This year, we are delighted to launch our first-ever advisory board of educators and thought leaders from across the United States. Our advisory board members will use their valuable experience and expertise to help strengthen our content and community here at WeAreTeachers. We are thrilled to have them on board!
Patty McGee
Patty McGee is the author of Feedback that Moves Writers Forward: How to Escape Correcting Mode to Transform Student Writing and has been a national and international literacy consultant.
She hosts the podcast Teachers Talk Shop. Her latest book, Writers Workshop Made Simple: 7 Essentials for Every Classroom and Every Writer, will be released in July 2021. You can find her on Facebook and Twitter.
Towanda Harris
Dr. Towanda Harris’ teaching, writing, and research support educators with critically looking at instructional resources and practices through a critical lens that helps teachers match their understanding of their student’s needs to their individual goals.
She works to elevate teacher’s voices through her podcast, My Two Cents. Towanda is the author of The Right Tools: A Guide to Selecting, Evaluating, and Implementing Classroom Resources and Practices.
Currently, she is Director of Professional Development and an adjunct professor of reading and writing in Atlanta, Ga. Find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Paul France
Paul Emerich France is a National Board Certified Teacher, literacy specialist, and author of two books, Reclaiming Personalized Learning and Humanizing Distance Learning.
He has been teaching early childhood and elementary school students for over a decade, recently opening his own private teaching and consulting practice in Chicago, Ill., where he resides.
Paul regularly works with educators around the country, helping them to humanize technology integration, personalize learning for all students, and work towards equity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ students. Find him on Instagram and Twitter.
Shannon Webster
Shannon Webster is a special educator from New Jersey who raises the standards of what a resource room looks like in an elementary school.
As an Orton-Gillingham Certified Teacher, she focuses on empowering students to embrace their fullest capability, despite a diagnosis.
Over the last 7 years, she’s incorporated a balanced-literacy approach and an inquiry-based Math mindset, pushing students with IEPs towards grade-level standards. You can find her on Twitter.
Julie Stern
Julie Stern is the best-selling author of Learning that Transfers, Visible Learning for Social Studies, and Tools for Teaching Conceptual Understanding, Elementary and Secondary.
She is the thought leader behind the global workshop series Making Sense of Learning Transfer and is a certified trainer in Visible Learning Plus.
She is a James Madison Constitutional Fellow and taught social studies for many years in Washington, D.C., and her native La. Find her on Instagram and Twitter.
Kayisha Edwards
Kayisha Edwards is dually certified to teach Special Education in grades 1-8 and General Education in grades 1-6.
She currently works as a middle school Learning Specialist by creating, revising, and implementing student IEPs. Kayisha also consults with general educators, across academic subjects, about accessibility and lesson development. She has presented at National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) in 2017 and 2019.
In 2021, Kayisha collaborated with another educator and shared thoughts on anti-racist and intersectional teaching ideas for the classroom in a conversation recorded for Benchmark Education.
Anel Suriel
Anel V. Suriel is a doctoral student at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education.
Her research interests broadly include language education policy, language teacher education, anti-racist education, and the identity formation of bi/ multilingual students in American classrooms.
She was a Bilingual Literacy Instructor for grades 3-8. Currently, Anel teaches theory and methodology courses in the Language Education Department of the Rutgers Graduate School of Education.
Anthony Kim
Anthony Kim is a Corwin Press bestselling author, with publications including New Team Habits, New School Rules, and Personalized Learning Playbook.
He writes about leadership, team motivation, and improving the way we work. Anthony is also the founder of Education Elements, a consulting company with a mission to support education leaders to prepare their systems for the next generation of learners.
Anthony is currently working on a docuseries around the need for a 24 Hour School in Las Vegas. Find him on Twitter.
Fred Dillon
Fred Dillon has 35+ years of classroom teaching in grades 7–12, as well as at the postsecondary level. Additionally, he is a mathematics coach.
Fred’s work has focused on equitable teaching, improving students’ math identities, and fostering mathematical agency. Because of his numerous opportunities to work with districts whose students are traditionally underserved and under resourced and his work with researchers and the university mathematics education community, he is able to span many aspects of the practitioner and researcher worlds.
Fred is also the co-author of NCTM’s Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All, Taking Action: Implementing Effective Mathematics Teaching Practices in Grades 9-12, and Discovering Lessons for the Common Core State Standards in Grades 9-12. Find him on Twitter.
Jane Esposito
Dr. Jane Esposito has been with Sparta High School in Sparta, N.J. since 2000 as a school psychologist on the Child Study Team.
In 2019 she assisted in bringing the Sparta High School Align Wellness Center to fruition. It is a wrap-around counseling center that incorporates wellness classes, such as meditation, mindfulness, yoga with monthly vlogs and webinars for student and staff mental health concerns.
She is also a N.J. Licensed Psychologist who has been in private practice since 2005.
C.C. Bates
Dr. C.C. Bates is a Professor of Literacy Education at Clemson University where she is also the director of the Early Literacy Center.
C.C.’s research focuses on the use of digital tools to enhance and deliver professional development for reading interventionists and K-2 classroom teachers.
She has two new books out: Interactive Writing and The Next Steps Forward in Running Records: Getting to the Heart of Effective Instruction Through Deeper Qualitative Analysis. Find her on Twitter.
