Teaching as Principled Practice: Managing Complexity for Social Justice

Anna Ershler Richert, Ph.D. is a professor of Education at Mills College where she co-directs the Teachers for Tomorrows Schools Credential Program.  She came to Mills from Stanford University where she was Associate Director of the Stanford Teacher Education Program for three years.  She is active in various school reform efforts both locally and nationally including the Coalition of Essential Schools and Bay Area School Reform Collaborative. Currently she is a teacher education scholar with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning and secretary of Division K of the American Education Research Association.  Recent publications reflect her interest in narrative methodology for teacher education and teacher research.  They include two book chapters:  "Narratives that teach:  Learning about teaching from the stories teachers tell," in Narrative Knowing in Teaching:  Exemplars of Reflective Teaching, Research and Teacher Education (2002), Lyons, Nona and LaBoskey, Vicki, (Eds.) Teachers College Press; and "Narratives as Experience Texts:  Writing Themselves Back In" (2001) in Teachers Caught in the Action:  The Work of Professional Development, Lieberman, A. and Miller, L., (Eds.), Teachers College Press.  Her research interests focus on teacher inquiry, teacher professional development, and the pedagogy of teacher education.

Vicki Kubler LaBoskey, Ph.D. is Professor of Education at Mills College, Oakland, California, where she is also Director of the elementary teacher credential program.  Previously, she was an urban elementary school teacher in East Los Angeles and San Jose, California where she taught multiethnic classes of kindergarteners through fourth graders for eight years. She has been a teacher educator since 1985, when she was the Associate Director of the Stanford Teacher Education Program for three years before coming to Mills. She is currently President Elect of the California Council on Teacher Education and Chair of the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. Her most recent publications include Narrative Inquiry in Practice: Advancing the Knowledge of Teaching with Nona Lyons and the two-volume International Handbook of Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practice with John Loughran, Mary Lynn Hamilton, and Tom Russell. Her research interests focus on the self-study of teacher education practices and on narrative approaches to the development and mentoring of critical reflection and inquiry in teaching.

Tomás Galguera, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Education at Mills College, Oakland, California, where he co-directs the pre-K-elementary Early Childhood Emphasis and Developmental Perspectives in Education teacher credential program. He specializes in English Language Development methodology courses for both elementary and secondary preservice teachers and has been a certified Spanish-bilingual elementary public school teacher in Oakland, California. In addition to contributing to the Full Options Science System’s Newsletter and publishing in The Multilingual Educator, he developed high school science curriculum modules for teachers of English learners and was a contributing author of Professional Development for Teachers of English Learners: A Scaffold for Change, published by the San Diego County Office of Education. Together with Joshua Fishman, he published Introduction to Test Construction in the Social and Behavioral Sciences and with Kenji Hakuta is a contributing author to Psychology and Educational Practice edited by Walberg and Haertel. His research interests include the pedagogy of teacher preparation for language-minority students and exploring ethnicity, race, culture, and language in education.

Ruth Cossey, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Mid-Career Mathematics and Science Teacher Credential program at Mills College has ten years experience teaching pre-service teacher candidates in Oakland CA.  She has also taught mathematics in urban public schools for nine years.  She served as a senior Mathematics Educator with EQUALS and FAMILY MATH at the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley for ten years. Dr. Cossey has for the past two years been Principal Investigator and Director of Algebra: What Works? (AWW), funded by the University of California. Central to Cossey’s work has been the importance of classroom mathematical discourse to deepening students’ understandings and abilities to communicate those understandings. An extended sample of her skill as a mathematics educator has been captured in the 2001 “Learning Math: Patterns, Functions and Algebra” 10 two and one-half hour video taped professional development course in mathematics produced by Annenberg/ CPB Channel with the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Philip Tucher, M.A. is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Education at Mills College, Oakland, California, where he directs the Teacher Institute for Urban Fieldwork, a forum for teacher mentors focused on issues of equitable and excellent outcomes for students in urban classrooms. His is co-director of the Mid-Career Mathematics and Science Program for secondary credential candidates. He teaches math and science methods courses and specializes in fostering collaborative interaction and placing mathematical and scientific reasoning at the heart of classroom practice. For the past ten years he has worked with teachers in several parts of the U.S. to improve student achievement by raising the quality and levels of academic interaction that takes place when students are working in small groups in heterogenous classrooms. He is interested in the use of Lesson Study in teacher preparation. Before coming to Mills, Mr. Tucher was assistant principal at a middle school in the San Lorenzo Unified School District in the Bay Area.