Maria de Lourdes B. Serpa
Professional Title: Professor
Areas of Academic Focus and Expertise:
Doctoral education; Response to Intervention for English Language Learners; special education
Area of Work and Concentration at Lesley: Non-discriminatory special education assessment, culturally-responsive biliteracy (English/Portuguese)
Education: Ed.D., Boston University; M.Ed., University of Massachusetts, Boston; B.S., Boston State College and Magisterie Primario, Portugal
Representative List of Recent Publications / Exhibitions:
•Co-author, Halting the Race to the Bottom 2010
• Executive Ed., 2010. America, by Fatima Martins, S. Jose CA: Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, Inc.
• Linguistic Differences & Learning (dis)Abilities
Presentations at which Dr. Serpa was an invited speaker:
• Learning Differences Conference at Harvard Graduate School of Education 2010
• Massachusetts DESE Proficiency Gap & Kindergarten Conferences 2010
• Featured speaker Massachusetts International Reading Association Conference 2009
• Co-director Assessing English language learners with disabilities institute 2010-11
• Conference Chair Congresso de Lingua e Cultura Portuguesas 2009
Dr. Serpa is committed to high quality teacher education. Her academic work focuses on non-discriminatory special education assessment (including Feuerstein's dynamic assessment), Response to Intervention for ELLs (2RTI), and culturally responsive biliteracy (English/Portuguese). She is a doctoral senior advisor and has designed Master's programs and doctoral specializations in Bilingual-ESL Special Education.
Dr. Serpa served as the director of the Moderate Disabilities Teacher Education Program for 15 years, as well as the director and co-director of two major 5-year teacher education projects funded by the US Department of Education. Dr. Serpa currently co-chairs the Bilingual-ELL Advisory Council and serves on the KSPT Committee and the ELL Proficiency Gap Committee, all at the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
She is the co-founder of the Portuguese World Language Institute.
mserpa@lesley.edu