Mary Lyons

Meet Professor Lyons

Years at Knox: 2020 to present

"My career in education began with classroom teaching in public schools. Prior to earning a PhD, I taught for 11 years in early primary grades (K-3). My scholarship centers around daily life in classrooms as teachers encounter and navigate a variety of tensions. Specifically, I am interested in what teachers identify as components of healthy and productive teaching and learning environments; ways that teachers make decisions and adapt to unique school and classroom contexts; and ways in which teacher preparation programs influence and/or support novice teachers as they transition into the field. My dissertation research was an investigation of teachers' agency when carrying out a play-based kindergarten program within our current era of standards-based accountability reform."

Education

Ph.D., Curriculum and Instruction, 2020, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

M.S., Elementary Education, 2012, Western Illinois University

B.A., Elementary Education, 2007, Monmouth College

Selected Professional Accomplishments

Honors/Grants

Catalyst Planning Grant ($25,000), Rural Schools Collaborative, July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024 (with Dr. Jennifer McCarthy Foubert)

Conference Travel Allocation ($1,100), Knox College Committee on Faculty Resources, July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024

“Open Access Publication of ‘Within-Classroom Play: Cultivating Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness During the Transition to Kindergarten’” Research Grant ($1,445), Knox College Committee on Faculty Resources, November 2022

Travel Award, Early Education/Child Development SIG of the AERA, 2020

Spodek Dissertation Award, 2019-2020

James Steward Machin & Jean Machin Light Scholarship, 2018-2019

State Farm Companies Foundation Doctoral Scholarship, 2017-2018

Publications

Lyons, M. E. (2022). Within-classroom play: Cultivating autonomy, competence, and relatedness during the transition to kindergarten. Early Childhood Education Journal, 52, 155-165. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-022-01395-2

Sanders-Smith, S. C., Lyons, M. E., Yang, S., & McCarthey, S. J. (2021). Valuing relationships, valuing differences: Co-teaching practices in a Hong Kong early childhood center. Teaching and Teacher Education, 97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2020.103230  

Classroom negotiations: Finding time for both academically and social productive talk. (In preparation, to be submitted to Linguistics in Education).

Co-teaching in multilingual early childhood classrooms. (In preparation, to be submitted to Teaching and Teacher Education).

Finding time for play. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign News Bureau-Behind the Scenes, 2019.

Presentations

Lyons, M. E. (2024, March 15). Yes, skilled reading matters! And, relationships with reading matter too! Exploring love-hate relationships with reading and writing. Illinois Reading Council Annual Conference. Springfield, Illinois.

Lyons, M. E. (2023, June 12). Prepared to be policy actors? Teachers’ navigation of conflicting policies. National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (NAECTE) Annual Summer Conference. Held Virtually.

Making spaces for academic and social talk in two first grades: A dual case study. American Education Research Association. 2020.

Co-teaching in multilingual early childhood classrooms. American Education Research Association. 2020.

Messages conveyed through journals for educators: A qualitative meta-analysis. Ninth Annual Graduate Student Conference, College of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 2018.