INSTITUTE KEYNOTERS
Susan Moore Johnson
Supporting and Retaining the Next Generation of Teachers
Susan Moore Johnson is the Pforzheimer Professor of Teaching and Learning at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she served as academic dean from 1993 to 1999. She studies and teaches about teacher policy, organizational change, and administrative practice. A former high school teacher and administrator, Johnson has a continuing research interest in the work of teachers and the reform of schools. She has studied the leadership of superintendents, the effects of collective bargaining on schools, the use of incentive pay plans for teachers, and the school as a context for adult work. Johnson has published four books and many articles about these topics. She is a member of the National Academy of Education.
Since 1998, Johnson and a group of advanced doctoral students have been engaged in a multiyear research study, The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, which examines how best to recruit, support, and retain a strong teaching force. The project, which is funded by several foundations, includes studies of hiring practices, alternative certification programs, new teachers' attitudes toward careers, new teachers' experiences with colleagues, and the current role of unionism in teaching.
Johnson has written three books about teachers and their work. The first, Teacher Unions in Schools (1984) focuses on the role of teachers unions in the day-to-day work of schools in six districts. In the second, Teachers at Work: Achieving Success in Our Schools (1990), Johnson examines the school as a workplace for teachers, drawing upon interviews with 125 public and private school teachers. In 2004, Johnson and her colleagues at the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers published Finders and Keepers: Helping New Teachers Survive and Thrive in Our Schools.
Marcia Tate
Classroom Management
Marcia L. Tate, Ed. D. is the former Executive Director of Professional Development for the DeKalb County School System, Decatur, Georgia. During her 30-year career with the district, she has been a classroom teacher, reading specialist, language arts coordinator, and staff development director. She received the 2001 Distinguished Staff Developer Award for the State of Georgia and her department was chosen to receive the Exemplary Program Award for the state.
Marcia is currently an educational consultant and has taught over 150,000 administrators, teachers, parents, and business and community leaders throughout the world. She is a member of the Corwin Press Speaker's Bureau and the author of the following four best-sellers: (1) Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites: 20 Instructional Strategies that Engage the Brain, (2) Sit & Get Won't Grow Dendrites: 20 Professional Learning Strategies that Engage the Adult Brain, (3) Reading and Language Arts Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites: 20 Literacy Strategies that Engage the Brain. and (4) Shouting Won't Grow Dendrites: 20 Techniques for Managing a Brain-compatible Classroom. Participants in her workshops refer to them as the best ones they have ever experienced since Marcia uses the 20 strategies outlined in her books to actively engage her audiences.
Marcia received her bachelor's degree in psychology and elementary education from Spelman College in Atlanta Georgia. She earned her Master's degree in remedial reading from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, her specialist degree in educational leadership from Georgia State University and her doctorate in educational leadership from Clark Atlanta University. Spelman College awarded her the Apple Award for excellence in the field of education.
Marcia is married to Tyrone Tate and is the proud mother of three children: Jennifer, Jessica, and Christopher. She can be contacted by calling her company, Developing Minds Inc. at (770) 918-5039 or by e-mail at marciata@bellsouth.net.
Visit her website at www.developingmindsinc.com.