonging is another concept that I try to bring into the learning space to ensure that identities and experiences that we don't have, that we're honoring them, and are listening and creating feedback for that. It's just so much. I make sure to even show my own vulnerabilities in the space, when I make a mistake in the words that I use. An example is that part of my language had an overuse of the word ‘crazy', which is really derived from derogatory comments against disabled people and people with a mental health diagnosis. It's embedded and anytime I accidentally slip up, I name it, and it has come back in course feedback like “I thought it was awesome how she named these things that she does that make her vulnerable.” But if I do it, I support normalizing the behavior, reframing and modeling it for everyone’s learning.

In your chapter, Moving Forward: The Role of Reflection in Planning Literacy Instruction, which was co-authored with Susanna James and appeared in Fundamentals of literacy instruction & assessment, Pre-K–6, you provide pre-K-6th grade educators with sample instructional plans for teaching literacy in addition to recommendations for reflecting on their teaching and students’ progress as they learn. What has been the significance of reflection in your career and do you have any recommendations for other educators who hope to incorporate reflection into their courses across a variety of disciplines? 

As a student at Trinity University, I learned about being a reflective practitioner. I think my practice started here many years ago. It's changed over the years including how I record it and what it looks like. But it has definitely been one of the biggest drivers of my work and innovation because the reflection is what has led to naming and recognizing other topics I need to study or any of the pieces in my framework. That reflection helps me surface my own assumptions and name the things that are there versus just continuing down a path without that consideration. I think what's interesting about the chapter that was selected, there is a previous edition of that book and I didn't include the role of reflection. As I continue to work with teachers, schools, and state level groups, thinking about how teachers do the work of analyzing data and creating classroom instruction, my chapter in that book is a culminating chapter that was selected by the authors because of the way that I ‘put it all together’. The other chapters in the book are about components of literacy instruction. They (the authors) were very cognizant of not wanting to keep those things in silos and help see how a teacher might create something or use data to help understand all the different things that are happening and not just the components, but also the multi tiered systems of support and bring all those pieces together. But the first edition didn't have the reflective practice piece. It only alluded to it. Then, in the second edition, we were all very much on board with making sure that element was more explicit, because how does that work happen? It happens through data driven approaches, but also the reflection of where things need to be in the context of that classroom and the context of that school. Gosh, that was a fun chapter to write.

One of my roles before I got my doctorate was in instructional coaching at the campus level, then the district level, then the state level. How do we help partner with teachers and mentor them or [not just] tell them what to do? How do you create those working relationships and thought partnerships? Well, that's guided reflection, when I really looked at what that work looked like with other schools and districts and teachers, it was really me helping prompt them to think about their practices or approaches in a way that wasn't top down, but was shared or even bottom up, organic from them. What are their goals? I can't say for them, that would not be appropriate for me to voice. The way I did, it worked for me and was very successful. But each of us have to create our own way to do it based on myriad contextual factors. There are key tenants, there's research and evidence-base, but as a teacher begins their career as a teacher leader, they can be someone who helps shape it based on their own growth plan. Reflection is a big part of my life. I have probably four journals, it's probably a few too many. Some focus on research and scholarship. There's one journal where I'm collecting literacy literature, I feel like I don't know what that's gonna be but every time I find something, that goes in there. There's also personal reflection and gratitude journals. Gratitude is a big part of it [and] ties in with the compassion course that I helped create and co-facilitate a couple of years ago, and that's a practice I can't forget. We are lucky to be here and get the opportunity to be curious and joyful.