When he taught middle school social studies, Dr. Jared McBrady always strove to have students experience that subject in a way they found engaging, empowering and relevant for their futures in citizenship, scholarship and careers. He often found that easier said than done! So he earned his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in order to study how to best do that important work.

Dr. McBrady researches how to better train college students to become exceptional social studies teachers. He is particularly interested in what undergraduate teacher candidates learn about teaching history as they take college courses in history and college courses in education. He enjoys working with undergraduate students as partners in his research, and has co-presented and co-published with his students on many occasions.

At Hope, Dr. McBrady teaches courses in history and courses to prepare secondary social studies teachers.

He joined the Hope faculty in 2024. For the previous seven years, he taught in the education department of the University of Saint Francis and the history department of the State University of New York (SUNY) at Cortland. At the latter, he also coordinated his department’s adolescence education social studies program. He holds an Indiana professional educator’s license to teach social studies in grades 5-12.

Areas of Expertise

• History/social studies teaching and learning
• Teacher education
• Decoding the Disciplines and disciplinary literacy
• Students as Partners research

Education

• Ph.D., educational studies (with cross-specialization in history education and teacher education), University of Michigan, 2017
• M.Ed., University of Notre Dame, 2012
• B.A., history and political science, University of Notre Dame, 2010\

Grants, Honors & Awards

• History Department Research Enrichment and Development Initiative grant, SUNY Cortland, 2021
• Cortland Applied Learning Practitioners grant (with Dr. Gigi Peterson), SUNY Cortland, 2020
• “Our Shared Past,” Social Studies Research Council/British Council curriculum development grant, University of Michigan, 2013
• Charles Redd Center Teaching Western History Award for K-12 Teachers, 2011

Selected Publications

• “Don’t Set Goals, Set Systems: Using Decoding the Disciplines and Students as Partners to Strengthen a History Department and Its Teacher Candidates,” Teaching & Learning Inquiry, forthcoming
• “Decoding How Undergraduate Students Contextualize Historical Documents,” The History Teacher (with undergraduate students R. DiCostanzo, A. Discenza & J. Langone), forthcoming
• “Teacher Candidates as Student Partners in Decoding the Disciplines Research: Decoding How University Students Contextualize Historical Documents” (with undergraduate students R. DiCostanzo, A. Discenza, & J. Langone), International Journal for Students as Partners, 2024
• “Decoding the Disciplines as a Pedagogy of Teacher Education,” Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 2022
• “The Challenge of Peace: Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, and the American Bishops,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 2015

Outside the College

Dr. McBrady enjoys spending time with his wife and son. As you might expect from a history teacher, he likes to read old books and research family history. The McBradys attend St. Luke’s Church in Georgetown Township.