Profile

Taylar Wenzel is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Teacher Education, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. She is the founder and co-director of the UCF Reading Clinic and the director of the UCF Downtown Saturday Reading Camp, both of which offer acceleration opportunities to serve K-6 students in the Central Florida area and clinical field experiences for participating teacher candidates. She is the faculty lead for several community partnership, use-inspired research projects, including STE’s Read2Succeed Partnership, the Knights Read Community Bus, and the City Year Teaching Fellowship. She has been a recipient of the University Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award and multiple Teaching Incentive Program Awards at the college level. Her current research interests are related to developing teacher candidates’ pedagogical content knowledge through job-embedded professional learning experiences, the impact of residency models on teacher preparation, and building collective efficacy of reading educators in the elementary grades.

• University reading clinics
• Job-embedded professional learning
• Teacher preparation

• Ed.D. in Curriculum & Instruction, University of Central Florida
• M.Ed. in Elementary Education, University of Florida

• Elementary Education Program Coordinator
• Faculty Lead, UCF Downtown Saturday Reading Camp
• Faculty Lead, Read2Succeed Teacher Preparation Pathway
• Faculty Lead, City Year Pathway to Teaching Fellowship

• College Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, College of Community Innovation & Education, 2020
• University Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, University of Central Florida, 2016
• College Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, College of Education and Human Performance, 2016
• Association of Teacher Educator’s Clinical Fellow, Association of Teacher Educators, 2016
• Teaching Incentive Program Award, University of Central Florida, 2015, 2020
• Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers Dissertation Award, 2011