Faculty Spotlight: Tierney Hinman

1. What is your role in the College of Education? 

As an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching, I currently teach courses within the English/Language Arts and Reading Education programs. My area of expertise is adolescent literacy. My work particularly focuses on supporting teachers in planning and implementing culturally and linguistically responsive literacy instruction in the content areas (e.g., math, music, science).

2. How long have you worked at Auburn?

This is my fifth year at Auburn.

3. What are some new initiatives you are working on now?

I have two projects I am particularly engaged in right now. The first supports preservice teachers in noticing for equity so that, as teachers, they can recognize and leverage the cultural and social knowledges embedded in students’ cognitive contributions. This project, conducted with Dr. Alison Mercier at the University of Wyoming, has involved developing a protocol for preservice teachers to engage in as they develop skills in noticing for equity, including by recognizing the disciplinary concepts underpinning students’ everyday language and experiences. We are currently examining how we might use a form of discourse analysis with preservice teachers to help them unpack the noticing of other teachers before evaluating their own noticing, which is often much more challenging for them.

The second project, conducted with Dr. Amy Tondreau at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and Dr. Wendy Gardiner at Pacific Lutheran University, explores how teacher educators and researchers can work to calibrate critical teacher education between theory and practice in the current political climate. It integrates three theoretical frameworks to consider how we might best support generative professional learning that engages theory and action.

4. What is a part of your job you are especially proud of?

I am especially proud of an initiative I am working on with Dr. Heidi Hadley (Auburn University) that will serve both Auburn University teacher candidates and a local school district starting this fall. Dr. Hadley and I will create and teach a class for Beauregard High School ninth graders targeting instruction on foundational literacy skills (e.g., fluency and word recognition) and higher order literacy processes (e.g., comprehending and writing) while attending to students’ identities, agency, and relationships. We will teach the class alongside a course at Auburn, which will provide freshmen and sophomores interested in English/Language Arts Education with instruction and experience working with adolescents to develop their literacy skills and processes.

5. What is a fun fact about yourself?

The Department of Curriculum and Teaching currently has a Faculty Band in which I play (badly) the clarinet.