Rate My Professor Karin Sprow Forte

Karin Sprow Forté is the Professor-in-Charge for the ESL Program Specialist Certification Program, Associate Teaching Professor for Lifelong Learning and Adult Education and Teacher Education in the School of Behavioral Sciences and Education, and a member of the Graduate Faculty at Penn State Harrisburg, The Pennsylvania State University. She serves as Chair of Teacher Education and has been promoted to her current associate teaching professor rank effective July 1, 2022. Forté earned her D.Ed. from The Pennsylvania State University, M.A. from the University of Illinois, and B.A. and M.A. from the University of Alabama. Her research examines the influence of sociocultural factors in education, teacher education, and clinical experiences, with emphasis on critical perspectives, ESL, and online education. Research interests encompass social justice, adult learning, English as a Second Language teaching and learning, second language acquisition, transformative learning, teacher preparation, professional development, and clinical experiences. She completed the Penn State Emerging Academic Leaders program in 2023 and was selected as an inaugural Assessment Champion by the Office of Planning, Assessment, and Institutional Research in 2024. Forté models assessment practices in teacher education classrooms and contributes to data collection for accountability to the Pennsylvania Department of Education and accreditation by the Association for Advancing Quality Educator Preparation.

Forté has produced significant scholarly work, including co-authoring 'Fostering Transformative Learning in an Online ESL Professional Development Program for K-12 Teachers' (The Qualitative Report, 2016), 'Community-Based Financial Literacy Education in a Cultural Context: A Study of Teacher Beliefs and Pedagogical Practice' (Adult Education Quarterly, 2013), 'Educating Latinas for Financial Literacy: A Case Study' (Adult Education Quarterly, 2012), and 'Teaching Financial Literacy: A Survey of Community-Based Educators' (International Journal of Consumer Studies, 2012). She co-edited Financial Literacy and Adult Education (Jossey-Bass, 2014) and contributed chapters such as 'Adult Financial Literacy Education: A Sociocultural Perspective' (2014) and 'Toward Health Equity: Mindfulness and Cultural Humility as Adult Education' (2019). Other publications include 'Understanding Medical Students' Attitudes Towards and Experiences with Persons with Disabilities and Disability Education' (Disability and Health Journal, 2022) and 'Building a Teacher Residency Collaborative: Mapping the Synergistic Activities to the Continuum of Clinical Partnership Development and Growth' (in press, 2021). She teaches courses including ADTED 460: Introduction to Adult Education, ADTED 542: Perspectives on Adult Learning Theory, C&I 280: Introduction to Teaching English as a Second Language, EDUC 466: Foundations of Teaching English as a Second Language, EDUC 468: Second Language Acquisition, and EDUC 520: Learning Theory for the Classroom. Forté serves on the University Committee on Assessment of Learning and curricular affairs subcommittees of the University Faculty Senate.