Commitment to Research

Praxis: Research Lives In Our Classrooms and Our Pedagogy

Educational theorist and author Paolo Friere wrote that praxis is “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it.” Praxis, in other words, is a way for research to transform everyday actions of teachers, students, and school leaders. That is how research lives at Hewitt, in praxis. Hewitt brings in the leading scholars on teaching and learning and girls’ socialization and development to support our students’ growth and learning.

Hewitt’s Learning and Innovation Research Team and research partners are affiliated with the following universities and organizations.

Klingenstein Center Teachers College Columbia University

Through our differentiated commitment to putting research into practice, Hewitt girls and young women learn to build their leadership capacity and a sense of purpose in a way that no other school can offer.

Research Partners

In addition to our ongoing work with Visiting Research Scholars such as Dr. Lisa Damour, Hewitt partners with a variety of thought leaders working in the space of gender and education.

Dr. Lauren Bailes
University of Delaware, School of Education and Human Development

Dr. Katie Clonan-Roy
Cleveland State University; EnGenderED Research Collaborative

Dr. Nicole Furlonge
Klingenstein Center, Teachers College, Columbia University

Dr. Carol Gilligan
New York University, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development

Dr. Charlotte Jacobs
University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education; EnGenderED Research Collaborative

Dr. Tonya Leslie
New York University, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development

Dr. Frances Rust
University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education

Naomi Snider
New York University, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development

Dr. Terri Watson
City University of New York

As youth action researchers, students tackle real-world challenges that are personally meaningful to them, and play a critical role in creating impactful and sustainable change in their school communities for the benefit of both current and future students.

Learning and Innovation Research Team

About

Led by Director of Learning and Innovation Research Dr. Sarah Odell and Postdoctoral Fellow in Gender and Ethical Leadership Daron Cyr, Hewitt’s Learning and Innovation Research Team includes a group of 11 teachers working across lower, middle, and upper school. Together with Assistant Head of School for Learning and Innovation Dr. Maureen Burgess, the team guides our professional community in developing innovative teaching and learning that is backed by the current research on girls, education, and leadership.

Dr. Maureen Burgess, Assistant Head of School for Learning and Innovation

Dr. Maureen Burgess received her Ph.D. in English from The Ohio State University before beginning a career in independent school education. A middle, upper, and post-secondary instructor and school leader for nearly thirty years, Maureen's current areas of focus are educational innovation and strategic planning, coaching/self-renewal practices for educators, writing as thinking as a mode of mindfulness practice in the classroom, and adolescent girls as writers and storytellers in the digital age. Maureen is a faculty associate at Bard College's Institute for Writing and Thinking, where she leads professional development in writing as thinking practices and curriculum development for faculty in K-12 schools and higher education.

Dr. Sarah Odell, Director of Learning and Innovation Research

Dr. Sarah Odell is a feminist scholar, researcher, and educator who has extensive experience working with influential women and creating gender-focused programming. Her award-winning dissertation on how gender identity of K-12 educational leaders impacts their career trajectories was advised by feminist psychologist Dr. Carol Gilligan. In addition to her work at Hewitt, Sarah teaches at the Klingenstein Center for Independent School Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University and at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.

Daron Cyr, Postdoctoral Fellow in Gender and Ethical Leadership

Daron Cyr is a doctoral candidate in the Learning, Leadership, and Education Policy program at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education. Her research experience has predominantly focused on gender, leadership, and gendered racial microaggressions. Her doctoral work follows a B.S. in elementary education and an M.A. in curriculum and instruction, also at the University of Connecticut. Prior to pursuing a Ph.D., Daron taught kindergarten and first grade and wrote curriculum in New Haven, Connecticut.

Current Projects

Connecting K-12, Higher Education, and Industry: A Leadership Toolkit for Girls

The Hewitt School will work with consulting firm Mine the Gap to create a first-of-its kind K-12 leadership toolkit. This toolkit will draw on Hewitt’s expertise in educating girls and Mine the Gap’s expertise and research on creating more gender equitable corporate work environments. The leadership toolkit will include research to help educators understand the biases women face in industry pipelines as well as tangible skills that will benefit girls and young women in school and after they leave Hewitt.

Hewitt Action Research Collaborative (HARC)

The Hewitt Action Research Collaborative (HARC) is a consortium of schools committed to using institutional data to guide students as they formulate research questions. As youth action researchers, students tackle real-world challenges that are personally meaningful to them, and play a critical role in creating impactful and sustainable change in their school communities for the benefit of both current and future students. Through HARC, students learn how to create and pursue a research topic, developing a depth of knowledge and mastery that comes over the course of a full academic year. To culminate their yearlong study, students present their findings and recommendations at a roundtable of scholars, school leaders, students, and faculty who will consider implementation of their ideas.

HARC partner schools include Boston’s Winsor School, Instanbul’s Robert College, San Francisco’s Katherine Delmar Burke School, and the Baltimore Young Women’s Leadership Academy.

The Art of Teaching at Hewitt: Creating a Community of Practice

Dr. Frances Rust (University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education) collaborates with Hewitt’s learning design coaches to support their work in centering student work to ensure that each Hewitt girl is challenged. Our innovative faculty work with Dr. Rust to ensure that we have clear evidence that every student is engaged and actively learning how to think critically.

Leading with Love: Creating a Community of Belonging for Black Girls at Hewitt

With support from a Klingenstein Center Seed Grant, Dr. Lauren Bailes (University of Delaware, School of Education and Human Development) and Hewitt’s research team will examine aggregate data from our school’s annual YouthTruth survey (a climate perception survey) to better understand the experience of, and create positive change for, Black Hewitt students in our middle and high schools.

Dr. Terri Watson (City University of New York) will interview Black girls at Hewitt to explore how their teachers make them feel supported, successful, and loved. Dr. Watson and Hewitt’s Director of Learning and Innovation Research Dr. Sarah Odell will be contributing a chapter focused on their findings to a collected volume: All About (Black Girl) Love: Black Girlhood in Education.

Strengthening Healthy Resistance and Courage in Girls: Part II

This study will revisit Dr. Carol Gilligan’s groundbreaking work on girls from 30 years ago, which fundamentally changed how the field of developmental psychology understands girls. Dr. Gilligan and her research team of Naomi Snider and Dr. Tonya Leslie will interview Hewitt students across lower, middle, and high school to hear what girls’ voices sound like today to ensure that at Hewitt, future programming centers their voices and their needs. Through this study, Hewitt students will have the chance to participate in innovative and influential research designed to lead to systemic change for girls and young women on a national scale. This is a three year study, with funding for the pilot year (2022-2023) coming from the Radical Listening Project at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education.