Research Spotlight: Dr. Criselda Garcia
Q & A with Dr. Criselda Garcia, Associate Dean for Initial Preparation Programs and Academic Affairs of the College of Education and P-16 Integration
What are your research interests and research achievements?
My research interests and areas of expertise focus on Latino pre-service teacher preparation, specifically for leveraging culturally relevant pedagogies for working with diverse K-12 students successfully. In a broader context, my interest is on organizational change to facilitate and manage educational improvements. To highlight recent research achievements, through the work of a three-year University of Texas System Turnaround Partnership Grant, we have engaged in examining the transformative factors that have contributed to improvement and change at La Joya’s Juarez-Lincoln High School, a high needs school by focusing on increasing student achievement of English learners and students with special needs. The partnership included structuring clinical experiences and placements of our teacher candidates at Juarez-Lincoln (JL) with mentor/cooperating teachers for instructional support of JL students. Another research project has stemmed from our work with Raise Your Hand Foundation and support from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Members representing educator preparation from across the state have formed a networked improvement community (NIC) to use improvement science as a vehicle for studying teacher preparation with focus on improving clinical experiences of teacher candidates. As we had to retool our practices and preparation of teachers due to the COVID-19 crisis, a critical area of attention has evolved for building high quality clinical experiences using innovations such as mixed reality simulation learning environments in face-to-face, hybrid and virtual learning environments.
Another area highlighted is my cross-disciplinary research of developing cultural competence and pedagogies in occupational therapy coursework resulting in, Garcia, C. and Garcia, R. (2021). Developing Cultural Competence in an Occupational Therapy Program in a Border Institution in South Texas. In K. Sprott, J. O’Connor, & C. Msengi (Eds.), Designing Culturally Competent Programming for PK-20 Classrooms. Hershey, PA: IGI Global
How does your work align with UTRGV’s and CEP’s strategic plans?
Through clear alignment between the UTRGV and CEP strategic plan, my scholarly work demonstrates the overarching goal of advancing the vision of becoming a highly engaged bilingual university that is responsive to our bilingual and biliterate population. CEP’s vision and motivation of becoming a “catalyst for educational success” for our students, school partners, and community speaks explicitly to many of my professional and scholarly endeavors. With a strong emphasis on student success, my work has focused on improving student experiences and opportunities specifically increasing a knowledge base of innovative, asset-based, culturally relevant pedagogies and cultural competence to inform teaching and other professional practices.
What are your current projects?
My current research projects include completing our three-year University of Texas System Turnaround Partnership Grant of $300,000 with La Joya ISD Juarez-Lincoln High School with my colleague, Dr. Roberto Zamora, associate professor of Organizational and School Leadership. Our project will be presented at the American Educational Research Association in spring 2021, titled, Making Sense of Implementing 39 Initiatives in High School Serving High Percentage of English Learners. Also, as one of eleven educator preparation programs in the state, we have participated as a Raising Texas Teachers Networked Improvement Community (NIC) supported by Raise Your Hand Foundation (RYH) and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in the past few years. Using improvement science, we have collectively tackled the challenge of designing and delivering high quality clinical experiences for teacher candidates. In 2020-2022, with the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on schools and teacher preparation, our NIC launched a research project with Raise Your Hand Foundation. Our goal is to strengthen the network of support for teacher candidates and produce new knowledge in the field of teacher preparation in clinical field experiences in a shifting context that centers virtual environments for coaching and mentoring, including using virtual reality, video representations, and video conferring platforms.