Dr. D Teo Keifert

Teo stands in front of a brick wall smiling. They are wearing a dark grey sweater and a large light gray scarf.

D Teo Keifert (they/them) is a learning scientist, researcher, and educator in the College of Education at the University of North Texas studying learners’ lines of experience across settings and designs that connect these experiences. Teo centers repertoires of practice, particularly family inquiry practices, to understand families as a primary site of learning. Their work explores participants’ activity in their own terms to foreground the full diversity of human sensemaking and avoid evaluating everyday sensemaking through the lens of Western conceptualizations of science as doing so normalizes White middle-class norms. By casting a wide net with the lens of inquiry, Teo’s research recognizes children’s competence, expands learning theory to understand family cultural practices, and informs designing more equitable learning environments that privilege an array of inquiry practices. Dr. Keifert contributes to designs for children’s learning in preschool and early-elementary classrooms, K-5 teachers engaged in professional learning, and pre-service teachers (K-12) preparing to draw upon learning theory for equitable and just practice. While K-5 settings focus on science and STEM, K-12 pre-service teacher preparation focuses broadly on learning and developmental theories. However, all of these designs draw upon the idea of lines of experience to foreground equitable learning designs.  

Defining Inquiry and a Brief Illustration of Inquiry Practices

Dr. Keifert defines inquiry as moments when participants orient to a phenomenon as puzzling, and engage in exploring that phenomenon using resources they deem relevant to the point of their own satisfaction (Keifert & Stevens, 2019). This definition of inquiry focuses on participant’s own activity as identifying moments of inquiry, rather than using an exogenous lens based on the practices of scientists or students in science classrooms. This lens has been used to understand an array of inquiry practices such as engaging in imaginative embodiment like imagining being a water particle with others to run around and create gas or wiggle in place at a distance to create solid, or engaging in thought experiments like imagining standing in boiling water to think about the differences between water at its boiling or freezing points, or drawing to explore the mechanisms that explain the inner workings of a physical model of a desalinating water tower (see Keifert & Stevens, 2019; Keifert, 2021; Keifert et al., 2020; Keifert et al., 2021). 

Background

Teo received a BA from Swarthmore College with a special major in Astronomy Education (advisors Drs. Lisa Smulyan and Eric Jensen). While at Swarthmore College, Teo worked in the field of public science education at the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia Fels Planetarium, and contributed public astronomy nights hosted by the Physics and Astronomy Department at Swarthmore College.

After graduating college, she moved to New York City and taught middle school math and science for five years. Teo tried as much as possible to take advantage of the American Museum of Natural History just down the block, as well as spaces around the school like the gym and rooftop to create opportunities for students to connect with learning opportunities in multiple spaces.

Teo earned a PhD from the Learning Sciences program at Northwestern University. Dr. Keifert also earned a certificate in Educational Sciences as a fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Educational Sciences (MPES), an Institute for Education Sciences training program at Northwestern University. During their 3rd year of graduate school, Danielle won a Best Student Paper award from the International Conference of the Learning Sciences in Sydney.

Since graduating Northwestern University, Teo has worked as a learning scientist/post-doctoral researcher for the Exploratorium (2015-2016), and as a post-doctoral researcher with Dr. Noel Enyedy first at the University of California Los Angeles (2016-2018), and then at Vanderbilt University (2018-2019).

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Gracie, the cancer-surviving, cuddling, amazing, rescue-pup.

Teo is currently an assistant professor on the faculty of Educational Psychology in the College of Education at the University of North Texas. Dr. Keifert has developed a new Learning Sciences graduate program and created undergraduate pre-service teacher courses that orient students to soiocultural/critical learning theory. Teo is also the delighted human of a sweet Tijuana rescue pup who keeps Teo company during analysis and writing binges, and reminds Teo to stop and take a break on the regular!

Further Information

Please explore this website for information about Teo’s research interests and current projects, teaching at University of North Texas, recent and upcoming presentations, CV, and contact information.