Graduate Research Assistantship in PAR Project

Graduate Research Assistantship in Participatory Action Research Project Work with K-12 Teachers in Baltimore, Maryland

The Teachers’ Democracy Project (TDP) is a grant-funded research project situated within the Language, Literacy and Culture (LLC) doctoral program at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

TDP will offer a research assistantship to one graduate student accepted in the LLC Doctoral Program for the Fall of 2016 (application deadline: December 1, 2015). Please indicate in your admissions cover letter that you are also interested in this research assistant position, which will be decided in a separate process from the admissions process.

Research assistants earn a research stipend for 20 hours of work a week, and receive tuition credits for up to 10 credits per semester. They also receive health benefits, a travel stipend for conferences, and have the opportunity to work on collaborative publications along with the co-researchers in the project. The work of a TDP research assistant involves working with the program PI and director on program management, assisting with all aspects of the research project, and direct work with teachers in classrooms. We are particularly interested in graduate students who have a background in K-12 public education and/or in media production in educational settings.

TDP is designed to act as a catalyst for teachers to reclaim and participate actively in knowledge production about teaching and schools. We support an annual cohort of teachers working together to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence to improve their own teaching practices and redefine school reform in Baltimore to focus on "The Schools We Deserve." Our goal is to work alongside effective classroom teachers who understand and resist the impact of destructive national and local school reform initiatives, and who imagine and work with schools and communities to formulate effective local alternatives.

One of our main endeavors is a long-term participatory action research project in which teachers collaboratively study teachers’ work in the full, current socio-political context of our city and nation. This joint work will provide insights into how successful, socially conscious teachers can construct a progressive teaching practice relative to the policies and demands they face both inside and outside the classroom. One of the primary skills the teachers gain as participants in the program is the effective use of a variety of media as teaching tools, real-life advocacy tools, and as alternatives to test-based assessments of student learning. The end products of the project will be:

• a shared reframing of the narrative around critical educational issues (such as teacher evaluation and attrition; the place of testing in the broad view of assessment; effective classroom practice that addresses the whole child; social justice-oriented, project-based teaching; and the place of teacher union activism in the lives of teachers)
• the production of an on-line, locally specific, social justice curriculum available to all city teachers

For more information about the TDP project, please contact: Dr. Helen Atkinson, Executive Director, Teachers' Democracy Project, helen.atkinson@umbc.edu or Dr. Bev Bickel, Clinical Associate Professor, Language, Literacy and Culture Doctoral Program, bickel@umbc.edu.

• More Information about Graduate Research Assistantship in PAR Project