Faculty Profile: Dr. Ava L. McCall, Ph.D., Professor

 

I taught in both low-income culturally diverse and middle-class European American elementary schools in South Bend, Indiana from 1970-1983. I also taught in a multi-age, alternative program for elementary students who needed a different setting and experience from a traditional elementary classroom. Since moving into teacher education in 1987, I taught introduction to education and methods courses in social studies, reading, and language arts. During the past 10 years I have concentrated on teaching social studies methods and supervising clinical students.

During the past 15 years, my scholarship has primarily focused on improving social studies education through a multicultural, social reconstructionist approach. I have studied my own teaching and students’ responses as a teacher educator and as a collaborator with an elementary teacher in a fourth-grade classroom. I also have researched examples of exemplary Wisconsin studies teaching. In addition, I have published a number of articles offering examples of strategies and resources to enrich social studies education and implement a multicultural, social reconstructionist approach.