Early Childhood Education

Erika Thulin Dawes is chair of the Language and Literacy Department and Professor of Language and Literacy in the Graduate School of Education at Lesley University. Erika also serves as the program director of the graduate Early Childhood Education program. 

A former elementary classroom teacher, reading specialist, and district literacy administrator, Erika now teaches and mentors courses in early childhood literacy, children's literature, and elementary literacy methods. Prior to Lesley, Erika taught literacy methods courses at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Along with Mary Ann Cappiello, she is the co-author of Teaching with Text Sets (Shell, 2012) and Teaching to Complexity: A Framework for Evaluating Literary and Content-Area Texts (Shell, 2014) and a forthcoming book with Stenhouse Publishers in 2019. She is a co-author of a book on writing instruction, Learning to Write with Purpose: Effective Instruction in Grades 4-8 (2009), and the author of ancillary materials for the well-established textbook Charlotte Huck's Children's Literature, now in its tenth edition, authored by her mentor Dr. Barbara Kiefer. In 2016, Erika was appointed chair of the Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children committee of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), for a two-year term.

She blogs about children's and young adult literature currently at "The Classroom Bookshelf," and reviews children's and middle grade books for Language Arts.

Erika teaches in the early childhood and elementary programs in the Graduate School of Education. Her life-long passion for educational technologies in constructivist learning environments emerged from an experiential situation; at an early age, she was afforded the opportunity to be schooled under the skillful direction of a Socratic practitioner in a confluent education program. More importantly, she discovered how self-directed learning helps students find opportunity when faced with adversity as it requires them to use adaptive reflection, reason, and logic to solve problems.

Erika's research in higher education suggests that the most successful adult learning environments are those utilizing a humanist pedagogical approach alongside 21st century connectivist ideals. She contends that contemporary adult learning must arise from this balance if it is to be self-generative and sustainable. Her research is part of a small but growing body of literature focused on graduate students’ experiences in certain learning contexts.

She has found both correlations and divergences regarding students’ level of digital nativity in her quest to develop a novel model for contemporary adult learning. Recent interests take Erika beyond the efficacy of the techno-peripheral to consider the complexities of creativity, intellectual freedom, and flow in the adult experience in higher education.

Specialized areas of expertise: Philosophy of Education, Cognitive & Developmental Theory, Socialnomics, Systems Design, and Program Planning & Evaluation

Education: M.Ed., Lesley University; PhD, Lesley University

I have been teaching part time at Lesley for fifteen years. With support from Ben Mardell and the technology department at Lesley, I developed and taught an online version of the course: Observation, Documentation and Assessment.  Earlier, I developed, with the guidance of Mary Mindess, a course: Literacy and the Arts for Young Children. 

I am the Assistant Director at Infant Toddler and Children’s Center in Acton. ITC is a childcare center supporting 170 families. I supervise and support a faculty of 35 teachers as they build relationships, develop curriculum, design environments and work on and implement assessment and documentation. I work closely with parents and contribute to our center’s monthly newsletter. I have supervised many student teachers from Lesley University, Fitchburg State, and Wheelock College at our center.

I have presented numerous workshops/trainings through the Early Childhood Advisory Council and other area teacher professional development agencies. I have presented at the NAEYC conferences on professional development, environment design, curriculum development and parent support. I have also sat on many panels for early childhood education presentations/conversations in the area and at the Boulder Journey School in Colorado.

In the past, I have contributed to Exchange Magazine and Young Children Magazine and developed curriculum for Early Childhood textbooks as well as a variety of articles for the childcare center newsletter where I work. Earlier in my career I taught kindergarten in the Arlington Public Schools.

Education:  MA, Lesley University (concentration in art, early education, and adult learners)