Teacher education, professional learning, teacher diversity, humanizing pedagogies

Keisha McIntosh Allen is an assistant professor of teacher education and professional development at University of Maryland, College Park. Her research focuses on frameworks, practices and policies that foster humanizing approaches to teacher learning and their relationship to educational equity in schools. Specifically, her research seeks to acknowledge the full humanity of Black teachers and students by examining how schools can be spaces that affirm the lives of Black children and their teachers. Through four inter-connected strands of research (critical multicultural teacher education, professional learning, humanizing pedagogies, and teacher diversity), Allen’s work aims to pursue systemic changes that can transform teacher preparation and the contexts of teachers’ work.

 

Allen has published in top peer-reviewed journals focused on urban and multicultural education. She serves on the executive committee for English Language Arts Teacher Educators and is a recent appointee to the Maryland Professional Standards and Teacher Education Board.

She earned her Ed.D. in Curriculum and Teaching with a specialization in multicultural and urban education from Teachers College, Columbia University and an MAT and Bachelor's degrees from Hampton University. Prior to earning her doctorate degree, Allen was a high school English teacher for Fairfax County Public Schools.

2015 - 2017     Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

2014 - 2016     National Council of Teachers of English Cultivating New Voices Fellow

Selected Publications

Allen, K.M., Nash, K.T., Thomas, K., Everett, S. (2022). An Oasis in the Sahara: Humanizing Professional Learning During the Pandemic and Beyond. Language Arts, 100(1), 8-20. 

Allen, K. M. (2022). Living my brother’s keeper: Examining the raced and gendered knowledge of a Black male teacher.  In D. C. Hucks, Y. Sealey-Ruiz, S. C. Carothers, V. S. Showunmi, & C. W. Lewis (Eds.), Purposeful teaching and learning in diverse contexts: Education for access, equity and achievement. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Boveda, M., & Allen, K. M. (2021). Remote Portals: Enacting Black Feminisms and Humanization to Disrupt Isolation in Teacher Education. Occasional Paper Series, 2021 (46). https://educate.bankstreet.edu/occasional-paper-series/vol2021/iss46/3&…;

Davis, J., Allen, K. M., Goings, R., Watts, J., McKay-Davis, B., Thomas, A., Parker, W. (2020). Investigating Black male pre-service teachers’ identity as men, teachers, and researchers through undergraduate research. Peabody Journal of Education, 95(5), 498-512.

Allen, K. M. (2019). Transformative vision: Unpacking the racial literacy practices of a Black male teacher with his Black male students. Journal of Multicultural Education, 13(1), 82-93.

Gist, C.; Jackson, I.; Nightengale-Lee, B.; Allen, K.M. (2019). “Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Teacher Education.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Ed. Jo Lampert. New York: Oxford University Press.

Allen, K. M., Davis, J., Garraway, R. L., & Burt, J. M. (2018). Every student succeeds (except for Black males) act. Teachers College Record, 120(13), 1-20.

Sanders, M., Galindo, C. & Allen, K. M. (2018). Professional capital and responses to student diversity: A qualitative exploration of the role of teachers in full-service community schools. Urban Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085918770719

  • Hrabowski Innovation Fund Research Award (Co-PI, Funded $24,900). "The Educational Journey of Immigrant Children: An Interdisciplinary Course Using Gamification and Role-play." (2021-2023).
  • US Department of Education (Principal Investigator, Funded $155,406). "Teaching Through Coronavirus: Toward Cultivating Urgent Culturally Responsive Distance Learning Pedagogies & Professional Development." (2020-2021).
  • Hrabowski Innovation Fund Research Award (Co-PI, Funded $25,000). "Learning Teaching as an Interpretive Process." (2019-2022).

Fall 2023

TLPL 771: Pedagogy of Teacher Education