Faculty

Joseph McDonald

Professor of Teaching and Learning

Joseph McDonald

Phone: 212 998 5447
Email:

Curriculum Vitae/Syllabi

Joe McDonald is Professor of Teaching and Learning at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University, where he leads faculty oversight of NYU's extensive teacher education program.   He is the author or co-author of seven books about teaching and schooling – including Going to Scale with New School Designs: Reinventing High School (Teachers College Press, 2009), and The Power of Protocols (Teachers College Press, 2007).  A new book due in the spring of 2012 is entitled Adventures in Teaching Online with Protocols.  He is also currently completing a second book tentatively entitled Cities and Their Schools, based on research funded by the Annenberg and Spencer Foundations on the last 15 years of school reform in five large American Cities.  

McDonald was the founder of NYU’s school partnership project which involves close relationships with schools in the Lower East Side, East Harlem, and the South Bronx.  He co-leads the NYU EXCEL Academy, which teaches philosophy and writing to aspiring college students from the South Bronx; and he is Director of the Metro Learning Communities Project at NYU's Metropolitan Center for Urban Education.

McDonald is a member of NYU’s English Education faculty, and was for many years a high school English teacher as well as a high school principal.   He has been Co-editor of the Series on School Reform at Teachers College Press since 1994.  

McDonald holds a Doctorate in Education and Master of Arts in Teaching English degree from Harvard University, as well as a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude degree in English from the University of Scranton.  Before coming to NYU, he taught at Brown University where he led the teacher education program in English and served as the first Director of Research at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, as well as Senior Researcher for the Coalition of Essential Schools.  McDonald has been at NYU/Steinhardt since 1998, and has served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and also as Associate Dean for Community and Global Initiatives.


Awards

  • Member of the NY State Academy of Teaching and Learning
  • Spencer Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship
  • Outstanding Teacher Award, Bush Educational Leaders Program
  • Community Service Award, New York University
  • Finis and Engleman Award, American Association of School Administrators
  • Community Service Award, University Neighborhood High School

Degrees Held

  • Ed.D. Harvard University
    Administration, Planning, and Social Policy
  • M.A.T. Harvard University
    English Education
  • B.A. University of Scranton
    English

Courses

McDonald has taught a large variety of courses at the graduate, undergraduate, and high school levels.  They include Methods of Teaching English, The Social Responsibilities of Educators, Undergraduate and Graduate Seminars in English Student Teaching, Doctoral Seminar in Curriculum and Instruction, Doctoral Seminar in Evaluation, and high school courses in English and Drama.

Research Interests

  • School reform
  • Teacher education
  • Educational policy
  • Study of teaching

Publications

  • Adventures in Teaching Online with Protocols (Teachers College Press, forthcoming). With Janet Mannheimer Zydney, Alan Dichter, and Beth McDonald.
  • Going to Scale with New School Designs: Reinventing High School (Teachers College Press, 2009). With E. J. Klein & M. Riordan. (link)
  • Power of Protocols (Teachers College Press, 2003, 2007). With N. Mohr, A. Dichter & E. McDonald. (link)
  • School Reform Behind the Scenes (Teachers College Press, 1999). With T. Hatch, E. Kirby, N. Ames, N. Haynes & E, Joiner. (link)
  • Doing What You Mean to Do in School Reform (Annenberg Institute for School Reform, 1998). With D. A. Schon.
  • Graduation by Exhibition: Assessing Genuine Achievement (ASCD, 1993). With S. Smith, M. Finney, D. Turner & E. Barton. (link)
  • Teaching: Making Sense of an Uncertain Craft (Teachers College Press, 1992). (link)

Chapters

  • The National Writing Project: Scaling up and down.  With J. Buchanan and R. Sterling, in S. Bodilly and T. Glennan (Eds.), Scaling Up Reform Interventions: (Rand, 2004)
  • High school in the twenty-first century: Managing the core dilemma, in F. Hammack (Ed.), Is There a Future for the Comprehensive High School?  (Teachers College Press, 2004)
  • World’s fair: Sixty years of American education in and around a former dump, in W. Holtkamp (Ed.), Rediscovering America: New Approaches to American Culture (Metzler Verlag Stuttgart, 2001)
  • Students’ work and teachers’ learning, in A. Lieberman and L. Miller (Eds.), Caught in the Act: Professional Development for Teachers (Teachers College Press, 2001)
  • Below the surface of school reform: Vision and its foes, in R. Glaser and L. Schauble (Eds.), The Contributions of Instructional Innovation to Understanding Learning (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1996)

Selected Articles

  • Capacity for school reform: The role of teacher networking. With Emily Klein, Teachers College Record, Fall 2003.
  • Teachers studying student work: Why and how? Phi Delta Kappan, October 2002.
  • Redesigning curriculum: New conceptions and tools. Peabody Journal of Education, winter 1999.
  • When outsiders try to change schools from the inside. Phi Delta Kappan, November 1989.
  • Teaching the documentary arts: Combining writing with research and photography. English Journal, November 1985.

Presentations

  • Working Together for Student Success: How Schools and Universities Can Bridge their Culture Gap
    Presentation at the Winter Symposium, New Teacher Center, San Jose, CA, February 3, 2009(view)
  • Autonomy and Accountability in New York City School Reform
    Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA, April 2009 (view)
  • School-University Partnerships: Power of Complementarity
    Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA, April 2009(view)