Getting to Know Ed.D. Marshal Candice Bocala

Doctoral marshal Candice Bocala, Ed.D.’14, never thought she’d work in education. Instead, as a child, she imagined writing children’s books and, later in college, a career in government. But an internship as an undergrad with the U.S. Department of Education under Secretary Richard Riley opened her eyes to a new possibility: education.

When she earned a master’s from Stanford in policy and evaluation, she considered working in education policy, but was advised by colleagues and peers to become a teacher.

“I was interested in how the field [of education] mattered for children, but I was told over and over again that I should be a teacher first in order to really understand education,” Bocala says.

Taking a job as a third- and later sixth-grade teacher in Washington, D.C., exposed her to an entirely different future than one she imagined. What she discovered working as a teacher in two different schools — one where teachers were isolated versus one that offered opportunities for teamwork — was eventually what brought her to HGSE.

“This profession can work if you have the right community,” Bocala says. “When I look at the other school [I taught in], teachers were trying very hard, but I don’t know how they lasted.”

She spent five years in the K–12 classroom. At the same time, she taught adults about education policy and technology in the evenings at American University. Though she loved teaching children, she became interested in how adults learn, especially how to teach teachers through professional development.

The HGSE faculty — particularly Professor Susan Moore Johnson, Professor Richard Elmore, and Lecturer Katherine Boles — are partially why she chose the Ed School seven years ago.

“All of them are working to better schools as organizations and workplaces for teachers,” she says.

Her dissertation was a case study examining a district which uses a professional development model called Lesson Study. The model, developed and used in Japan, involves collaborative planning among teachers in which they create a lesson as a group then one teacher is observed using the lesson in the classroom. The group meets regularly to discuss the classroom instruction and make adjustments in order to have a greater impact among students. Teachers continue to meet throughout the year in an effort to fine-tune their lesson plans.

Bocala says that the routine aspect of Lesson Study is in part what makes it a success.

While many schools do make efforts for teachers to get together, Bocala says that it often isn’t focused enough because there are too many competing initiatives to actually be impactful. However, the Lesson Study model, which involves regular (meeting two or three times a month) collaborative activities, builds a routine among the small group of teachers that actually leads to teacher and student learning over time.

In many ways, it is community collaboration and support that Bocala researches that has also impacted her own time at HGSE.

As she graduates, Bocala shares how much she bonded with her fellow students who voted her as class marshal. “It is such a huge honor to know the students selected me,” she says. “I hope it represents what I’ve done in service of community building.”

As she prepares to leave the Ed School, she will continue at WestEd, a nonprofit organization that helps improve education through innovative research, evaluation, and professional development. Bocala, who has worked there part-time during her studies, will now work full-time conducting research and providing assistance to schools, districts, and state offices of education.

“Education was not something I saw myself doing but now I can’t get away from it,” she says.