Stephanie Woods specializes in social contexts of education, including college sense of belonging, English Language Learners, and the urban/rural higher education disparity.
As a formerly certified teacher, Dr. Stephanie Woods brings over 20 years of teaching experience to Columbia College. She has extensive experience working with emergent bilinguals in K-12 settings, adult literacy programs, migrant programs. She was also a part of the instructional staff that pioneered the Newcomer center for Columbia Public Schools in 2007.
In addition to her K-12 experience, Stephanie has over a decade of experience teaching in higher education. At the University of Missouri, she developed and delivered courses and seminars designed to support international teaching assistant language development and instruction and taught introductory educational psychology courses.
Dr. Woods’ research focuses on college student sense of belonging development. She developed a theoretical model that complements current understandings of college belongingness for cultural minorities and has presented her findings nationally and internationally. Her work focuses on how the rural students’ cultural minority status in higher education impacts cognition and development.
