Kara Mitchell Viesca Professor

2010 PH.D., CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION, BOSTON COLLEGE
2002 M.A., EDUCATION, STANFORD UNIVERSITY
2000 B.A., GERMAN, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

Dr. Viesca's research focuses on advancing equity in the policy and practice of educator development with a particular focus on teachers of multilingual learners (both regular content teachers and language specialists). For a decade (from 2011-2021) she led $4.6 million dollars of federal grants focused on improving teaching and learning for multilingual students and their teachers. As part of this work many online materials were developed to support both teacher and student learning (see https://cehs.unl.edu/icmee/).

Her current scholarship is focused on anti-oppressive, humanizing, and racially just pedagogies for multilingual learners and their teachers. At the heart of great teaching for and with multilingual students is positive engagement with diversity, which must attend to race, class, gender, culture, language, ability, sexuality, religion, etc. Dr. Viesca is currently engaged in international, national, and local research collaborations to support teachers in developing classroom communities, curricula, and pedagogies where diversity is positively productive, and self-actualization can occur in reciprocity (and with accountability).

Areas of Expertise:

    Teacher Preparation
    Educator Development
    Teacher Professional Learning
    Bilingual Language Development
    Education Policy
    Critical Race Theory
    Sociocultural Theory/Instructional Practices