Education Disruption and Transformation: What Students and Teachers Need to Thrive
Additional Lecture To Be Announced
Our education system is facing incredible challenges, and it seems like each day brings new ideas for reform. But how do we know what will actually work? The Marsal Family School of Education is leading groundbreaking advancements in education and educator preparation in the P-20 Partnership.* This one-of-a-kind, birth through graduate school campus, when fully built out, will serve thousands of Detroit students as emerging “leaders designing change” while simultaneously growing an innovative educator preparation program and teaching residency through the Michigan Education Teaching School. What’s more, this model will serve as a proof of concept at the center of a pioneering Marsal Education research study designed to provide evidence as to what we can do to disrupt and transform education in this country – particularly for children and youth who have been historically disenfranchised.
*Includes The U-M Marsal Family School of Education, the University of Michigan, Detroit Public Schools Community District, The Kresge Foundation, Starfish Family Services, and the Marygrove Conservancy.
Elizabeth Birr Moje
Dean, George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor of Education and Arthur F Thurnau Professor, Marsal Family School of Education
Faculty Associate, Institute for Social Research
Faculty Affiliate in Latino/a Studies, College of LSA
University of Michigan
Elizabeth Birr Moje is dean, George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor of Education, and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture in the Marsal Family School of Education. Moje teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in secondary and adolescent literacy, cultural theory, and research methods and was awarded the Provost’s Teaching Innovation Prize with colleague, Bob Bain, in 2010. A former high school history and biology teacher, Moje’s research examines young people’s culture, identity, and literacy learning in and out of school in Detroit, Michigan.
Moje has published 5 books and numerous articles in journals such as Science, Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Reading Research Quarterly, Socius, Journal of Literacy Research, Review of Education Research, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Science Education, International Journal of Science Education, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, and the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Her research projects have been or are currently funded by the National Institutes of Health/NICHD, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, National Science Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Spencer Foundation, International Reading Association, and the National Academy of Education. Moje is a member of the William T. Grant Foundation Board of Trustees, an elected member of the National Academy of Education, and an elected member of the Reading Hall of Fame. In 2022, she received the Oscar Causey Award for Distinguished Contributions in Literacy Research from the Literacy Research Association and in 2023 she received the Senior Career Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Council of Research on Language and Literacy.
In September, 2018, together with several partners, including the Detroit Public Schools Community District and the Kresge Foundation, Moje announced the School of Education’s participation in the development of a cradle-to-career education system in a northwest Detroit neighborhood, on the Marygrove College campus. This vertically aligned education continuum now supports the learning of children and families from before birth through age 5 as well as grades K-2, 9-12, and postsecondary educator preparation. The schools will continue to add one grade per year and until they have a comprehensive prenatal through grade 12 set of offerings for children and families in Detroit. She also was recognized among Crain’s Detroit Business’ Notable Leaders in Higher Education in 2023.