Aleksandra (Ola) Adach

BA Applied Linguistics, MA Sociology, PhD candidate
Instructor

Subject: Language Arts / Writing

What will my child walk away with? Intellectual curiosity, genuine agency over their own learning, and the communication skills to express complex ideas clearly across contexts. My background spans applied linguistics, sociology, and learning sciences, and I bring all three to how I teach students to read, write, and think.

What can families expect? A teacher with international teaching experience across Poland, China, the U.S., and Canada, whose research explores how multilingual families and teachers navigate identity, knowledge, and communication. I also work in AI, training and auditing large language models, which gives me an unusually current perspective on the future of language and communication skills.

What does class actually feel like? Asset-based and genuinely student-centered. I believe students thrive when they are given both structure and genuine freedom to take ownership of their learning, and I design every class to provide both. Students consistently tell me they feel seen and heard in my classroom.

How do you challenge a curious mind? I treat students as active contributors to knowledge, not passive recipients of it. A curious student in my class is invited to bring their own linguistic and cultural background into the analytical work, because that diversity of perspective makes the thinking sharper and more interesting for everyone.

Credentials and Experience Ph.D. candidate in Learning Sciences, University of Illinois Chicago. M.A. candidate in Language and Literacies Education, OISE/University of Toronto. M.A. in Sociology, Southern Illinois University Carbondale. B.A. in Applied Linguistics, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Poland. Teaching experience across Poland, China, the U.S., and Canada in English as a Foreign Language, Polish, and English for Academic Purposes. Research collaborator on STEM and English Language Arts professional development. Specialist in AI training and auditing of large language models.

Our Instructors