MARGARET MACINTYRE LATTA, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education
27 Henzlik Hall
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0355
(402) 472-9958

Biography

Margaret Macintyre Latta is an Associate Professor and Graduate Chair in the Department of Teaching, Learning, & Teacher Education in the College of Education & Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She received her doctorate from the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 2000. Dr. Latta is a former classroom teacher at the elementary, junior high, and high school levels, who returned to graduate studies compelled by Dewey's (1938) assertion that within aesthetic experience is a learning approach and direction. The aesthetic is understood as attention to the creating process, primary to the arts, permeating all learning—thus adapting, changing, building, and making meaning. Her work foregrounds the integral role of aesthetic considerations such as attentiveness to participatory thinking, emotional commitment, felt freedom, dialogue and interaction, and speculation within the acts of teaching and learning.  She terms these neglected epistemological assumptions, elemental to learners and learning. She believes the aesthetic merits serious consideration as a pragmatic and philosophical necessity missing in much schooling. Aesthetic teaching/learning contexts call for rethinking and revaluing what is educationally important. Her work emphasizes the primacy of teachers in the lives of their students and the long-term impact on the future, contributing to the scholarship regarding school curriculum, teacher education, and professional development reform initiatives. Currently, Dr. Latta teaches graduate level courses that confront what ought to count as knowledge and experience given that (a) schools today are charged with the difficult task of educating an increasingly diverse student population and (b) teaching and learning are complex activities that can not be divorced from the social, cultural, and political contexts that frame individuals and classrooms.  She is Co-Editor of the International Journal of Education & the Arts and recent publications can be found in the Journal of Teacher Education, Educational Philosophy & Theory, Teachers & Teaching: Theory & Practice, Studying Teacher Education, Education & Culture, Teaching Education, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, and Teaching & Teacher Education.

Recent Publications

Journal Articles

Macintyre Latta, M., & Buck, G. (2007). Enfleshing embodiment: Falling into trust with the body's role in teaching and learning. Educational Philosophy & Theory.

Hostetler, K., Macintyre Latta, M., & Sarroub, L. K. (2007). Retrieving meaning in teacher education: The question of being. Journal of Teacher Education 58, 231-234.

Macintyre Latta, M., Buck, G., & Beckenhauer, A. (2007). Formative assessment requires artistic vision. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 8, 4.

Macintyre Latta, M., Buck, G., & Leslie-Pelecky, D. (2007). Terms of inquiry. Teachers & Teaching: Theory and Practice, 13, 1, 21-41.

Macintyre Latta, M., & Olafson, L. (2006). Identities in the making: Realized in-between self and other. Studying Teacher Education, 2, 77-90.

Macintyre Latta, M. (2005). Enfleshing embodiment. Visual Arts Research, 31, 94-97.

Macintyre Latta, M. (2005). The necessity of seeing relational accountability in teaching and learning. Journal of Teacher Education, 56, 399-403.

Macintyre Latta, M. (2005). Design bearings. Education and Culture: John Dewey Society, 21, 31-43.

Macintyre Latta, M. (2005). The role and place of fear in what it means to teach and to learn. Teaching Education, 16, 183-196.

Macintyre Latta, M., & Field, J. C. (2005). The flight from experience to representation: Seeing relational complexity in teacher education. Teaching & Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies, 21, 649-660.

Macintyre Latta, M. (2005). Considering the nature of the aesthetic through an imaginary letter exchange. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 21, 123-131.

Macintyre Latta, M. (2004). Attunement to the creating process in teaching & learning. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 1.

Macintyre Latta, M. (2004). Confronting a forgetfulness of teaching/learning methodology. Teachers & Teaching: Theory and Practice, 10, 329-344.

Macintyre Latta, M., & Hostetler, K. D. (2003). The call to play. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 4.

Macintyre Latta, M., & Olafson, L. (2002). Expecting, accepting, and respecting difference in middle school. Middle School Journal, 34, 43-47.

Macintyre Latta, M. (2002). Seeking fragility's presence. Philosophy of Education Yearbook. Urbana: University of Illinois, 225-233.

Book Chapters

Macintyre Latta, M. (2004). Curriculum as medium for sense making. In G. Diaz & M. McKenna (Eds.), Teaching for aesthetic experience (pp. 177-188). New York: Peter Lang.

Macintyre Latta, M. (2004). Traces, patterns, textures: In search of aesthetic teaching/learning encounters. In D. M. Callejo-Perez, S. M. Fain, & J. J. Slater (Eds.), Pedagogy of place (pp. 79-96). New York: Peter Lang.

Books

Macintyre Latta, M. (2001). The possibilities of play in the classroom: On the power of aesthetic experience in teaching, learning, and researching. New York: Peter Lang.