Whether I am teaching aspiring educational scholars, or pre-service or current teachers and educational leaders, my central focus is mutual respect. That is, I seek to intervene on power asymmetries within and beyond my classroom by according students increased equality, autonomy, and equity. Within each course I design, I ensure students’ equal exposure to activities and assessments that are aligned to the enduring understandings and skills I aim to foster. I accord students autonomy by conceding some of my power as the instructor, encouraging and supporting students to be co-constructors of our course and of one another’s learning experiences. Finally, I aim for equity and inclusion in my own classroom as I support students in their efforts to disrupt systemic inequities in PK-12 schools.

Sample Undergraduate Course:
Secondary World Languages Practicum

The purpose of this course is to support aspiring teachers’ work in, and thinking around, their field placements and subsequent teaching career. This support is not simply reactive in nature- debriefing and problem-solving around field dilemmas. This support is proactive in the enduring understanding that it cultivates. The enduring understanding that students take away from this course, and into their daily classroom practice, is as follows: Teaching is extremely difficult and worthy work, which requires flexibility and resilience across time and context.

Given the nature of this difficult, yet worthy, work, there are a few eternal considerations, and a few habits and mindsets that support one’s practice. Throughout this course, students are to be responsive to their field experiences by employing habits and mindsets discussed in the course (i.e., reflective practice and lifelong learning), and students are to be proactive in viewing these experiences through the lens of certain eternal considerations (i.e., context, design, social justice).

The enduring outcome of this course is one that proves to be a continuous process: Students are to articulate, develop, and continuously iterate their philosophy of teaching and learning, and use that philosophy to guide their educational decisions and engage in the difficult, worthy work of teaching.

Coming soon: In Spring, 2025 I will be teaching the course “Reimagining School and Society” to undergraduate students at Boston College.

Sample Masters Course:
Educational Policy in Practice

This course provides an overview of educational policy as it plays out in local practice. Throughout the course, students develop an understanding of foundational approaches to policy making, interpretation, and implementation as it plays out in education settings. In addition to providing an overview to the field of educational policy, the course investigates the relationship between policy and practice through attention to:

  1. policymaking, including policy mechanisms, framing, and policy actors;

  2. processes of policy interpretation and implementation; and

  3. policy as practice, and the role of local leaders in developing policy.

Throughout the course, students examine how context shapes the relationship between policy and practice by focusing on sociocultural, organizational, and political influences. The course integrates critical perspectives as well as foundational concepts in our study of policy, highlighting how systems of oppression and power dynamics influence the policy process. During the course, students have opportunities to apply theories and concepts to their own contexts, engaging in policy analysis and creation through hands-on assignments. The course approaches educational policy as incorporating both formal and informal policies, positioning practitioners as interpreters and implementers of local, state, and federal policies, as well as simultaneously designing and creating policies themselves.

Sample Doctoral Course:
Advanced Qualitative Research

This course is designed to provide advanced graduate students with both theoretical and practical opportunities to explore qualitative research across the social sciences. The goals of this course are twofold: 1) to provide students with concrete strategies for engaging in all stages of qualitative research; and 2) to encourage students to critically examine their own power and positionality as a researcher, considering where research has a place, and where it does not. Throughout the course, the class cycles through discussing and/or engaging with data collection, data analysis, and writing up qualitative data.

Data collection: This course exposes students to iterations of the basic qualitative data collection methods discussed in the intro course (EDUC9851|APSY 8851 Qualitative Research Methods).

Data analysis: We compare and apply different analytic approaches, while simultaneously interrogating the politics, ethics, and biases that sit behind the analytical decisions we make.

Writing: We explicitly discuss and workshop how to write up qualitative research, slowly building toward a final proposal or empirical paper.

Student Evaluations

I average 4.62/5 on my overall instructor rating across my Boston College course evaluations (department average is 4.52/5). Below, I highlight students’ qualitative comments, which reflect my priorities as an educator:

  • Priority: Enact a praxis of mutual respect

    "Dr. Hegseth has a knack for affirming student perspective while also encouraging us to consider other viewpoints."

    "Whitney made sure to always push us to look at content through lenses of different groups of people, specifically disenfranchised groups."

  • Priority: Encourage continual reflection and iteration

    "Whitney has cultivated a classroom community where questions and confusion are natural parts of the learning process, and where peer–to–peer learning is part of each class session –– I've learned so much from folks across different departments and programs because of this."

    "She consistently engaged the class in thoughtful conversation about course content and broader ideas and issues within academia… I am a better writer, scholar, intellectual, and person for having been in this class and taught by her."

  • Priority: Make the hidden curriculum visible

    "As a first–gen student who is newer to research, she makes the topic accessible and I feel like I spend less time questioning myself because she creates such an inclusive and welcoming environment. You can tell that she is here to help us learn as much and as well as possible, rather than just going through the motions."