Associate Professor
OFFICE LOCATION
Education 356
OFFICE HOURS
MAILING ADDRESS
Box 41071
Lubbock TX 79409-41071
DIRECT PHONE
(806) 742-1997 ext. 278
DEPARTMENT PHONE
(806) 742-1997
FAX NUMBER
(806) 742-2179
EMAIL ADDRESS
Zenaida Aguirre-Munoz
Short Biography
Dr. Zenaida Aguirre-Muñoz is an Associate Professor in the Bilingual Education and Diversity Studies program within the Curriculum and Instruction department. She received her Ph.D. in Psychological Studies in Education from the University of California, Los Angeles. Aguirre-Muñoz joined the Texas Tech faculty in 2004 and is currently the Assistant Director for the Center for Leadership in Education.
Professional interests
Dr. Aguirre-Muñoz’s research involves the examination and identification of assessment and instructional approaches that have a potential for reducing the achievement gap between English language learners (ELLs) and non-ELLs. In an effort to develop frameworks for effective ELL instruction and assessment, her research focuses on the identification of key factors that impact student achievement, including factors related to English language development, primary language proficiency, and the factors that emerge from the interplay between these two general areas. She is particularly interested in the integration of cognitive science principles and linguistic theory. An example of this work is Aguirre-Munoz’s current investigation of middle school ELLs’ development of written language grammar schemas pertaining to how they display knowledge and present their point of view. A second significant theme in her research is investigating the impact of opportunity to learn on student achievement and assessment performance. For example, she investigates the impact of ELLs’ opportunities to learn academic language on ELLs’ performance of on demand writing tasks.
Representative publications
Aguirre-Muñoz, Z., Park, J. E., Amabisca, A. A. & Boscardin, C. K., (Accepted). Developing teacher capacity for serving ELLs writing instructional needs: A case for systemic functional linguistics. Bilingual Research Journal.
Aguirre-Muñoz, Z. & Boscardin, C. K. (2008). Opportunity to Learn and English Learner Achievement: Is Increased Content Exposure Beneficial? Journal of Latinos and Education.
Aguirre-Muñoz, Z., & Solano-Flores, G. (Fall, 2008). Accountability and Educational Assessment for Latino, English Language Learning Students: Enhancing Practices through Multidisciplinary Approaches. In, E. Murrillo (Ed.), Handbook of Latinos and Education. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Mahwah, New Jersey.
Aguirre-Muñoz, Z. (In press, 2008). Estándares de Oportunidad de Aprendizaje: Una estrategia para promover equidad escolar.[Opportunity to Learn Standards: A strategy for promoting educational equity]. Proceedings from the 2008 Bloom Lecture Series vol. 3.
Aguila, V., Aguirre-Muñoz, Z., Blair, M., Cordova, M., Dobb, F., Koency, G., Sanchez, L., Zenda, N., (2007) English-Spanish Education Language Glossary Translation Guide. California Department of Education, Sacramento, CA.
Baker, E.L., Aguirre-Muñoz, Z., Wang, J., & Niemi, D. (2005). What Works in Distance Learning: Assessment Strategies. In H. F. O’Neil (Ed.), What works in distance learning: Guidelines (pp. 65-88). Information Age Publishing, Inc. Greenwich, CT.