Andrea Bien
Clinical Assistant Professor
Andrea Bien is a clinical assistant professor of elementary education at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. In her research, she uses sociocultural theories to examine teaching and learning in elementary literacy, and her research agenda focuses on equity issues in elementary literacy teaching and learning.
Dr. Bien’s most recent work addressed questions about the impact and consequences of school reforms by examining how mandated packaged reading programs contribute to a commodification of knowledge that is changing what counts as literacy, teaching, and learning. She worked with elementary teachers in an urban school district to examine how reforms purported to bolster teacher effectiveness and provide support to students of color and those from economically struggling families actually function for children and teachers in classrooms.
In addition to her research, Dr. Bien is interested in supporting pre- and in-service elementary teachers within innovative models of teacher education. Dr. Bien’s research and teaching interests are informed by her experiences teaching elementary school students in Philadelphia and Massachusetts.
Recent News
Education
PhD, Curriculum & Instruction: Literacy Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder
MSEd, Elementary Education, University of Pennsylvania
BA, Communications, University of North Carolina at Wilmington
Courses
SED CH 300: Methods of Instruction 1 – 6 (Language Arts)
SED LR 503: Reading & Writing Assessment
SED LR 501: Teaching of Reading
SED LR 551: Reading Development, Assessment, and Instruction in the Elementary School
CAS SO 210: Confronting Persistent Social Inequalities in American Schools: Educational and Sociological Perspectives
CAS SO 211: Confronting Racial, Cultural, Gender, and Social Identities in Urban Classrooms
Selected Publications
Bien, A., Carlson, J., Kazemi, E., Reisman, A., Scheve, M. & Wells, A. (2018). Taking core practices to the field. In P. Grossman (Ed.) Teaching Core Practice in Teacher Education. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press.
Dutro, E. & Bien, A. (2014). Listening to the “speaking wound”: A trauma studies perspective on student positioning in schools. American Educational Research Journal, 51(1), 7-35.
Selland, M. & Bien, A. (2014). Collaborative teacher education: forging tangible connections between the field and the classroom. Teaching Education, 25(3), 239-260.
Dutro, E., Selland, M. & Bien, A. (2013). Revealing writing, concealing writers: high stakes assessment in an urban elementary classroom. Journal of Literacy Research, 45(2), 99-141.
Gutiérrez, K.D., Bien, A.C., Selland, M.K., & Pierce, D. (2011). Polylingual and polycultural learning ecologies: mediating emergent academic literacies for dual language learners. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 11(2), 232-261.
Gutiérrez, K.D., Bien, A.C. & Selland, M.K (2010). Syncretic approaches to studying movement and hybridity in literacy practices. In D. Lapp and D. Fisher (Eds.) Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts (3rd Edition). New York: Routledge.
Selected Presentations
Bien, A. (2018, December). Stretching the Rubberband: Resistance within Limits. A Four Resources Perspective on Reading Goals at Lazarus Elementary. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Literacy Research Association, Indian Wells, CA.
Dutro, E., Bien, A. & Henning, M. (2017, December). Trauma as Critical, Humanizing Practice in Literacy Research, Theory, Policy, and Pedagogy. Paper presented in an invited session at the annual meeting of the Literacy Research Association, Tampa, FL.
Bien, A. (2017, November). Field-based Language Arts Methods: Championing Students and Their Teachers of Today and Tomorrow Through a University/Elementary School Partnership. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English, St. Louis, MO.
Bien, A. (2017, April). Disentangling the Web: Unpacking Unequal Access & Opportunity in Teaching & Learning through a Syncretic Approach to Classroom-based Research. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Antonio, Texas.
Bien, A. (2015, April). High Stakes, Low Expectations: How the Pressure to Prepare Proficient Test Takers Undermined One Elementary Teacher’s Efforts Towards Justice & Equity, paper accepted for the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, Illinois.
Bien, A. & Selland, M. (2014, November). Living the Stories We Tell: The Sociopolitical Context of Enacting Teaching Stories. In Featured Session, CEE Opening Session Roundtables, Stories of Practice and Possibility in English Teacher Preparation. Paper presented the annual meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English, Washington, D.C.
Bien, A. (2012, November). Prescribing Proficiency: Teaching, Learning & a Packaged Reading Program in the Climate of High-Stakes Testing. Paper presented at the Literacy Research Association, San Diego, California.
Dutro, E., Bien, A. & Henning, M. (2012, November). Enacting Visceral Literacies Pedagogy in a High-Poverty Elementary Classroom: A Three-Year Study of Trauma Literacies in Theory and Practice. In. J. Allen (chair), Expanding the Views and Purposes of Literacy in the Primary Grades. Symposium presented at the Literacy Research Association, San Diego, California.
Bien, A. & Selland, M. (2012, November). Pre-service teachers’ evolving orientations to technology as mediational tools for learning and development. In K. Gutierrez (chair), Pathways and challenges of moving and expanding digital practices and literacies across contexts: Cases from El Pueblo Mágico Symposium presented at the annual meeting of the Literacy Research Association, San Diego, California.
Bien, A. & Selland, M. (2012, April). Collaborative Teacher Education: Forging Tangible Connections Between the Field and the Classroom. In S. Jurow (chair), Re-imagining Teacher Education through University-Community Partnerships. Symposium presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, British Columbia.