Directory
Faculty and Staff
Jennifer Wallace Jacoby

Jennifer Wallace Jacoby

she/her

Faculty

Associate Professor of Psychology and Education
Director of First-Year Seminars
Director of the Teaching and Learning Initiative

413-538-3657

413-538-2456

Jennifer Jacoby is interested in how both children and teachers develop in school contexts. In particular, she seeks to understand how teachers can best support the learning of linguistically and socio-economically diverse groups of children. Jacoby's current research investigates how school settings support the language and literacy development of young English learning children, as well as, how these school settings support the professional learning of the teachers who work with English learners. She uses both qualitative and quantitative methods in her research.

Areas of Expertise

K-12 education

Education

Ed.D., Harvard Graduate School of Education
Ed.M., Harvard Graduate School of Education
M.A., University of California, Berkeley
B.A., Amherst College

HAPPENING AT MOUNT HOLYOKE

Recent Campus News

Teaching and Scholarship Renewal Week Returns

Faculty and teaching staff at Mount Holyoke College gathered for their annual Teaching and Scholarship Renewal Week, which had been suspended since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The book “Braiding Sweetgrass” centers Indigenous knowledge as an alternative or complementary approach to mainstream scientific methodologies.

“Braiding Sweetgrass” is 2022’s Common Read

Mount Holyoke College’s Common Read for fall of 2022 is “Braiding Sweetgrass.” “Braiding Sweetgrass” centers Indigenous knowledge as an alternative or complementary approach to mainstream scientific methodologies.

Mount Holyoke College’s Common Read for 2021 is “The Fire This Time,” a collection of essays and poems about race edited by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

Common Read announced: “The Fire This Time”

Mount Holyoke’s 2021 Common Read, “The Fire This Time,” is a collection of “thoughtful, searing, and, at times, hopeful” essays and poems about race.

more news

Recent Publications

Jacoby, J.W. (2021). Assistant teachers in Head Start: Important drivers of a diverse and competent workforce. Urban Institute. https://www.urban.org/research/publication/assistant-teachers-head-start-important-drivers-diverse-and-competent-workforce

Jacoby, J.W., & *Corwin-Renner, A. (2021). Assistant teachers, workplace satisfaction, and the creation of a culturally-competent workforce pipeline in Head Start. Journal of Career Development.

Jacoby, J.W. (2019). When, where, and how do Head Start teachers use Spanish in the context of English curriculum?: Increasing native language support in preschools. Perspectives: A Publication of the National Association for Bilingual Education, 43(2), 6-9.

Jacoby, J.W., & Edlefsen, K. [MHC '16] (2019). “I love Paw Patrol!”: Book selection and the allure of popular media characters among preschoolers. Journal of Research in Childhood Education.

Mancilla-Martinez, J. and Jacoby, J.W. (2018). The influence of risk factors on preschoolers' Spanish vocabulary development in the context of Spanish instruction. Early Education and Development. DOI:10.1080/10409289.2018.1442098

Recent Awards

Jennifer Wallace Jacoby received the Taylor & Francis/National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators Foundation’s Outstanding Journal Article Award for 2019 for her article, Supporting Dual Language Learners in Head Start: Teacher Beliefs about Teaching Priorities and Strategies to Facilitate English Language Acquisition from the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education. She was recently honored with the award at the NAECTE Annual Conference, which was held virtually on November 4, 2020.