Message From The Chair

The primary purpose of the Department of Teaching, Literacy, and Leadership is the preparation of teachers who are artists and scholars; who are activists with a special concern for public education; who reflect on their practice, are dedicated to their students, their disciplines, and to teaching and learning. We value a pedagogy that is participatory, dialogical and reciprocal.

Our goal is to foster among our students an awareness of the interactive nature of learning, developmental and social contexts of teaching and learning, historically situated and socially constructed nature of knowledge, structure of the disciplines, integration of aesthetics in the construction of meanings.

Our curriculum and pedagogies draw upon appropriate technologies and reflect critical perspectives on issues such as race, class, gender, ability, ethnicity, and language. We expect our degree candidates to value diversity.

Our goal is to foster degree candidates' abilities to create inclusive and supportive learning environments for all learners, critically examine their practices in order to influence education and educational institutions, seek development of students who are active, informed, thoughtful citizens, capable of participating fully as moral and responsible members of a democratic, diverse society, and global community.

Our faculty supports a convergence of current educational research, theory, and practice through collaboration with our students and the educational community. Departmental programs stress participatory processes, inquiry, and experiences that enable our students to be life-long learners.

These dispositions are fostered by the integration of field-based observation-participation with class-based reading, discussion and reflection, authentic learning activities.

Esther Fusco, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Teaching, Literacy & Leadership