TEACHERS' VOICE blog

Mari Jones is the Director of the Deeper Learning Hub, a national practitioner hub whose mission is to spread deeper learning practices and ensure that more students across the country are achieving deeper learning outcomes. Deeper Learning Hub projects include the Share Your Learning Campaign which aims to focus on spreading exhibition, student-led conferences, and presentations of learning to 5 million students in order to elevate student voice and promote student agency, and the Deeper Learning Hub Fellowship, which focuses on supporting Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Social Emotional Learning to create the conditions for Deeper Learning. She is an Improvement Facilitator for the Center for Research on Equity and Innovation, where she has supported K-12 teachers across 16 High Tech High schools in literacy and social emotional learning through continuous improvement, and will be launching the 8th Grade On Track network this year. She teaches the Foundations of Classroom Culture and Foundations of Student Centered Teaching for the San Diego Teacher Residency Program. Mari has always felt that education is a form of activism, and she is passionate about promoting social change and equity by empowering youth. As an elementary educator for 14 years, she spent half of her career in National City, working primarily with English Learners and the other half working at High Tech Elementary Explorer, which nurtured her passion for social-emotional learning and crafting opportunities for meaningful learning experiences. She holds a B.A. in Communication, a Multiple-Subject Bilingual, Crosscultural, Language and Academic Development Credential, and an M.Ed. in Research, Equity, and Technology from UCSD as well as an M.Ed. in Educational Leadership from HTH Graduate School of Education where her research largely focused on the intersection of project-based learning and social-emotional learning as important pathways that lead to the development of deeper learning competencies, and on professional development to support new teachers.