Michelle Loucas Coordinator, Secondary Education Program

Education
1993: B.A., French Literature, Wesleyan University
1998: Teacher Training, Secondary Education, College of Notre Dame
2001: M.A., English Literature, San Francisco State University

Areas of Expertise
Experiential education
Service learning
Teacher education

Professional Biography
Before coming to Penn GSE, Ms. Loucas served as the director of professional development of Need in Deed, a Philadelphia-based non-profit that works with students, educators, and community organizations to prepare youth for civic responsibility and service to others. She has also worked as a service-learning coordinator for Maryland’s Governor’s Commission on Service.

At Temple University, she taught aspiring teachers the use of student-centered, hands-on learning methods and the theoretical and practical aspects of service-learning pedagogoy, research, and model practices. Ms. Loucas also has experience at the K-12 level—most recently at El Camino High School, in South San Francisco. In Baltimore, she created and implemented a curriculum designed for students in an inner city high school; the joint writing program she designed for students and homeless poets was commended by the state’s lieutenant governor and Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke.

Ms. Loucas is the founder of the Philadelphia Free School. Based on the Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts, this democratic school gives students exclusive control over, and responsibility for, their own education.

Classes Taught
EDUC 554: Teaching and Learning in Urban Contexts
EDUC 555.003: Advanced Field Seminar in Secondary Education