About the Author:
Dr. Sturdivant is an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Texas A&M-Commerce. From 2011 to 2015 she taught three- and four-year-olds in an urban school district. After four years of successful classroom teaching, she was promoted to a position that entailed developing and facilitating pieces of training for educators in grades Pre-K through 3rd grade across a large urban city. She helped teachers with topics such as classroom management, teaching content outside, hands-on science, social studies, and culturally relevant teaching and classroom environments. She has taught pre-service teachers, current teachers, and other future professionals aspiring to work with children at three universities and one community college district. Some of the courses she has taught are: Play Creativity and Learning, Language and Literacy Acquisition, Diversity in Early Childhood Education, Teaching Diverse Learners, Play and Development in Early Childhood, Teaching Young Children, Child Guidance, and Advanced Studies in Play (a graduate course). In March 2020 she successfully defended her dissertation entitled: “Developing While Black: An Exploration of Racial Discourse found in the Play of Black Preschool Girls” to complete a PhD in Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching with a cognate in Early Childhood Education. She is also a published researcher in the Journal of Multicultural Education and has various articles to be published in the future.