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Dean Vesperman

Assistant Professor
History University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Dean Vesperman's office hours

Tuesday
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
or by appointment
Thursday
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
or by appointment
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Dean Vesperman

Assistant Professor

History

Specialty area(s)

Citizenship and democracy education 

Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

Education Policy

Brief biography

Dr. Dean P. Vesperman is an assistant professor of education in the History Department at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Dr. Vesperman teaches courses in secondary social studies methods. He earned doctorate at Indiana University in Curriculum and Instruction minor in learning sciences. Before earning his doctorate Dean taught junior high and high school social studies for eleven years in southeastern Wisconsin and CTY for 18 summers. Dr. Vesperman has published articles on various pedagogical methods for teaching social studies. He lives in Western Wisconsin with his wife, daughter, and dog

Current courses at UWL

HIS 419  - Teaching and Learning Social Studies in the Secondary School and Field Experience II

Education

BS - University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh - History and International Studies

MEE - Cardinal Stritch University - Brain-Based Teaching and Learning 

Ph.D. - Indiana University - Curriculum and Instruction: Curriculum Studies and Learning Sciences

Career

Teaching history

I taught middle and high school social studies for 11 years. I taught 7th Grade World Geography, 8th Grade United States History to 1877, High School courses in American Government, Economics, Psychology, and Sociology, and Film Analysis. 

I have taught classes in elementary and secondary social studies methods, educational psychology, foundations of diversity and equity, and education policy. 

Professional history

Luther College - 2014-2019

University of Wisconsin-River Falls - 2019-2024

Research and publishing

Blankenship, W. G., Aydinian-Perry, A., Vesperman, D. P., & Missias, M.T. (2025). Contextualizing socio-cultural STEM through historical figures and events. In Pryor C. R. and Kang, R. Socio-Cultural STEM for middle school: A model for student engagement and teacher collaboration (pp. 81-105). Rowan & Littlefield.

Aydinian-Perry, A., Missias, M. T., Blankenship, W. G., & Vesperman, D. P., & (2024). Teaching the Red Summer Through The Chicago Race Riot: A Primary Source Investigation.  Oregon Journal for the Social Studies 12(1). p. 14-25.   

 

Smith H., Vesperman, D. P., Frederick, A. (2024). Preparing Teachers for Linguistically Diverse Classrooms. In Andrews, O. S. & Tomlin, A. D. When We Hear Them: Tools to Attune Teachers’ Ears to Voices of Language-Diverse Learners. Information Age Publishing. 257-267.  

 

Aydinian-Perry, A., Missias, M.T., Vesperman, D. P., & Blankenship, W. G. (2024). Whose greatest story is ever told: Historical agency in evangelical Christian American history textbooks. In Allen, A., Kavanagh, A. M., and Ni Cassaithe, C. Moving Beyond a Single Story. Information Age Publishing. 195-213.

 

 

Vesperman, D. P., Aydinian-Perry, A., Blankenship, W. G., & Missias, M. T. (2023). Acknowledgements and introduction. In Vesperman, D. P., Aydinian-Perry, A., Blankenship, W. G., & Missias, M. T. Out of turmoil. Catalysts for re-learning, re-teaching, re-imagining history and social studies. Information Age Publishing. Xi-xiii.

 

Vesperman, D. P. & Pol, M. (2023). Teaching social studies in a time of COVID-19: an examination of contradictions in activity. In Vesperman, D. P., Aydinian-Perry, A., Blankenship, W. G., & Missias, M. T. Out of turmoil. Catalysts for re-learning, re-teaching, re-imagining history and social studies. Information Age Publishing. 57-72. 

Kudos

published

Dean Vesperman, History, co-authored the article "Keeping it Real: Confronting Controversy in the Classroom" in The Great Lakes Social Studies Journal published on Friday, May 9 by Michigan Council for the Social Studies. The ultimate goal of teacher education is to prepare students to be informed participant citizens in our democracy. A driving question that motivates our work is how to best prepare future secondary social studies teachers to teach about controversial or contentious issues in authentic ways. Keeping it real in the classroom necessarily includes the freedom to teach about the critical contemporary issues confronting our world and affecting our students’ lives. However, schools have become a barrier in the battleground for freedom of speech. This article focuses on how we used a simulation of a school board book ban and a structured academic controversy to help our teacher candidates explore teaching about controversial issues.

Submitted on: May 9

presented

Dean Vesperman, History, presented "Conquering Machine Learning: How do We Improve AI-Generated Curriculum?" at UWL Research and Creativity Symposium on Friday, May 9 in La Crosse,. Presented with undergraduate researchers Terra Clark, Zach Powley, McKiley Green, and Audrey Langworthy, preliminary data on how to improve AI-generated curriculum. This poster presentation focused on analyzing AI-gen lessons about the Kerner Commission Report (1968) through the lens of Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind. Our research demonstrated that the lessons focus on a limited number of Frames: Linguistic, Interpersonal, and existential.

Submitted on: May 9

presented

Dean Vesperman, History, presented "Bring Current Events Alive! " at the Wisconsin Council for the Social Studies on March 15 in Madison. Vesperman presented with undergraduates McKylie Green, Terra Clark, Audrey Langworthy, Shelby Schultz, Youssef Zahid, Zach Powley, and Chase Brown on how teachers can use high-impact practices such as whip-arounds, 3-2-1 Discussions, Triangle-Square-Circle reflections, and Four Corner discussions to actively engage students in examining current events. The presenters used various current events to help participants model these literacy and discussion techniques including the recent measles outbreak and proposed cuts to the National Parks Service.

Submitted on: Mar. 16

published

Dean Vesperman, History, co-authored the chapter "Contextualizing socio-cultural STEM through historical figures and events. " in . Socio-Cultural STEM for middle school: A model for student engagement and teacher collaboration and was accepted for publication by Rowman & Littlefield. In keeping with the focus of the chapter, we offer three lesson plans centered on the role of historical figures or events in the development of computer technologies over time, the development of food preservation over time, and the effects of public policies designed to inhibit the spread of contagious diseases on individual civil rights. Each of the lessons is embedded within the socio-cultural context of the period and provides opportunities for students to conduct guided inquiry into the topic.

Submitted on: Jan. 17

presented

Dean Vesperman, History, presented "Blazing a New Freedom Trail: Connecting Past and Present through Historical and Geographic Thinking" at the National Council for the Social Studies on Nov. 23 in Boston, Massachusetts. The presentation was on how to engage in authentic historical inquiry using local and historical maps to identify and illuminate the silences within historical geographic texts within a justice-oriented inquiry. Use Boston’s historical geographic texts as a model to interrogate local social and political discourses, to frame historical narratives, and teach with justice-oriented historical inquiry.

Submitted on: Nov. 28, 2024

Memberships & affiliations

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