Faculty

Profile

Loretta is Part-time Assistant Professor in Parsons' MFADT (Design & Technology) Program (2002-current). She holds an MFADT degree (Parsons, 2002), a Master’s Degree (MAT) in English Literature, and California Standard Secondary School Teacher’s Credential. In 2002, Loretta helped design the writing and research curriculum component for the DT Thesis. She co-teaches thesis studio and has created a living resource web site, SylvesterKnows, for DT thesis students. Loretta was a founding member of the small NYC public school, Quest to Learn (Q2L) and member of its curriculum design planning team from 2006-2012. She is co-author of the book, Quest to Learn: Developing the School for Digital Kids (2011: The MIT Press). Prior to returning to school as a student at Parsons, she was Senior Sponsoring Editor for K-12 Teacher Education textooks and materials at Houghton Mifflin Publishers (Boston) for 25+ years. Her projects and publications include: Video: In Classrooms (HM); On a Full Moon: Integrating Story and Literacy Skills; StoryKaleidoscope: Character Point-of-View; Quest to Learn School Assessment Rubrics; Look Duck Feet: Kinderboard on Kindertable Goes to School (TIES Magazine, 2002;Literacy Inventory Protocol: Pedagogical Tool for Iterative Prototoype Design, presented at the 2005 IDC conference, For the ACM 2020 IDC (Interactive Design and Children Conference), a position paper  was accepted for her participation in its conference workshop on  "Teaching the Next Generation of Child Interaction Researchers and Designers." She is co-editor of Entropy Reader: A  Publication of Parsons Design & Technology BFA/MFA 2023 Thesis Show. 

Degrees Held

B.A. English Literature (The Modern Novel) 

MAT Secondary Standard Teachers Credential (English/History)

MFADT Parsons 2002 (Thesis: On a Full Moon: Integrating Story and Literacy Skills )

Professional Affiliation

ACM (Association Computing Machinery) SIGCHI (Computer Human Interaction)  and IDC (Interaction Design and Children)

ISLS (nternational Society of the Learning Sciences) 

Recent Publications

See Bio 

Research Interests

Learning Science (socially-mediated, constructivist learning) 

Narrative

Young Children's Emergent Literacy 

Systems Thinking