About: Mark Wagler
Full Name
Mark Wagler
Website
http://www.wistory.org/tellers/st_waglm.htm
Details
Mark Wagler grew up in a large Amish-Mennonite farm family in Ohio. He studied cultural history in graduate school at the Universität Bern in Switzerland, the history of science and Renaissance/Reformation at the University of Chicago, and received an M.A. in theatre at the University of Wisconsin. As a free-lance storyteller and folklorist, Mark conducted long term educational projects with the Museum of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Wisconsin Public Radio, Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and directed two year-long teacher-training programs with UW-Madison and the Madison school district on storytelling in the language arts and social studies. He was the first president of the Northlands Storytelling Network and co-director of Heads & Tales, an international conference on storytelling in education. Until recently, Mark taught a multiage fourth and fifth grade classroom at Randall School in Madison, Wisconsin. As a co-founder of the Heron Network, the Heron Institute, and Great Blue: A Journal of Student Inquiry, he helped provide training and organize collaboration among teachers who emphasize equity, inquiry, local study, and networking in their classrooms. His students regularly observed nature in an outdoor classroom he helped establish at his school and on biweekly “Mornings-in-the-Marsh” at nearby Lake Wingra. In recent years, his students have taken culture tours of their county, nearby neighborhoods, and seven Hmong communities throughout Wisconsin. Students presented the results of their inquiries via student journals and conferences, museum exhibits, a book, videos, web sites, and local and global classroom networks. He has published articles and book chapters and presented many workshops and keynote addresses based on his teaching, storytelling, and fieldwork. Among numerous academic and teaching awards he has received are a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, the Dorothy Howard Prize in Folklife Education from the American Folklore Society, and a Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics and Science. Mark is now program manager of the Local Games Lab at the University of Wisconsin, where he helps create augmented reality games about local places, support teachers who use these games in their classrooms, and research student learning. Although place-based games are a new media for Mark, their NPCs, roles, and challenges feel very familiar to Mark. He is still teaching with stories.
