Drawing from a sociocultural and equity-oriented understanding of teaching, I use self-reflexive and participatory qualitative methods to study the growth and development of teachers and teacher educators, particularly as they work for socially just outcomes for linguistically and culturally diverse learners in PK-12 settings. I am deeply invested in identifying and understanding the pedagogies that teacher educators utilize to support teachers鈥 experiences of practice, and in the ways in which practice and theory can be in dialogue with one another.
Since 2015 I have led a collective of early career teachers, teacher educators, and multilingual students as we have collaboratively explored the kinds of practices that matter for teaching multilingual students. Examples of my recent work appear in Linguistics and Education, Teaching and Teacher Education, and TESOL Quarterly. I have a recent book with Teachers College Press entitled , and a with many videos that can be used alongside the book, or independently of the book. These videos are useful for showing examples of the core practices in action. I have also developed a with additional resources that can support teacher educators who are preparing teachers to use humanizing pedagogies. I am Co-Director of 91大神's Multilingual Research Center, and I serve on the Editorial Review Board for the . I am active in the American Educational Research Association's (AERA) , , and the .
I have experience as an ESOL and Spanish teacher across a variety of ages and contexts, ranging from pre-K through adults.
91大神 . This award honors senior tenured members of the faculty who combine outstanding scholarly accomplishment with excellence in teaching and personify the image of the professoriate.
American Educational Research Association , 2024. The Leadership through Research Award recognizes scholars who are "highly respected and recognized both nationally and internationally as a leader in the field on issues critical to second language education....[and have] had an impact on equity and access for second language learners and their teachers."
91大神 College of Education Excellence in Graduate Mentoring Award, 2020. Nominated by students in the 91大神 COE as an outstanding mentor.
American Educational Research Association (AERA) Second Language Research SIG Midcareer Award, 2019. The Mid-Career Award is granted to scholars recognized by their peers for 鈥渢he overall degree to which their research advances knowledge in the field of second language research, promotes equity and access for students, teachers, teacher educators, communities, and/or families, and influences the creation, collection, and analysis of data.鈥
91大神 Graduate Faculty Mentor of the Year award, 2011. One of 4 faculty members chosen by students as an outstanding mentor, from 29 nominees across 91大神 campus of 1300+ tenured/tenure-track faculty.
See a more complete listing of my publications on .
Selected recent publications:
Peercy, M. M., Hardy-Skeberdis, M., & Crawford, J. (2024). 鈥淏ecause we bilingual鈥: Examining an early career ESOL teacher鈥檚 humanizing approach to language use. Linguistics and Education, 83. .
Peercy, M. M., Troyan, F. J., Fredricks, D. E., Hardy-Skeberdis, M. (2024). Calling for a humanizing turn in language teacher education: Problematizing content and language instruction. TESOL Quarterly. .
Peercy, M. M., Tigert, J., Fredricks, D., Kidwell, T., Feagin, K., Hall, W., Himmel, J., & Lawyer, M. (2022). From humanizing principles to humanizing practices: Exploring core practices as a bridge to enacting humanizing pedagogy with multilingual students. Teaching and Teacher Education, 113. .
Tigert, J., Peercy, M. M., Fredricks, D., & Kidwell, T. (2021). Humanizing classroom management as a core practice for teachers of multilingual students. TESOL Quarterly. DOI: 10.1002/tesq.3093.
Sharkey, J., Peercy, M. M., Solano-Campos, A., & Schall-Leckrone, L. (2022). Being a reflexive practitioner and scholar in TESOL : Methodological considerations. In E. R. Yuan & I. Lee (Eds.), Becoming and being a TESOL teacher educator: Research and practice (pp. 127-146). Routledge.
Kidwell, T., Peercy, M. M., Tigert, J., & Fredricks, D. (2021). Novice teachers鈥 use of pedagogical language knowledge to humanize language and literacy development. TESOL Journal. .
Peercy, M. M. & Troyan, F. J. (2020). 鈥淎m I doing it wrong?鈥: Critically examining mediation in lesson rehearsal. Teaching and Teacher Education. .
Peercy, M. M. & Sharkey, J. (2020). Self-study in English Language Teaching: Emerging considerations about the intersection of teacher educators鈥 identities and pedagogies. In J. Kitchen, A. Berry, S. M. Bullock, A. Crowe, H. Gu冒j贸nsd贸ttir,, & M. Taylor, (Eds.), International Handbook of Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education (2nd ed.). Springer.
Fredricks, D. & Peercy, M. M. (2020). Youth perspectives on humanizing core practices. In L. Cardozo-Gaibisso & M. V. Dominguez (Eds.), Handbook of research on advancing language equity practices within immigrant communities (pp. 107-128). IGI Global.
Peercy, M. M. & Sharkey, J. (2020). Missing a S-STEP? How self-study of teacher education practice can support the language teacher education knowledge base. Language Teaching Research.
Peercy, M. M., Kidwell, T., Lawyer, M., Tigert, J., Fredricks, D., Feagin, K., & Stump, M. (2019). Experts at being novices: What new teachers can add to practice-based teacher education efforts. Action in Teacher Education.
