Roland Schendel - MSU Denver

Biography

I became an elementary teacher by chance. Surprised to be paid for a role I loved so dearly, after 8 years, I left the elementary classroom to meet the needs of more students by training and mentoring their current and future teachers.

I am the product of a Professional Development School program where I completed a full year of student teaching. While an elementary classroom teacher, I served as a differentiated instruction coach, service learning liaison, literacy coach, and curriculum mapper for School District # 51 in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Upon leaving the elementary classroom to pursue a doctorate in literacy research at the University of Northern Colorado, my efforts shifted to preparing elementary teachers. Five years later, I became an Assistant Professor of Literacy at Illinois State University where I soon became the Elementary Education Coordinator. My role as coordinator involved the creation, rekindling, nurturing, and evaluation of partnerships with elementary schools.

My desire to research, promote, and create partnerships between teacher preparation programs and elementary schools led me to a role on the Clinical Practice Commission for the AACTE. I served for 3 years to lead teacher preparation at a national level.

As a professor of Elementary Education and Literacy at MSU of Denver I seek opportunities to develop and nurture partnerships with local area schools to enhance teacher preparation and serve classroom teachers and their students.

Research Interests

My qualitative research interests include the experiences of striving and accelerated readers, partnerships between teacher preparation programs and elementary schools, and the experiential development of teacher candidates.

Teaching Interests

Experiential literacy learning with attention to all aspects of student development, learning environments, educator communities, and family involvement are of particular interest.