English education professor to serve on new research advisory panel

Peter Smagorinsky, the Distinguished Research Professor of English Education in the department of language and literacy education, was recently invited to serve on the James S. McDonnell Foundation (JSMF) Advisory Panel for a new education research program.

Founded in 1950 by aerospace pioneer James S. McDonnell, the Foundation was established to improve the quality of life for future generations through its support of research and scholarship. JSMF awards grants through a peer-reviewed proposal process to support scholarly research and collaboration.

The Foundation will soon support a new education research grant program focused on the science of teaching and teachers as learners. By supporting multi-disciplinary teams and promoting translational education research, the program can highlight often-overlooked areas of research, such as how teachers learn to facilitate communication in the classroom and understanding and implementing cognitive-based teaching practices.

As part of the advisory panel, Smagorinsky will advise on requests for admission, letters of inquiry and serve on the proposal review panel. Funded research teams will present their work and interact with representatives of other funded research projects, as well as advisory panel members.

Smagorinsky is looking forward to working with scholars he admires in the field. His research is unified by a sociocultural approach to understanding literary teaching with a focus on the study of written and artistic compositions, as well as group discussions oriented to literary interpretation and interpretive texts.