Dr. Nicole Damico is an Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida in the School of Teacher Education/Secondary English Language Arts program. She earned her doctoral degree from Pennsylvania State University in Curriculum and Instruction, with a specialization in Language, Culture, and Society. Dr. Damico’s research interests revolve around supporting education with innovative digital technologies for teaching and learning, including ethical citizenship through digital mindfulness and critical media literacy.

As a former middle and high school English Language Arts teacher in both urban and rural school settings, her work has also prioritized supporting the needs of beginning English Language Arts educators. Dr. Damico is actively involved in the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), serving as the co-chair of the Commission on Digital Literacies and Teacher Education (D-LITE) from 2018-2020. She is currently on the editorial board of the international journal, STEM (The Society for teaching English Through Media) and the board for Orlando nonprofit Page15.

Areas of Expertise

• Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age
• Preservice and Early Career Teacher Learning and Development
• Mindfulness and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies

Education

Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Damico’s primary area of research is the symbiosis of digital technologies and literacy education. The majority of this work revolves around supporting preservice and early career literacy educators as they learn how to implement digital technologies for teaching and learning. To this end, she seeks to understand how online learning tools and environments mediate beginning teachers’ evolving sense of identity and pedagogy, studying teacher participation in digital environments like social media. Her second area of interest reflects her former position as a middle and high school English educator in high needs schools. Dr. Damico conducts concentrated research on how adolescents leverage digital technologies for multimodal composition, production, and dissemination. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is alson integral to her research. Utilizing mindfulness and culturally responsive pedagogies, she engages in systematic inquiry into her own classroom practice through an emergent and inductive qualitative approach.

• UCF Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Award (2021)
• UCF Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award (2021)
• The Chuck D. Dziuban Award for Excellence in Online Teaching, Honorable Mention (2020)
• UCF Teaching Incentive Program (TIP) Award (2020)
• UCF Research Intensive (RI) Course Designation – LAE 4361 (2020)
  *First faculty member in the School of Teacher Education to earn this recognition
• UCF High Quality Online Course Distinction - LAE 4361 (2018)
  *First faculty member in the School of Teacher Education to be awarded this recognition
• UCF Quality Online Course Distinction - LAE 4361 (2018)
  *First faculty member in the School of Teacher Education to be awarded this recognition
• Morgridge International Reading Center (MIRC) Fellow (2016)
• American Education Research Association (AERA) Division K New Faculty Preconference (2016)

Undergraduate

• LAE 4360: English Instructional Analysis
  This course is designed for exploring objectives for a school curriculum and methods and materials which have special application for teaching English at the middle grades and high school.
• LAE 4342: Programs in Teaching Language and Composition
  This course is designed for special programs, strategies and materials on teaching language and composition in middle and secondary English Language Arts.
• LAE 4361: Literacy Strategies in a Digital Age for Middle and High School
  This course is designed to assist teachers in understanding and presenting information using digital literacies, technological innovations, language arts skills and multicultural models of instruction for secondary instruction.
• LAE 4464: Survey of Adolescent Literature
  This course is designed to explore adolescent/young adult literature from an educational and historical perspective.
• LAE 4912: Directed Independent Research
  This course is designed to document and formalize independent research activities for undergraduates through original intellectual or creative contribution to the discipline.
• LAE 3940: Secondary English Language Arts Internship 1
  This course is designed for student teaching in a secondary school under the supervision of a certified classroom teacher.
• RED 4043: Content Area Reading
  This course is designed for the examination of theory, teaching strategies, and resources for effective middle and secondary reading programs, to assist teachers to understand and develop content area reading instructional strategies.

Graduate

• LAE 5346: Methods of Teaching Language Arts
  This course is designed for alternative certification and Masters of Arts students to explore the strands, methods and materials related to school curriculum in teaching English.
• LAE 5338: Teaching Writing in Middle and High School
  This course is designed to offer techniques and methods in teaching dialects, semantics, and the various grammars within the context of writing.
• LAE 5369: Literacy Strategies in a Digital Age for Middle and High School
  This course is designed to assist teachers in understanding and presenting information using digital literacies, technological innovations, language arts skills and multicultural models of instruction for secondary education.
• LAE 5465: Literature for Adolescents
  This course is designed for selecting and evaluating books for adolescents with emphasis on the use of literature in the development of young people.
• LAE 5496: Disciplinary Literacy in the Content Areas
  This course is designed to assist in understanding the adolescent reader and writer, this course will examine theory, strategies, resources, and implementation options of disciplinary literacy specifically in the content areas (Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, and other content areas).