Jennifer Jordan, PhD

Clinical Professor, Elementary and Literacy Education

Biography

Jennifer Jordan is a clinical associate professor of Elementary Education and Literacy Studies at the University of Tennessee where she serves as the Elementary Education Coordinator. She joined the faculty at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2009. She supervises intern teaching, facilitates communication between the university and partnership schools, and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses.

Professional Background

Research

Supporting the work of teachers has always been the underlying purpose of Jordan’s scholarly work. Whether through examining the beliefs and practices of pre-service and in-service teachers, adding to the research-base of emergent reading and writing, or examining best-practices in pedagogy, her work is focused on making relevant connections between research and instruction.  While preparing teachers at the university level, her research has naturally centered on examining how teachers’ beliefs affect their practices.  Research has explored the link between how in-service teachers’ beliefs affect the attainment of research-based practices, and, how these belief systems similarly affect pre-service teachers’ ability to modify their instruction.  Another thread of Prof. Jordan’s research agenda centers on reading and writing methods in the early grades.  This research has been disseminated at numerous local, state, regional, national and international presentations on how to successfully integrate emergent literacy practices in the K-2 classroom.  A final thread of her research is centered on instructional pedagogy.  A significant amount of her teaching and supervision load is related to developing pre-teachers’ pedagogical expertise.  Therefore, a large portion of time has been devoted to studying some of these practices.  Research has focused mainly on questioning strategies and academic language (components of the TEAM and edTPA rubrics that students are evaluated with).  Jordan believes that it is critical for teachers at any point in their careers—pre-service or in-service— to continually critically reflect on their practice and continue to grow as professionals.  She holds herself to that same standard and her research agenda reflects the desire to continuously improve as an educator.  She plans to continue to explore the beliefs teachers hold, the literacy knowledge they have, and the pedagogy they enact to better prepare future teachers.