Loren Jones

Research Interests

Though I have various research interests, I tend to focus on best practices for literacy and language instruction to support culturally and linguistically diverse students, writing development of English learners (ELs), and teacher preparation for working with ELs across content areas.

Bio

Dr. Loren Jones is an Assistant Clinical Professor and Coordinator for the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Programs in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership in the College of Education. Prior to joining the faculty at UMD, Dr. Jones earned her Ph.D. in Teaching and Learning from the University of Miami, Florida and taught Spanish at the secondary level in both traditional and online formats. Through her doctoral studies, Dr. Jones took part in numerous lines of research, but focused largely on literacy instruction in diverse elementary contexts. Her dissertation research examined the use of collaborative writing in a first-grade classroom to promote writing development among English learners (ELs). Dr. Jones' current work is focused on effectively preparing teachers to work with ELs.

Honors & Awards

2018: Outstanding Doctoral Student in Teaching and Learning, School of Education and Human Development, University of Miami

Publications

Selected recent publications:

Avalos, M. A., & Jones, L. (2019). Facilitating diverse students' discourse during mathematics discussions: What do teacher questions have to do with it? In P. Spycher and E. Haynes (Eds.), Culturally and linguistically diverse learners and STEAM: Teachers and researchers working in partnership to build a better path forward (pp. 291-312). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

de Oliveira, L. C., Jones, L., & Smith, S. L. (2019). Classroom discourse about illustrated book dust jackets in a first grade classroom. In S. Witte, D. Latham, & M. Gross (Eds.), Literacy engagement through peritextual analysis (pp. 97-110). National Council of Teachers of English & American Library Association.

de Oliveira, L. C., Jones, L., & Smith, S. L. (2019). Multimodal literacies in the English language arts classroom for English language learners. In L. C. de Oliveira, K. Obenchain, R. H. Kenney, & A. Oliveira (Eds.), Teaching English language learners the content areas in secondary schools: English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies (pp. 21-31). New York: Springer.

Jones, L. (2019). The power of working together: Research on collaborative writing and implications for practice. In L. C. de Oliveira & B. E. Smith (Eds.), Expanding literacy practices across multiple modes and languages for multilingual students (pp. 57-71). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Jones, L., Smith, S. L., & de Oliveira, L. C. (2019). Critical thinking for practice: Supporting pre-service teachers during student teaching. In G. J. Mariano & F. J. Figliano (Eds.), Handbook of research on critical thinking strategies in pre-service learning environments (pp. 19-36). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Selected presentations:

Jones, L., & Smith, S. L. (2019, March). Engaging emergent bilinguals in collaborative writing activities across genres. Individual paper presented at the annual meeting of the TESOL International Association, Atlanta, GA.

Smith, S. L., Jones, L., & Diaz, E. (2019, March). Teaching vocabulary and grammar through mentor texts in diverse contexts. Individual paper presented at the annual meeting of the TESOL International Association, Atlanta, GA.

Courses

TLPL 660: Foundations of Literacy & Biliteracy Development

This course presents an overview of the research on literacy and biliteracy development for English learners (ELs). Specifically, the course explores the theoretical models and processes of teaching reading and writing, current literacy/biliteracy issues, assessment, and strategies for developing literacy and biliteracy skills for ELs.

TLPL 665: Methods of Teaching ESOL

This course presents a survey of the historical and current approaches, methods, and techniques of teaching English to speakers of other languages, from grammar to translation to audiolingual and communicative approaches. Additionally, successful classroom practices that address the needs of culturally diverse and language minority students are analyzed.

TLPL 689: Internship in Education

The internship seminar is designed to create an opportunity for 2year and MCERT candidates to apply educational theory learned in their coursework to the practice of daily classroom instruction, to discuss students’ experiences in the internship, as well as to build competence with the assessment requirements of the TESOL Program - the Performance Based Assessment (PBA), Foundational Competencies (FCs), the Maryland Teacher Technology Portfolio (MTTS), and a Teaching Performance Assessment (edTPA).

This internship seminar is a required part of both the 2Year and MCERT programs. As such, the seminar accompanies the internship experience. It is intended to support and extend students’ learning in the full-time teaching internship and to assist with progress toward successful completion of the program.