Alice Lesnick

Biography

Alice Lesnick serves as Senior Lecturer in Education and Director in the Bryn Mawr/Haverford Alice Lesnick, Ph.D.Education Program, where she teaches several courses including Education 225: Empowering Learners, Education 310: Defining Educational Practice, and Education 311: Fieldwork Seminar.

In addition, Alice oversees two Staff-Student Educational Partnership Programs (The Empowering Learners Partnership [ELP] and Using Email and the World Wide Web [EW3]) which bring together faculty members and students in reciprocal teaching and learning partnerships.

Alice is also involved with the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) Program in several ways. With Jody Cohen, she co-facilitates the two-week Summer Program for rising sophomores, which offers preparation for the MMUF in the context of a community-building, academically rich program; mentors Mellon Fellows; and participates in MMUF-sponsored events throughout the academic year.

- Alice is currently co-authoring with Jody Cohen and Education Program alumna (and current Coordinator of Staff Education at the College) Darla Attardi an article in which they explore the kinds of interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary opportunities for talk, writing, and action that they seek to cultivate through their courses.

- Working with a student, Alice recently gained approval from the College's IRB to initiate a study of the staff-student educational partnership projects. As action research, the study will document, analyze, and seek to inform the design and development of the two continuing education programs. These programs each use a different educational model and they are part of a broader context of staff education. The study aims to contribute to the field of adult and intergenerational learning and to our knowledge of distinctive approaches to community building through education within institutions of higher learning. By seeking to understand participants’ perspectives, the researchers hope to inform both theory and practice in the development of the College as a setting that connects community members through the sharing of knowledge, skill-development, and community building.

In keeping with the focus on collaboration, Alice has recently authored a chapter on collaborative learning for a book (under review) to represent 25 years of educational innovation by the Institute for Writing and Thinking, of which she serves as a Faculty Associate.

As a Faculty Associate of the Institute for Writing and Thinking, Alice leads professional development initiatives for teachers in the use of informal writing to foster learning. Before becoming a teacher educator, she taught pre-school, third grade, secondary English, and adults, including college freshmen, second language learners, and non-traditional students returning for undergraduate study.

She holds a Ph.D. in Reading/Writing/Literacy from the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, an M.A. in Liberal Education from St. John's College, and a B.A. in English from Yale College.

Research

Recent publications include:

Lesnick, A. (2006). "Forms of Engagement: The Ethical Significance of Literacy Teaching." Ethics and Education, I: 1.

Lesnick, A. (2006). Essay Book Review of Because Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in our Schools (National Writing Project and
Carl Nagin, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003). Journal of Teacher Education, 57: 1.

Lesnick, A. (February, 2005). "The Mirror in Motion: Redefining Reflective Practice in an Undergraduate Field Work Seminar." Reflective Practice,
6:1, pp. 33-48.

Lesnick, A. (June, 2005). "On the Job: Performing Gender and Inequality at Work, Home, and School." Journal of Education and Work, 18: 2, pp.
189-201.

Lesnick, A., Cesaitis, A., Jagtiani, U., & Miller, R. (2004). "Curriculum Design as Re-Writing: Online "Chat" as a Resource for Radicalizing the
Teaching of a Canonical Text." Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue, 6:1, pp. 35-48.

Courses: Fall 2007, Haverford

Courses: Spring 2008, Haverford