Independent Researcher

Educational Consultant & President of Learning Innovations

College of Education, Louisiana State University, US

Thesis Title: Conceptualizing, Describing and Contrasting School Cultures: A Comparative Case Study of School Improvement Processes (see link on CV)

About

La Tefy Schoen is president/founder of Learning Innovations Consultancy operating out of Baton Rouge Louisiana. She assists PK-12 schools and districts locally and at a distance with professional development and school effectiveness and improvement issues. Formerly she was on faculty in the Educational Leadership & Policy Studies Dept. at North Carolina State University. She has a Ph. D. in Educational Leadership and Research from Louisiana State University and a Master's Degree in Educational Administration from the same institution. As a graduate student, she also completed 15 hour concentrations in Curriculum and Instruction and Sociology.

Prior to her engagement at NCSU, La Tefy worked as a school teacher and as a consultant for the Louisiana State Department of Education and the Governor's Office on Education.

Her research involves exploring the social aspects of organizational functioning and learning. She has devoted the last decade to trying to understand the dynamics of the organizational culture of schools and school districts and how these dynamics impact change efforts. This work has important implications in several areas such as educational policy, effective learning environments, organizational change, and educational leadership. La Tefy writes in each of these areas, from the socio-cognitive constructivist perspective.

Her work focuses primarily on theory development and application of theory in practice. She is concerned with explaining how elements of the organizational social system impact and are impacted by changes in education policy and practice. See CV for links to publications.

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