Dr. Kela Goodman earned a bachelor’s degree in early childhood and elementary education from the College of Charleston, a master’s in curriculum and instruction from The Citadel, and a doctorate of philosophy in language and literacy from the University of South Carolina. She has 24+ years of experience as an early childhood and elementary teacher, literacy coach, master teacher/evaluator, and assistant professor. Her research interests are culturally relevant pedagogy, specifically culturally valid assessments and multilingual contexts for language learning. She has presented internationally at the Association for Childhood Education International and her research appears in state and regional teacher education journals. She has served as the USC Upstate’s Center for International Studies and School of Education’s program leader for student teachers in a short-term study abroad since 2011, leading two groups of students to Stendal, Germany in 2013 and 2015.