Karen Feagin

Research Interests

Educational language policy; fair assessment of multilingual students

Bio

Karen Feagin is a PhD candidate in the Applied Linguistics and Language Education program at the University of Maryland. Her research interests include fair assessment of language learners, language policy in both macro- and micro-contexts, and the relationship between language policy and assessment in K-12 US classroom settings. While at the University of Maryland, she has taken part in a research group focusing on the experiences of novice ESOL teachers and helped found the student-led Language Science Policy Committee. She She completed her MS in Applied Linguistics at Georgetown University and her BA in Linguistics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and participated in Dr. Lisa Green’s inaugural Summer Dialect Research Project at the Center for the Study of African American Language at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has worked in language assessment at the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, DC, and at Second Language Testing, Inc., in Rockville, MD.

Publications

Feagin, K., & MacSwan, J. (under contract, expected publication 2021). What’s in a name? Promoting a resource orientation in descriptions of bilingual students. In C. Aquino-Sterling & B. B. Flores (Eds.), Bilingual Spanish-English teacher education: Reimagining critical and transformative theoretical designs. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishers.

Peercy, M. M., Kidwell, T., Destefano-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, 42(3), 212-223. https://doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2019.1675201

Morgan, D., Feagin, K., & Shapiro, N. (eds.) (2019). Reforming mathematics in Maryland: Stories from the journey. College Park, MD: University System of Maryland.

Peercy, M. M., Tigert, J., Feagin, K., Kidwell, T., Fredricks, D., Lawyer, M., Bitter, M., Canales, N., Mallory, A., & the Voices from the Field Teachers. (2019). “I need to take care of myself”: The case for self-care as a core practice for teaching. In C. R. Rinke & L. K. Mawhinney (Eds.), Opportunities and challenges in teacher recruitment and retention (pp. 303-325). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Honors & Awards

University of Maryland Graduate School University Fellowship (2016-2020)

Mark Adam Eisdorfer Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Linguistics, UNC Chapel Hill (2008)

Camões Prize for Undergraduate Excellence in Portuguese, UNC Chapel Hill (2007)

Phi Beta Kappa (Inducted 2007)

Courses

Courses taught

TLPL655, Assessment in the Second Language Classroom (Summer 2019)

TLPL664, Foundations of Second Language Education: Legal, Social, and Historical Trends and Issues (Fall 2018)

EDCI631, Assessment in the Second Language Classroom (Summer 2018)

Selected courses taken

Methodological courses

EDMS645, Quantitative Research Methods I

EDPS788Q, Critical Qualitative Research Colloquium

EDMS646, General Linear Models I

EDMS651, General & Generalized Linear Models II

EDPS730, Case Study Methods

EDMS623, Applied Measurement: Issues & Practice

EDMS647, Causal Inference & Evaluation (Audit)

TLPL793, Methods of Discourse Analysis

EDMS657, Exploratory Latent & Composite Variable Methods (Audit)

TLPL788B, Critical Perspectives on Ethnographic Methods