Research Interests
Anna Lees
Anna Lees (Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, descendant) began her career as an early childhood classroom teacher in rural northern Michigan. She now serves as the Ballmer Endowed Professor of Equity and Early Learning in Learning Sciences and Human Development at University of Washington. She partners with schools and communities for early childhood teacher education. Anna is committed to developing and sustaining reciprocal relationships with Indigenous communities to engage community leaders as co-teacher educators, opening spaces for Indigenous values and ways of knowing and being in early childhood settings and higher education. She is currently engaged in research developing land and water based learning environments and professional development models led by tribal nations and communities and a relationship-based site embedded professional development model with tribal early learning programs. Her scholarship has been recognized by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education’s Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, and the Spencer Foundation; she currently serves as editor of the Tribal College and University Research Journal.
Selected Publication
Lees, A., Balagot, M., Gobin, N., Myles, M., Starks, E. (2024). Securing our Futures through Land and Water Education: Developing an Indigenous Language Curriculum in a Tribal Nation Early Learning Program. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 39(3), 73-92.
Lees, A., Ryan, A. M., Muñoz, M., & Tocci, C. (2024). Mapping the indigenous postcolonial possibilities of teacher preparation. Journal of Teacher Education, 75(3), 261-274.
Lees, A., & Bang, M. (2023). Indigenous pedagogies: Land, water, and kinship. Occasional Paper Series, 2023(49), 1.
Lees A. & Brennan, C. (2023). An infant-toddler field experience in resistance to settler colonialism in teacher preparation: Perspectives and practices of teachers and teacher candidates. Early Years.
Bruce, F., Bang, M. Lees, A., McDaid, N. & Peters, F. (2023). Indigenous Water Pedagogies: Cultivating Relations Through the Reading of Water. Bank Street Occasional Paper Series #49.
Pewewardy, C. & Lees, A. & Minthorn, R. Eds. (2022). Unsettling Settler-Colonial Education: The Transformational Indigenous Praxis Model. Teachers College Press.
Lees, A. & Bang, M. (2022). We’re not Migrating Yet: Engaging Children’s Geographies and Learning with Lands and Waters. Bank Street Occasional Paper Series #48.
Lees, A., Wilson, C., Swan-Waite, R., & Calderon, D. (2022). Indigenous Land Education: A Model for Teacher Professional Development. In. R. Kohli (Ed.) Handbook of research on teachers of color: The professional development of teachers of color. American Education Research Association.
Lees, A., Tropp Laman, T., & Calderon, D. (2021) “’Why didn’t I know this?’: Land education as an antidote to settler colonialism in early childhood education”. Theory into Practice. 60(3)
Lees, A., Vélez, V., & Tropp Laman, T. (2021). Recognition and resistance of settler colonialism in early childhood education: perspectives and implications for Black, Indigenous, and Teachers of Color. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 1-18.
Calderon, D., Lees, A., Swan-Waite, R., & Wilson, C. (2021). “Crossing the Bridge”: Land Education Teacher Professional Development. Professional Development in Education.
Lees, A. & Vélez, V. (2019). Fugitive teacher education: Nurturing pedagogical possibilities in early childhood education. Educational Forum. 83(3), 309-324.
Pewewardy, C., Lees, A., & Clark-Shim, H. (2018) The Transformational Indigenous Praxis Model: Critical Consciousness in Indigenous Education. Wicazo Sa Review.
Lees, A., & Kennedy, A. (2017). Community-Based Collaboration for Early Childhood Teacher Education: Partner Experiences and Perspectives as Co-Teacher Educators. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education.
Lees, A. (2016). Roles of urban Indigenous community members in collaborative field- based teacher preparation. Journal of Teacher Education, 67(5), 363-378.
Lees, A., Heineke, A. J., Ryan, A. M., & Roy, G. (2016). Collaborative teacher preparation with urban Indigenous communities: The Kateri Center of Chicago and Loyola University Chicago partnership. Multicultural Education Magazine.
Kennedy, A., & Lees, A. (2016): Preparing undergraduate pre-service teachers through direct and video-based performance feedback and tiered supports in Early Head Start. Early Childhood Education Journal 44(4), 369-379. DOI 10.1007/s10643-015-0725-2.
Kennedy, A, & Lees, A. (2015). Outcomes of a community-based birth-to-three preparation sequence for undergraduate early childhood teacher candidates. American Journal of Educational Research, 3(6), 770-772. Available at http://pubs.sciepub.com/education/3/6/17/index.html