Faculty Bio
Dr. Cory Wright-Maley
Associate Professor and Chair ,
Dr. Wright-Maley is grateful to be teaching in Treaty 7 Territory and is committed to education for reconciliation and continued learning from Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers. His research interests include social and economic equity, temporalities, and simulations. He studied at the University of Calgary, Stanford University, and UConn. He has travelled to more than 50 countries and lived in the United States for eleven years, where he taught high school social studies for six years.
- Wright-Maley, C. & Joshi, P. (2017). All fall down: Simulating the spread of the black plague in the high school classroom. The History Teacher, 50(4), 517-534.
- Levine, T. & Wright-Maley, C. (2017). Studying teacher preparation for linguistic diversity: Promoting triangulation while minimizing cost. SAGE Research Methods Cases. DOI: 10.4135/9781473979635
- Wright-Maley, C. & Joshi, P. (2016). Why OPEC is still relevant—especially to the social studies. Social Education, 80(3), 168-173.
- Wright-Maley, C. (2016). “Their definition of rigor is different than ours”: The promise and challenge of enactivist pedagogies in the social studies. Cogent Education, 3(1), 1-14. DOI: 10.1080/2331186X.2016.1140557
- Wright-Maley, C., Davis, C., Gonzales, E., Colwell, R. (2016). Considering perspectives on transgender inclusion in Canadian Catholic elementary schools: Perspectives, challenges, and opportunities. Journal of Social Studies Research, 40(3), 187-200. DOI: 10.1016/j.jssr.2015.12.001
- Wright-Maley, C. (2015). What every social studies teacher should know about simulations. Canadian Social Studies, 48(1), 8-23.
- Wright-Maley, C. (2015). On “stepping back and letting go”: The role of control in the success or failure of social studies simulations. Theory and Research in Social Education, 43(2), 206-243 DOI: 10.1080/00933104.2015.1034394
- Wright-Maley, C. (2015). Beyond the “Babel problem”: Defining simulations for the social studies. Journal of Social Studies Research, 39(2), 63-77 doi:10.1016/j.jssr.214.10.001
- Wright-Maley, C., & Green, J.D. (2015). Experiencing the needs and challenges of ELLs: Improving knowledge and efficacy of preservice teachers through the use of a language immersion simulation. Cogent Education, 2(1), 1-17. doi:10.1080/2331186X.2015.1030176
- Wright-Maley, C. (2014). In defense of simulating complex and tragic historical episodes: A measured response to the outcry over a New England slavery simulation. Canadian Social Studies, 47(1), 18-25.
- Book Chapters: Wright-Maley, C. & Green, J. D. (2018). Bitter Challenge; Swede Success: Simulating Language Learning Experiences in Social Studies Classrooms. In D. Oliveira & K. Obenchain, (Eds.). Teaching History and Social Studies to English Language Learners: Preparing Pre-Service and In-Service Teachers. Cham, CH: Palgrave MacMillan.
- Wright-Maley, C. (2018). Yes, children should know where meat comes from: Preparing teachers to navigate the delicate nature of interrogating the sacrosanct. In S. Shear, Tschida, Bellows, L.B. Buchanan, E.E. Saylor (Eds.). (Re)Imagining Elementary Social Studies: A Controversial Issues Reader, pp. 177-198. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Press.
- Wright-Maley, C., Lee, J., & Friedman, A.M. (2018). Digital simulations, games, and other emerging technologies in historical learning. S. A. Metzger & L.M. Harris (Eds.). The Wiley International Handbook of History Teaching and Learning, pp. 603-630. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
- Wright-Maley, C., Levine, T., Gonzalez, E. (2014). Instruction in progress: In search of effective practices for emergent bilinguals. In Levine, T., Howard, L., Moss, D. (Eds.). Preparing Classroom Teachers to Succeed with Second Language Learners, pp. 154-173. New York, NY: Routledge.
- Books: Wright-Maley, C. & Davis, T. (Eds.), (2017). Teaching for Democracy in an Age of Economic Disparity. New York, NY: Routledge.
- In Progress: Wright-Maley, C. (Ed.). More like life itself: Simulations as powerful and purposeful social studies. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
- Dr. Wright-Maley’s passion for simulations research continues to be stoked by new questions that continue to emerge. He is particularly interested in several dimensions of simulation-based teaching that I am starting to explore: The first question he is asking is how do teachers learn to be effective facilitators of simulations in K-12 classrooms? This has implications for how we train teachers, how we come to understand their perspectives on using them, and what challenges emerge in the process of learning how to teach this way. The second set of questions have to do with chaos theory: How, if at all, does chaos theory apply to human simulations? Do we act in predictable, non-linear ways that aren’t readily obvious? If so, how might chaos theory help us to better understand human interactions across social domains? Finally, he is asking how simulations might contribute to the process of learning how to create a more just society. In particular, how might simulations help us to think about and develop an economic landscape that is more equitable?