FACULTY PROFILE
"As an educator in a graduate teacher program, I strive to help students gain the professional knowledge required to succeed in classrooms within all types of sociocultural environments. Teachers can serve as agents of social change. Well trained teachers reduce the education achievement gap by providing their students access to a quality education. Well trained teachers possess a thorough and updated understanding of educational theory and research-based best practices. Thus, my teaching philosophy focuses on ensuring teachers acquire the perspective of literacy pedagogy as a research-based field continuously enhanced through ongoing scholarship. I seek to influence my students to embrace the study of literacy theory and best practices as an ongoing endeavor throughout their careers
My well-rounded background in reading education includes a combined 20 years working as an educator at the post-secondary, secondary, and primary school levels. I also worked as an educational consultant helping teachers and administrators improve literacy in an underprivileged area of the Mississippi, Delta. My practical experience in schools, informs my academic research on literacy
development. My areas of research interest include the ways in which literature affects the reading process, capitalizing on individual’s oral language strengths, and critical content analysis of children’s and adolescent literature.
In addition to my background as an educator, I am also a librarian. I volunteered
at the Worlds of Words (WOW) library located at the University of Arizona. The WOW
library is the second largest international children’s library in the country.
Its mission is to build bridges across global cultures through children’s and
adolescent literature. The WOW library maintains an active event schedule by regularly
hosting events for authors, illustrators, and educators from around the world."
- Megan McCaffrey