Peercy, M. M., Varghese, M., & Dubetz, N. (2019). Critically examining practice-based teacher education for teachers of language minoritized youth. TESOL Quarterly.
Peercy, M. M., Sharkey, J., Baecher, L., Motha, S., & Varghese, M. (2019). Exploring TESOL teacher educators as learners and reflective scholars: A shared narrative inquiry. TESOL Journal, 10(4).
Peercy, M. M., Tigert, J., Feagin, K., Kidwell, T., Fredricks, D., Lawyer, M., Bitter, M., Canales, N., & Mallory, A. (2019). 鈥淚 need to take care of myself鈥: The case for self-care as a core practice for teaching. In C. R. Rinke & L. Mawhinney (Eds.), Opportunities and challenges in teacher recruitment and retention: Teacher voices across the pipeline(pp. 303-325). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Sharkey, J. & Peercy, M. M. (Eds.). (2018). Self-study of language and literacy teacher education practices: Culturally and linguistically diverse contexts. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing.
Troyan, F. J. & Peercy, M. M. (2018). Moving beyond 鈥淭r猫s bien鈥: Examining teacher educator practice in lesson rehearsals. In J. Sharkey & M. M. Peercy (Eds.), Self-study of language and literacy teacher education practices:Culturally and linguistically diverse contexts. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing.
Peercy, M. M., DeStefano, M., Sethna, K., & Bitter, M. (2018).Scaffolding scaffolding: A collaborative effort to understand and enact appropriate scaffolding for EL learning in science. In J. Sharkey (Ed.), Engaging Research: Transformative Practice for Elementary Settings(pp. 133-148). Alexandria, VA: TESOL Press.
Peercy, M. M. (2018). Mainstream and ESL teacher collaboration. In J. Liontas, M. DelliCarpini, G. Park, & S. Salas (Eds.), TESOL encyclopedia of English language teaching, v.7 (section on teacher training and professional development) (pp. 4631-4636). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Peercy, M. M. & Troyan, F. J. (2017). Making transparent the challenges of developing a practice-based pedagogy of teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 61, 26-36.
Peercy, M. M., Ditter, M., & DeStefano, M. (2017). 鈥淲e need more consistency鈥: Negotiating the division of labor in ESOL-mainstream teacher collaboration. TESOL Journal, 8(1), 215-239.
Peercy, M. M., Martin-Beltr谩n, M., Yazan, B., & DeStefano, M. (2017). 鈥淛ump in any time鈥: How teacher struggle with curricular reform generates opportunities for teacher learning. Action in Teacher Education, 39(2), 203-217.
Spencer Foundation Grant for Supporting Novice Teachers of ELLs through the Examination of Practice (STEP), 2019-2023.
Maryland State Department of Education Teacher Collaborative Grant Program, Maryland Professional Development Schools 2025, 2019-2023.
TLPL 743, Teaching English Language Learners: Current and future research directions
Future teachers often attend the nation鈥檚 most segregated schools, offering them little firsthand experience with cultural, linguistic, and racial diversity to draw upon in their work as teachers. A recent review of the literature noted that to support these teachers, 鈥teacher educators鈥eed to increase their advocacy for and knowledge of linguistically diverse learners and include more focused pedagogical practices aimed at teaching [multilingual] learners (MLLs) in all methods courses, foundational courses, and fieldwork experiences鈥 (Faltis & Valdes, 2016, p. 556). MLLs are one of the fastest-growing student populations in the country, and comprise 10% of students in US public schools (NCES, 2025), and 11.5% of the total population of Maryland public school students (). Thus, a critical responsibility of all teacher educators is to equip teachers with the capacity to enact humanizing practices that will support them to work with linguistically and culturally diverse learners in ways that support their academic success. This course examines teacher education through the lens of teaching MLLs, asking the larger question: How can we prepare teachers of MLLS to engage in humanizing pedagogy? To do so, this course covers issues related to the broader field of teacher education, including:
TLPL 771, Pedagogy of Teacher Education
More than 3 decades ago, Lanier & Little (1986) noted that 鈥淭eachers of teachers鈥-what they are like, what they do, what they think鈥攁re systematically overlooked in studies of teacher education鈥 (p. 528). More recently, education scholars have noted that we continue to have important gaps in our knowledge regarding the practices of teacher educators, the impact of their work on teachers, and on the learners they teach (e.g., Conklin, 2015; Darling-Hammond, 2016; Goodwin et al., 2014; Knight et al., 2014). Furthermore, generally little is done to prepare teacher educators for the pedagogies in which they engage (Conklin, 2015; Zeichner, 2005), and teacher educators report feeling unprepared to engage in their work (e.g., Goodwin et al., 2014). This course aims to illuminate and challenge the somewhat implicit pedagogies of teacher education that have existed over time, and to develop a more overt knowledge of where the field is, and should be, as we engage in the opportunities and challenges of teaching and teacher education in our current era. To do so, we examine teacher education as racialized, linguicized, and gendered, and as situated in larger political and power-laden contexts.
TLPL 665, Methods of Teaching ESOL
Course participants examine, practice, and critically reflect upon classroom practices that support the learning of multilingual learners in varied educational contexts.