COE Faculty Profile

Virginia L. Navarro, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Division of Teaching and learning

Education
Dr. Navarro completed her doctoral work in education at Washington University, St. Louis, in 1994 after teaching high school English in both public and private schools. Her dissertation, The Dialogic Development of Scientific Concepts Using Critical Thinking Skills in Small Group Interactions, analyzes the discourse of young children working in groups over a seventeen week physical science unit on gravity. She graduated cum laude from Loyola University in Chicago majoring in English with a minor in education and spent her junior year studying in Rome, Italy. She believes preservice teachers would greatly benefit from such opportunities to study abroad. Her interest in child development and learning merge professional and personal interests; she considers her years "in the field" raising four children to be a crucial link to her understanding of development issues.

Research and Teaching
Present research involves analysis of language pragmatics and how situated language reveals underlying cognitive schema that inevitably shape the significance we ascribe to our experiences. Articles with Scot Danforth on the social construction of mental retardation and ADHD have evolved from this line of inquiry. Research interests also include the relationship between speaking and thinking, the development of concept learning, issues of gender and culture, and sociocultural theory. Dr. Navarro teaches both graduate and undergraduate human development courses as well as courses in educational psychology, and qualitative research. She believes in professional development model of teacher preparation that is technology rich, field based, and models inclusive practice.

Representative Publications
Danforth, S. & Navarro, V. (in review). Hyper talk: The social construction of ADHD in everyday language. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 2000.

Navarro, V. (1999). Review of Wertsch, J. (1998) Mind as action in Language and Social Processes SIG newsletter.

Danforth, S. & Navarro, V. (February, 1998). Speech acts: Sampling the social construction of mental retardation in everyday life. Mental Retardation 36(1), 31-43.

Hudgins, B., Riesenmy, M., Mitchell, S., Kline, C., & Navarro, V. (1994). Self-direction as a means of enhancing children's thinking in physical science. Journal of Educational Research, 88, 15-27.

Honors/ Awards
Chancellor's Award for Excellence, Academic Non-Regular, 2000

• Cognitive Processes/Development
• Educational Reform
• Language Processes
• Qualitative Research
• Social Processes/Development
• Teacher Education/Development
• Urban Education