NCID-1046
Debi Khasnabis
Clinical Associate Professor of Education, School of Education and Director Academic Program, Educational Studies, School of Education
University of Michigan
Education/Degree:
1 Educational Studies in Literacy, Language, and Culture (University of Michigan)
About
Dr. Khasnabis teaches multicultural and multilingual education in elementary teacher education and is the co-coordinator of the ESL endorsement program at the School of Education at the University of Michigan. She conducts research on pedagogies of teacher education that support the development of culturally responsive teaching. She has been a leadership team member of the Mitchell Scarlett Teaching and Learning Collaborative, where she has regularly designed professional development opportunities for teachers and family engagement programs that aim to build connections between families and schools. Dr. Khasnabis has designed professional development opportunities for practicing teachers across southeast Michigan on the topics of homelessness and schools, anti-bias education, culturally responsive teaching, family outreach, and multilingual learners. Prior to her work at the University of Michigan, Dr. Khasnabis was an elementary bilingual teacher (Spanish and English) in southwest Detroit. She earned her BA in Spanish and MA in elementary education at the University of Michigan, her educational specialist degree at Wayne State University in bilingual education curriculum and instruction, and her PhD in literacy, language, and culture in educational studies at the University of Michigan. Dr. Khasnabis is also a proficient speaker of Bengali, her home language.
Current Work
Debi Khasnabis is a co-PI on two research projects. With Simona Goldin, she co-leads the Learning Initiatives for Families and Educators (LIFE) project that investigates teacher education design opportunities that support teacher candidates in learning to partner with diverse students and families. Through this project, the researchers design and examine two focal course activities that teacher candidates experience and learn from: home visits and simulations of parent teacher conferences. Both of these activities are designed to support teacher candidates to recognize and interrogate their own implicit bias, and instead to uncover, honor, and build upon the strengths that diverse children and families possess.Secondly, with Simona Goldin and Carla O'Connor, Khasnabis co-leads the Families and Schools Ethnographic Study. Through this work, the research team interviews families, administrators, and teachers at a school setting to learn about the experiences of families in schools as a function of race and identity; and about the experiences of teachers in confronting race and identity, and in building a classroom climate. The study aims to partner with school staff to support the development of an inclusive and responsive school curriculum and climate.
Research Area Keyword(s)
anti-racist teaching, culturally responsive teaching, Multicultural education, multilingualism, Teacher education