Introduction
Suzy Kaback has been a Literacy teacher educator for more than 20 years. Before that, she was an elementary classroom teacher in Maine and Massachusetts, experiences she wrote about as co-author of The Back to School Book (2003). Suzy is passionate about working with aspiring and practicing classroom teachers, supporting the ways they understand how to teach children to use reading, writing, listening and speaking as tools for personal, academic and community growth. She is a regular contributor to Choice Literacy, writing essays about teaching that is student-focused, innovative, ambitious, and justice-oriented.
Lately, Suzy is curious and optimistic about the ways in which AI will amplify teachers' practices, particularly their ability to engage and motivate children to read and write in meaningful ways. Bringing many voices to conversations about AI and education, particularly classroom teachers', is central to leveraging its potential for teaching and learning.
Research Interests
Most recently, practice-based teacher preparation pedagogies have helped fuse my social-constructivist and equity-minded approaches to ELA teacher preparation. Engaging in a learning cycle with high leverage teaching practices alongside studying and adapting quality ELA curricular materials gives teacher candidates rich, varied opportunities to study, practice and enact ambitious instruction. I have researched, published, and presented with my University of St. Thomas colleagues about our practice-based approach to teacher education.