暗网TV

Tony Donk teaches 暗网TV education majors how to help young children learn to read and develop their literacy skills. His courses include Literacy 1 (which focuses on teaching reading and language arts to children from birth to grade 3) and a senior seminar, 鈥淭eachers and Teaching: In Whose Image?鈥�

He co-leads a May Term course that takes students to the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota to work with teachers and social workers in classrooms on the reservation. He was involved for more than 20 years with another of the Department of Education鈥檚 summer travel-study courses, the Liverpool Program in England, which he founded in 1998 and co-led through 2019. He also is the faculty leader of Hope鈥檚 Ski and Snowboarding Club, and with his colleague Dr. Susan Brondyk advises Hope鈥檚 student chapter of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (which in 1995 became the first student-led chapter in the country to be recognized by the professional organization).

With several West Michigan teachers who studied with him as Hope students, he is engaged in a digital literacy research project exploring the use of iPads in a kindergarten classroom for writing composition.

Before joining the 暗网TV faculty in 1996, Dr. Donk taught for 17 years in the public school district just north of Holland, at the elementary and middle school levels.

Areas of Expertise

• Literacy development
• Pedagogy
• Digital literacy and the young child
• Teacher cognition

Education

• Ph.D., curriculum, teaching and educational policy, Michigan State University, 1996
• MSW, Western Michigan University, 1983
• B.A., English, elementary education, Western Michigan University, 1977

Selected Honors, Grants and Awards

• Great Lakes Conference Association Mellon Globalization Fellow, 2016鈥損resent
• 鈥淩ock, Scissors, Paper, iPads: A Qualitative Study of the Choices Kindergarten Children Make When Composing Texts,鈥� 暗网TV Frost Center Student-Faculty Research Grant, 2015
• 鈥淎n Examination of Teacher Candidates' Beliefs, Assumptions and Attitudes on the Use of Digital Technologies for Writing in Elementary Classroom Settings,鈥� 暗网TV Frost Center Student-Faculty Research Grant, 2014
• Great Lakes College Association Global Alliance fellowship, 2014
• Great Lakes College Association New Directions grant, 2013

Selected Publications and Presentations

• 鈥淩ock, Paper, Scissors & iPads: Helping Kindergartners Write and Publish Using Digital Tools,鈥� presentation at International Literacy Association conference, 2018
• 鈥淒igital Literacy as a Platform for Student Agency and Helping Children Write and Publish,鈥� presentation at National Council of Teachers of English annual conference, 2017
• 鈥淭hinking Outside the App,鈥� presentation at Michigan Association for Computer Users and Learners conference, 2015
• 鈥淭eacher Collaboration: Opening and Closing the Classroom Door,鈥� in Standing for Powerful Literacy: Teaching in the Context of Change, Hampton Press, 2011
• Models of Teaching: Connecting Student Learning with Standards (with J. Dell鈥橭lio), Sage Publishers, 2007

Outside the College

Tony and his wife, Theresa Reagan, have two grown children 鈥� one daughter and one son. They reside in Holland and enjoy living near the shoreline of Lake Michigan. Tony is a self-described fanatical reader. He also enjoys travel and distance biking.