Drawing from a sociocultural and equity-oriented understanding of teaching, I use self-reflexive and participatory qualitative methods to study the growth and development of teachers and teacher educators, particularly as they work for socially just outcomes for linguistically and culturally diverse learners in PK-12 settings. I am deeply invested in identifying and understanding the pedagogies that teacher educators utilize to support teachers’ experiences of practice, and in the ways in which practice and theory can be in dialogue with one another.
Since 2015 I have led a collective of early career teachers, teacher educators, and multilingual youth as we have collaboratively explored the kinds of practices that matter for teaching multilingual students. Examples of my recent work appear in Teaching and Teacher Education, TESOL Quarterly, Language Teaching Research, Action in Teacher Education, and TESOL Journal. I have a forthcoming book with Teachers College Press entitled Core Practices for Teaching Multilingual Students: Humanizing pedagogies for equity. Together with Dr. Judy Sharkey, I also have a recent edited book entitled Self-study of language and literacy teacher education practices: Culturally and linguistically diverse contexts. I am Co-Director of UMD's Multilingual Research Center, and I serve on the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of Teacher Education. I am active in the American Educational Research Association's (AERA) Division K, Second Language Research SIG, and the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (S-STEP) SIG.
I have experience as an ESOL and Spanish teacher across a variety of ages and contexts, ranging from pre-K through adults.
University of Maryland College of Education Excellence in Graduate Mentoring Award, 2020. Nominated by students in the UMD COE as an outstanding mentor.
American Educational Research Association (AERA) Second Language Research SIG Midcareer Award, 2019. The Mid-Career Award is granted to scholars recognized by their peers for “the overall degree to which their research advances knowledge in the field of second language research, promotes equity and access for students, teachers, teacher educators, communities, and/or families, and influences the creation, collection, and analysis of data.”
University of Maryland Graduate Faculty Mentor of the Year award, 2011. One of 4 faculty members chosen by students as an outstanding mentor, from 29 nominees across University of Maryland campus of 1300+ tenured/tenure-track faculty.
See a more complete listing of my publications on ResearchGate.
Selected recent publications:
Peercy, M. M., Tigert, J., Fredricks, D., Kidwell, T., Feagin, K., Hall, W., Himmel, J., & Lawyer, M. (2022). From humanizing principles to humanizing practices: Exploring core practices as a bridge to enacting humanizing pedagogy with multilingual students. Teaching and Teacher Education, 113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2022.103653.
Tigert, J., Peercy, M. M., Fredricks, D., & Kidwell, T. (2021). Humanizing classroom management as a core practice for teachers of multilingual students. TESOL Quarterly. DOI: 10.1002/tesq.3093.
Sharkey, J., Peercy, M. M., Solano-Campos, A., & Schall-Leckrone, L. (2022). Being a reflexive practitioner and scholar in TESOL : Methodological considerations. In E. R. Yuan & I. Lee (Eds.), Becoming and being a TESOL teacher educator: Research and practice (pp. 127-146). Routledge.
Kidwell, T., Peercy, M. M., Tigert, J., & Fredricks, D. (2021). Novice teachers’ use of pedagogical language knowledge to humanize language and literacy development. TESOL Journal. http://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.590.
Peercy, M. M. & Troyan, F. J. (2020). “Am I doing it wrong?”: Critically examining mediation in lesson rehearsal. Teaching and Teacher Education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2020.103082.
Peercy, M. M. & Sharkey, J. (2020). Self-study in English Language Teaching: Emerging considerations about the intersection of teacher educators’ identities and pedagogies. In J. Kitchen, A. Berry, S. M. Bullock, A. Crowe, H. Guðjónsdóttir,, & M. Taylor, (Eds.), International Handbook of Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education (2nd ed.). Springer.
Fredricks, D. & Peercy, M. M. (2020). Youth perspectives on humanizing core practices. In L. Cardozo-Gaibisso & M. V. Dominguez (Eds.), Handbook of research on advancing language equity practices within immigrant communities (pp. 107-128). IGI Global.
