3rd Annual Teaching and Learning Community Meeting Brings Students and Alumni Together
On Saturday, April 2, the annual Ed.D. Teaching and Learning Community Meeting took place at 122 S Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. The community meeting is an event coordinated by a subcommittee of faculty and the Teaching and Learning advisory board. The board sent out a survey prior to the event to determine what students and alumni would like to focus on for the day. This was the 3rd community meeting (last year there was a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic) and the event was held face to face and via Zoom. There were 65 in attendance and the group was a blend of students, faculty, and alumni.
After some welcome remarks, NCE faculty kicked off the event by presenting their research/activism. The committee specifically chose faculty most students did not know to have them hear different program perspectives. Faculty and presentations included:
- Gloria McDaniel-Hall, assistant professor, Using Public Narratives to Move Shared Experiences and Values to Action
- Ryan McCarty, assistant professor, Designing Your Future in Education for Equity
- Sandra Gonzalez-Adamski, assistant professor, The Lation Achievement Gap: The Role of Teachers in The Success or Failure of Latino Students
- Xiaoning Chen, assistant professor, Exploring Multicultural Picture Books through the Lens of Critical Visual Literacy
- Mark Newman, professor, Improving Pre-Service Social Studies Teacher Education Candidates Knowledge and Abilities to Work with Photographs as Learning Resources
- Jason Stegemoller, associate professor, Exploring Language, Identity, and Conceptions of Writing
During lunch, there was a panel presentation from people with experiences in the writing and editing realm of publishing. Todd Price, associate professor, moderated the session with panelists on Zoom. The presenters included: Giselle Núñez, an assistant professor at Saint Xavier University in the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department, Susan Jean Mayer, a founding partner of Critical Exploration Press and co-editor for the Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, and Antonina Lukenchuk, a professor for the School of Advanced Professional Programs, at National Louis University.
In the afternoon, the Ed.D. Teaching and Learning advisory board held two sessions: one on work/life/study balance and an “advisory chat.” The first session provided a space for students and alumni to converse across “generations” of students and graduates on life/work/study balance in the life of a doctoral student amid many other responsibilities, roles, and relationships. The group addressed lessons learned, survival strategies, stories, and questions on productive and enjoyable life balance. One participant said she learned that “you have to find a crew to see you through” based on a moving story of alums who stuck with each other through thick and thin.
In the secondary session, students and alumni discussed who they are, what they do, and their perspectives. Additionally, there was also a presentation on disability and accessibility services available from National Louis University.
The last part of the day was divided by the Teaching and Learning majors. In the Reading, Language, and Literacy and Disability and Equity in Education majors, the groups discussed career paths with speakers who described their own pathways and answered questions about what they did with their major. For the Curriculum, Advocacy, and Policy group, they discussed going to conferences as a means to build their careers and find one’s discourse community and networks. The annual community event has been successful in cultivating community and addressing issues across the Teaching and Learning majors.
For more information about the Teaching and Learning majors, please click here.
