Fatima Ferguson
FDI Scholar in the Department of Education
Fatima was born in Jackson, M.S. She attended Jackson State University, where she received a B.A. in Business Management, in addition to a MAT in Elementary Education. After graduating from Jackson State University, she worked as a classroom teacher for five years. As a classroom teacher, she ensured that student growth was continuous and appropriate, and employed a variety of instructional techniques and instructional media.
Currently, she is a doctoral candidate at the University of Memphis where she serves as a graduate teaching assistant. The courses in which she has taught include Learning in an Urban Environment and Methods to Teaching Social Studies. Areas of interest include culturally responsive teaching, educational equity, and school climate.
Her dissertation is a quantitative study, which she plans to defend in October 2013, that seeks to explore the impact school climate has on AYP (average yearly progress). More specifically, it compares schools within an urban, southern school district who have achieved AYP for three consecutive years with schools who did not achieve AYP for three consecutive years. Her study uses the OHI-E (organizational health inventory for elementary schools) to further investigate specific dimensions of school climate, including academic emphasis and institutional integrity.