Peercy, M. M. & Sharkey, J. (2020). Missing a S-STEP? How self-study of teacher education practice can support the language teacher education knowledge base. Language Teaching Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168818777526
Peercy, M. M., Kidwell, T., Lawyer, M., Tigert, J., Fredricks, D., Feagin, K., & Stump, M. (2019). Experts at being novices: What new teachers can add to practice-based teacher education efforts. Action in Teacher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2019.1675201
Peercy, M. M., Varghese, M., & Dubetz, N. (2019). Critically examining practice-based teacher education for teachers of language minoritized youth. TESOL Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.533
Peercy, M. M., Sharkey, J., Baecher, L., Motha, S., & Varghese, M. (2019). Exploring TESOL teacher educators as learners and reflective scholars: A shared narrative inquiry. TESOL Journal, 10(4). https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.482
Peercy, M. M., Tigert, J., Feagin, K., Kidwell, T., Fredricks, D., Lawyer, M., Bitter, M., Canales, N., & Mallory, A. (2019). “I need to take care of myself”: The case for self-care as a core practice for teaching. In C. R. Rinke & L. Mawhinney (Eds.), Opportunities and challenges in teacher recruitment and retention: Teacher voices across the pipeline(pp. 303-325). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Sharkey, J. & Peercy, M. M. (Eds.). (2018). Self-study of language and literacy teacher education practices: Culturally and linguistically diverse contexts. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing.
Troyan, F. J. & Peercy, M. M. (2018). Moving beyond “Très bien’: Examining teacher educator practice in lesson rehearsals. In J. Sharkey & M. M. Peercy (Eds.), Self-study of language and literacy teacher education practices:Culturally and linguistically diverse contexts. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing.
Peercy, M. M., DeStefano, M., Sethna, K., & Bitter, M. (2018).Scaffolding scaffolding: A collaborative effort to understand and enact appropriate scaffolding for EL learning in science. In J. Sharkey (Ed.), Engaging Research: Transformative Practice for Elementary Settings(pp. 133-148). Alexandria, VA: TESOL Press.
Peercy, M. M. (2018). Mainstream and ESL teacher collaboration. In J. Liontas, M. DelliCarpini, G. Park, & S. Salas (Eds.), TESOL encyclopedia of English language teaching, v.7 (section on teacher training and professional development) (pp. 4631-4636). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Peercy, M. M. & Troyan, F. J. (2017). Making transparent the challenges of developing a practice-based pedagogy of teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 61, 26-36.
Peercy, M. M., Ditter, M., & DeStefano, M. (2017). “We need more consistency”: Negotiating the division of labor in ESOL-mainstream teacher collaboration. TESOL Journal, 8(1), 215-239.
Peercy, M. M., Martin-Beltrán, M., Yazan, B., & DeStefano, M. (2017). “Jump in any time”: How teacher struggle with curricular reform generates opportunities for teacher learning. Action in Teacher Education, 39(2), 203-217.
Spencer Foundation Grant for Supporting Novice Teachers of ELLs through the Examination of Practice (STEP), 2019-2023.
Maryland State Department of Education Teacher Collaborative Grant Program, Maryland Professional Development Schools 2025, 2019-2023.
TLPL 743, Teaching English Language Learners: Current and future research directions
A recent review of the literature on preparing teachers for linguistically diverse classrooms noted that “teacher educators…need to increase their advocacy for and knowledge of linguistically diverse learners and include more focused pedagogical practices aimed at teaching English language learners (ELLs) in all methods courses, foundational courses, and fieldwork experiences” (Faltis & Valdes, 2016). ELLs are the fastest-growing student population in the country, and comprise 10% of students in US public schools (Ruiz Soto, Hooker, & Batalova, 2015). Thus, a critical responsibility of all teacher educators is to equip teachers with the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and capacity to enact practices that will support them to work with ELLs in ways that allow them to develop academically. This course explores the implications of the current context of schools for the preparation and practices of teachers and teacher educators, as well as the theoretical frameworks and research designs needed to move the field forward.
TLPL 788Y, Pedagogy of Teacher Education
More than 3 decades ago, Lanier & Little (1986) noted that “Teachers of teachers–-what they are like, what they do, what they think—are systematically overlooked in studies of teacher education” (p. 528). More recently, education scholars have noted that we continue to have important gaps in our knowledge regarding the practices of teacher educators, the impact of their work on teachers, and on the learners they teach (e.g., Conklin, 2015; Darling-Hammond, 2016; Goodwin et al., 2014; Knight et al., 2014). Furthermore, generally little is done to prepare teacher educators for the pedagogies in which they engage (Conklin, 2015; Zeichner, 2005), and teacher educators report feeling unprepared to engage in their work (e.g., Goodwin et al., 2014). This course aims to illuminate and challenge the somewhat implicit pedagogies of teacher education that have existed over time, and to develop a more overt knowledge of where the field is, and should be, as we engage in the opportunities and challenges of teaching and teacher education in our current era. To do so, we examine teacher education as racialized, linguicized, and gendered, and as situated in larger political and power-laden contexts.
TLPL 665, Methods of Teaching ESOL
Course participants examine, practice, and critically reflect upon classroom practices that support the learning of multilingual learners in varied educational contexts.