Look to Leadership: Education that improves lives

From designing and studying AI tools to communicating across differences, all human progress begins with education.  

Here at the University of Michigan, particularly in the Marsal Family School of Education, we are leaders and stewards of Life-Changing Education through our research focused on crafting the future of learning. It is Marsal’s responsibility to continuously improve understandings of how people learn and teach so that education experiences are positive, empowering and meaningful for all people.

Here are some of the ways that we are leading education research that improves lives, communities and society.  

Look to the Marygrove Learning Community: Modeling what education can be

The Marygrove Learning Community demonstrates the power of neighborhood revitalization that centers education at the heart of community growth and flourishing.

In 2018, the Marsal Family School of Education, Detroit Public Schools Community District, Starfish Family Services, the Marygrove Conservancy, and The Kresge Foundation announced a collaboration called the Detroit P-20 Partnership, referring to a collective committed to building a rigorous community-engaged pre-natal through college education experience that centers children, their families and their teachers.

On this revolutionary campus, Marsal Education co-designs project- and place-based learning opportunities dedicated to developing students’ knowledge and skills, while also fostering student agency and engagement, and advancing education justice.

This campus is also home to the nation’s first Teaching School. This transformative approach to preparing and retaining educators includes a three-year teacher residency during which certified early-career teachers are employed by the Detroit Public Schools as full-time teachers while continuing to receive support from Marsal faculty and staff as well as veteran teachers at the school.

Students and families also have access to a coordinated web of services designed to address basic needs and promote physical and behavioral health. This empowering environment supports student well-being as well as learning.

Finally, Marsal Education studies the work conducted on the campus for purposes of continual improvement and to develop an evidence-based, scalable concept of collaborative, project- and place-based, public education that also helps teachers at all levels offer excellent education experiences.

Look to Educators: Preparing teachers who transform

High-quality instruction is the single most important factor influencing student learning.  Developing the most knowledgeable, intentional and well-prepared teachers is the best move we can make for the future of education. Marsal is committed not only to leading the world in educator preparation but to making our world-class programs accessible to all who wish to change the world through education.

Starting this fall Marsal is admitting first-year students into the educator preparation programs, extending the years of learning, experience and professional community that we know empower and build confidence in early-career teachers. Such a model is ground-breaking within the field and has the potential to transform educator preparation just as the Marygrove Learning Community is transforming education systems.

Indeed, the combination of four years of training and three years of residency at Marygrove would increase typical teacher training and development by five additional years.

Even as a world-class institution, we are committed to affordability and accessibility for all. We are proud that many of our students can boast a “debt-free teaching degree” between the Go Blue Guarantee, scholarships and additional funds for supporting student tuition.  

Look to LEAPS: U-M undergraduates changing the world through education

LEAPS, or Learning, Equity, and Problem Solving for the Public Good, is a first-of-its-kind undergraduate degree in Marsal in which students learn how to support people to work together to create change. By developing strong collaboration, communication and leadership skills, LEAPS students become “learning leaders” who know how to partner with peers, communities and organizations.  

Through coursework and experiential learning opportunities, students understand how social structures, history, public policies and identity shape the environments where we live, work and learn. They build a deep understanding of human relationships, justice and equity, and complex problem solving — skills and mindsets that are needed in every corner of industry and society.

LEAPS students are change-makers, future educators, policy-makers, entrepreneurs and advocates who see learning as a way to make life better for everyone.

LEAPS blends the world-changing capabilities of a leading public research university with community-based learning on the Marygrove campus in Detroit. During the first year, students live and learn together in Detroit as a cohort before defining individualized concentrations toward future careers. In the second year, students move to the Ann Arbor campus, yet their connections with Detroit partners endure through real-world learning such as internships and projects.

Ultimately, LEAPS equips students with the power to engage with their community and its toughest challenges.

Look to the Learning Sciences: Advancing capacity for human learning

As humans, we must be equipped to identify and address every current and future challenge and opportunity on the planet. Simple, right?

The mission of the Eileen Lappin Weiser Center for the Learning Sciences is to propel the innate capacity for human learning and to foster relationships that lead to wondering, understanding, becoming and thriving. Center faculty, fellows and collaborators advance new scholarship, tools and practices that extend and expand how we conceptualize learning.  

Currently, center faculty are pioneering projects focused on:

• Leveraging AI to boost human agency within learning contexts.
• Exploring connections and leveraging existing projects focused on environmental justice, place-based learning, and community-engaged research.
• Developing a comprehensive research program focused on LEAPS to understand how students learn and design across difference.
• Developing a tool for evaluating how education apps support learning, based on research and best practices.

An incubator for new ideas and collaborations, the center also supports programs that foster community engagement, co-design of practices, tools, and technologies with communities, schools and families, and learning opportunities such as practice-based or research experiences for students.

Look to the Study of Higher Education: Scholarship that improves postsecondary opportunity

At U-M, we not only provide exemplary education to our own students, we also improve postsecondary learning around the globe. In Marsal’s top-ranked Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, our faculty members are improving access, quality, equity, leadership, policy, and student development in colleges, universities and other adult education contexts.  

For example, Dr. Jeremy Wright-Kim’s studies of community colleges address urgent, real-world issues of concern to the public. His impactful community-engaged approaches are exemplified in his Indigenous Education Youth Collective program, a research-practice partnership among the University of Michigan, Anishinaabe youth and families, and Lake Superior State University.  

In addition, Dr. Walter Ecton leads innovative research on Career and Technical Education. His work equips decision-makers at the local, state and national levels with evidence of what will support learners as well as meet industry and workforce demand.  
To transform higher and postsecondary education we must first study it, and Marsal faculty are leading the world on that front. 

Look to Marsal: U-M’s education experts

These initiatives are just a small part of what we do in the Marsal Family School of Education, but they model the qualities of truly transformational education that improve and enrich lives and society. They are:

• Evidence-based: We conduct cutting edge education research on the world’s most pressing education problems.  
• Community-engaged: We learn from and with others in mutually enriching research-practice partnerships that increase our collective capacity to address challenges in education and society.
• Educator-powered: We prepare, support and uplift current and future educators, university leaders, education researchers, policymakers, parents and community members to be the best leaders for the learners they serve.

I invite our campus community members to connect and consult with us in the Marsal Family School of Education as we continue to work together to advance Life-Changing Education.

— By Elizabeth Birr Moje, who is dean, the George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor of Education, and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture in the Marsal Family School of Education. A former high school history and biology teacher, Moje’s research examines young people’s culture, identity, and literacy learning in and out of school in Detroit.

This article was originally published by the University Record as part of the publication’s “Look to Leadership” column.