My scholarship involves characterizing the challenges science teachers face in enacting reform-minded instruction, strategies to reduce those challenges, and ways teacher identity can be utilized as an opportunity for learning.

I identify effective teaching practices to support students struggling with academics and behavior.

My teaching interests include blindness, low vision, and the benefits of these exceptionalities on the blind/low vision population.  

I design and study meaningful and engaging ways for students and teachers to reconceptualize science education to be unintimidating, rigorous, and just.

My research uses ethnographic, narrative, and discourse analytic research methods to investigate students' and teachers' experiences in additional language education. I also teach courses in language teaching methods and language education research.

Dr. Thompson’s teaching experience includes a range of theoretical and methodological courses in Applied Linguistics. Dr. Thompson’s research interests focus on Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition (IDs in SLA) and the interaction of these IDs and multilingualism, as well as inquiries into linguistic racism and gender in higher education. 

Dr. LaPoint’s research interest centers on community-partnered research exploring the experiences of autistic transition-age youth and adults.