April Luehmann

Biography

April Luehmann joined the Warner School community in 2002 as a science educator, teaching in the science teacher preparation and doctoral programs. She previously taught mathematics and science to secondary school students in Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana. Luehmann is a principal investigator on a current Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that studies how practicing teachers are using a brief unit called “COVID Connects Us” to establish classroom norms and commitments for justice-centered ambitious science teaching throughout the school year.

Luehmann is the lead designer and researcher for the Warner School innovative teacher education program that merges learning to teach in out-of-school settings as a complement to and scaffold for learning to teach in in-school (high-stakes) settings. Each year of the program, the science education master’s students work with University faculty to run an environmental action camp and a science inquiry club for local urban teens, both of which serve as foci for her research. In the context of this club, called Science STARS, she studies questions, such as How can long-term inquiry into science questions that intrigue us and the construction of multimedia representations of this scientific work including film nurture positive and transformative disciplinary identities for traditionally marginalized youth? A third focus of research for Luehmann centers on the design and implementation of social and tactile augmented reality to support learning in formal (undergraduate STEM courses) and informal (museum and afterschool) contexts. Luehmann has also done research on the use of new media literacies, such as blogging to support learning.  The book that she and Warner School Dean Raffaella Borasi edited in 2012 compiles a series of studies, conducted by Luehmann, that looked at both how teachers blog for their own professional identity development and how classrooms blog to transform norms of participation.

Luehmann’s scholarly work and teaching have received recognition. In 2011, she was awarded a National Science Foundation Full-Scale Development Grant, titled Science STARS - Nurturing urban girls’ identities through inquiry-based science ($1.25 million; August 2011-July 2015).  In 2008, she was presented with the University of Rochester’s G. Graydon ‘58 and Jane W. Curtis Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Nontenured Member of the Faculty.