Judith Cooper-Wagoner, earned her Ph.D. at the University of Arizona in 2021. She teaches science methods courses to prepare elementary pre-service teachers in strength-based inquiry teaching that leverages children’s ideas, cultural knowledge and experiences as assets in children’s learning. Dr. Cooper-Wagoner’s dissertation research focused on studying pre-service teachers’ growing sophistication in noticing, interpreting, and to responding to students’ assets for equitable science teaching and learning. During her Ph.D. studies, she received the distinguished Erasmus Circle of Graduate Scholars award from the UA College of Education. Her collaborative work as an assistant researcher on a computational thinking STEM project with high school students was accepted for publication a follows.
Gunckel, K. L., Covitt, B., Love, G., Cooper-Wagoner, J., & Moreno, D. L. Unplugged to plugged-In: Teaching computational thinking using models of groundwater contamination. The Science Teacher.
Dr. Cooper-Wagoner is professionally and personally rooted in the local community. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Education from the University of Arizona and a Master’s in Educational Policy and Leadership from Northern Arizona University. Her teaching career spanned teaching elementary students in the Marana Unified School District, providing professional development to certified teachers, serving as an adjunct professor for Pima Community College Teacher Preparation Program, and teaching informal science on the trails at the Cooper Center for Environmental Learning. She was born and raised in the heart of Tucson, where her adult children and grandchildren now reside. Dr. Cooper-Wagoner is dedicated to science education and teacher preparation where she continues to give back to her community.
