Corey Sell

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Corey Sell

Professor of Elementary Education & Chair of the Elementary Education and Literacy Department

School of Education

Bio

Corey R. Sell is a Professor of Elementary Education at Metropolitan State University of Denver where he teaches assessment, instruction, and social studies methods courses. He joined the faculty in the fall of 2015 and in May 2018 was awarded the Faculty Senate Excellence in Teaching Award for tenure-track faculty. His research interests include teacher preparation and retention, elementary social studies, and pre-service teacher knowledge development. He values school-university partnerships within his work in teacher preparation publishing several book chapters and co-editing a book on the topic. He advocates for elevating the status of social studies, focusing specifically on the teaching of disciplinary literacy and historical inquiry to elementary students. His work has been published in several journals including Social Studies and the Young Learner and The Social Studies. He aims to develop pre- and in-service teachers’ interest in and knowledge of elementary social studies curriculum within his methods courses by studying his own teaching, which has led to a book chapter and a research publication within the Social Studies Journal. Prior to earning his PhD in Education from George Mason University in May 2013, he was an elementary classroom teacher in Virginia for 12 years.

Degree

PhD in Teaching & Teacher Education

George Mason University

Other in Curriculum & Instruction

University of Virginia

BA in American Studies

University of Mary Washington

Published Works

Research Interests

teacher preparation and retention, elementary social studies, and pre-service teacher knowledge development

Teaching Interests

I understand teaching to be relational, dialogic, contextual, and intellectual. First, teaching is a relational act, because it begins with a student-teacher relationship. From this space, student growth becomes the focus of my thinking and the impetus for my teaching behavior. Second, in line with Vygotsky’s (1978) notion of learning as a social endeavor, I believe teaching to be dialogic in nature. Borrowing from Alexander (2006) I define dialogic teaching as a collective, reciprocal, and supportive process of learning that results in the co-construction of knowledge. The teacher guides the learning towards intentional goals but doesn’t prescribe the particular path for the students and themselves to follow. Third, I believe teaching to be contextual in that learning is situated and requires components of both theory and practice. Connecting theory to a more immediate utility of that theory, i.e. practice, shifts learning of knowledge from an abstract plane to a more concrete plane and it is within this space that students have something concrete to practice or enact within real-world situations—which further develops their understanding of both theory and practice. Lastly, I believe teaching to be an intellectual endeavor that requires constant reflection upon one’s practice, which should result in immediate adjustments.

Office Hours

Tuesday - [02:00 to 05:00]

Thursday - [2:00 to 5:00]