Dr Hiller A. Spires

About Hiller

Dr. Spires, who has been on the NC State faculty since 1986, serves as associate dean of NC State’s College of Education and executive director of the Friday Institute. She is also a Professor of Literacy and Technology in the Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences. She received her Ph.D. in literacy education with a cognate in English from the University of South Carolina. She served as the founding director of The William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation from 2002-2006 and served as FI Senior Research Fellow from 2006-2019.She directs the Friday Institute’s New Literacies Collaborative and also led the development of the New Literacies & Global Learning program, including the K-12 Literacy Cohort. Dr. Spires serves as honorary principal of Suzhou North America High School, which she helped create in 2015. Her latest book, published in 2020 by Teachers College Press, is Read, Write, Inquire: Disciplinary Literacy for Grades 6-12. Learn more about Dr. Spires.

Resources

• Digital Game-Based Learning: What’s Literacy Got to Do With It? (Journal Article)

  Author
  This commentary explores the importance of digital game-based learning for schooling, the relationship between game-based learning, and results from Crystal Island, a NSF-funded research project on digital gameplay.
• Energizing Project-Based Inquiry: Middle-Grade Students Read, Write, and Create Videos (Journal Article)

  Co-Author
  This article presents a project‐based inquiry process that merges students’ growing interest in grassroots video with educational goals that are aligned with state and national curricular standards.
• Problem Solving and Game-Based Learning: Effects of Middle Grade Students’ Hypothesis Testing Strategies on Learning Outcomes (Journal Article)

  Co-Author
  In this study, middle grade students achieved significant learning gains from gameplay interactions that required solving a science mystery based on microbiology content.
• A World of Difference: Teaching Global Citizenship Through Inquiry in a Rural Junior High School (Book Chapter)

  Co-Author
  A case study of inquiry-based learning at a small rural school in Indiana and students' integration of social justice and global literacy with their project.
• Creating a community of inquiry with teachers in China: New literacies, new complexities (Book Chapter)

  Lead Author
  Since the turn of the 21st century, international academic mobility (IAM) has greatly increased on the part of Chinese students, with many students choosing to study in colleges and universities abroad.

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