Teaching

Annie’s teaching practices draw from engaged pedagogy and incorporate lessons from universal design. She has honed these approaches in eight years of teaching undergraduate students at the University of Washington, The Evergreen State College, and Loyola University -New Orleans—working with students from a variety of backgrounds and identities, including racially/ethnically diverse group of students, LGBTQIA+ students, veterans, international students, English Language Learners, and students who are differently abled.

Annie is committed to creating and maintaining inclusive and equitable classrooms that address students holistically, through her roles as a curator, facilitator, and mentor. As a curator, she makes thoughtful choices about course design and materials. As a facilitator, she focuses on creating classrooms where learning is done in community with ample opportunity for action and reflection. As a mentor, she focuses on providing individualized opportunities and materials to students—helping them identify their strengths and areas of improvement.  

Experience and Syllabi

Annie teaches courses in Sociology of Education, Medical Sociology, and Law & Society (* indicates course with service learning or internship component):

• Medical Sociology

• Race, Gender, Class, and Reproduction in the U.S.

• Social Problems*

• Race, Class, and Schools

• Education in NOLA*

• Education Practicum*

• Deviance, Crime, and Punishment: Past and Present*

• Criminology

• Qualitative Research Methods

• Writing for the Social Sciences

What Students Are Saying

Student learning starts by making sure that students feel safe and supported within their learning community/classes. Annie strives to positive classroom communities where students are supported, can take risks, and learn from each other. A variety of approaches are used to both build positive classroom community and address a variety of student learning styles—including using mini lectures, small group discussions, large group discussions, and activities. The goal is for students to walk away with information and skills that they can use far into the future. Here is what some students have to say about their experiences:

“Professor McGlynn-Wright is incredible. She made it easy to feel safe and heard in her class. She discussed with us in a way that wasn't teaching but conversing. It made the lessons in class more personal to us instead of just another event. She is an awesome educator!” (Loyola University- New Orleans, 2021)

“Annie was a fantastic lecturer; I really enjoyed hearing her lecture, participating in group work, and checking in with the class. The check-ins let us talk about our tutoring experiences with our classmates, relating similar experiences or hearing about different ones. It made me feel like Annie and my classmates really cared about how I was doing at my school and what I was experiencing, and I felt the same way about my classmates. The journals were really helpful in helping us summarize our readings concisely and making connections with our real-life tutoring experiences.” (Education Practicum, Spring 2018)

“I had the opportunity to work closely with Annie during Winter Quarter while I worked on a five-week research project. She offered guidance, but gave students ample room to speak during our group check-ins. She successfully encouraged students to work collaboratively, allowing us to become better editors and get excited about the work of our peers. She has a talent for guiding students while allowing them space to learn without constant direction. In this manner, she is able to encourage participation and independent and critical thinking.” (The Evergreen State College student, 2017)

Teaching Assignments and Resources

Race and Class-based Inequities in a School Choice Model: An Activity

One of the questions that orients Annie’s research in education is also the question at the center of this activity: how does race and class-based segregation in education persist in a context that limits neighborhood considerations? In this activity, students are invited to act as parents/caregivers accessing the New Orleans K-12 all-charter school system. New Orleans school system is the only all-charter school system in the nation. It is also one of a handful of systems that relies entirely on caregiver choice. That is students are not assigned a geographic school, rather parents/caregivers go through the process of applying to schools. School choice and charter school advocates sometimes argue that choice models are especially beneficial to students experiencing poverty and students of color. The argument here is that these students, because of long-standing neighborhood and school segregation tend to be disproportionately attending poorly performing schools. School choice, the argument suggests, allows these students to leave underperforming schools for higher performing schools. In reality, school segregation tends to remain similar, if not worse, within school choice models.

This activity asks students to identify some ways that school choice models can perpetuate inequality. This activity can be taught in education courses, policy courses, and/or sociology of race and ethnicity courses. Included here is a description of the activity.

Student Peer Reviews

Annie has honed a peer review process that has since been published in TRAILS. Peer reviews reinforce writing as a process, allow students opportunities to learn from each other, and increase the quality of final papers. Drafts and revisions are a critical part of becoming an effective writer. However, Annie found that few of her undergraduate students were writing paper drafts. She developed a carefully scaffolded paper assignment with peer reviews—finding it to increase the quality of final papers and foster closer-knit classroom community.  

Included here is description of a student peer review process for small to medium-sized classes (8-50 students), an overview of the timeline, activities during each week, issues to consider, and sample peer review assignment given to students.