November 5, 2021
Three education faculty publish research
Three College of Education faculty members published research ranging from learning technology tools and internship pivots to self-study journals and leveraging critical friendships.
Dr. Africa Hands
Dr. Africa Hands in the Department of Interdisciplinary Professions (Library Science) recently published an article in College Teaching, a journal focused on research into issues in teaching and learning at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The article is titled “Peer Genius Bar: Using the Wisdom of the Crowd to Learn Technology Tools.”
The abstract reads:
Teaching technology when technology moves at the speed of light can be a challenging task. In addition to the fast-paced changes in this field, students possess a range of skills, experiences, and attitudes about technology such that there is no common baseline for content and activities. This article reflects on a technology-related crowdsourcing exercise implemented in a graduate professional course. The collaborative learning exercise fosters autonomy and peer-to-peer learning and has resulted in the exploration of more technology tools than could be shared by one instructor.
Dr. Kaye Dotson
Dr. Kaye Dotson in the Department of Interdisciplinary Professions (Library Science) published an article in the Serials Review journal titled “Internship Pivot @ ECU: Responding to Our University’s Transition.”
The abstract reads:
The Master of Library Science (MLS) program at East Carolina University (ECU) requires internships for graduate students, pairing them with cooperating professionals to bridge the gap between theory and practice and to provide real-life experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic’s resulting transition to online-only instruction during the spring semester of 2020 impacted the traditional in-person internship significantly. ECU’s MLS internship director described the resulting changes to programming, placement, and cumulative projects; and a site supervisor described the tools and techniques used to communicate, plan, and work collaboratively online. Audience members shared additional tools and strategies for making online-only internships beneficial for students and cooperating field sites.
Dr. Kristen Gregory
Dr. Kristen Gregory in the Department of Elementary and Middle Grades Education published two articles recently.
In Studying Teacher Education, a journal of self-study of teacher education practices, she published “Learning and Living Self-Study Research: Guidelines to the Self-Study Journal” with fellow researchers Mark M. Diacopoulos, Angela Branyon and Brandon M. Butler.
The abstract reads:
The teaching and learning of self-study research have received increased attention in recent years, although there is still limited research about the learning of self-study. In this article, we share results from a self-study community of practice that describes how one group of novice teacher-educator-researchers learned self-study in a doctoral seminar on teacher education. The doctoral seminar served as a space through which the students simultaneously learned about and enacted self-study research methods. Data for the study included educational autobiographies and journals between students and the instructor, transcribed audio-recordings of course meetings and coding sessions, and course assignments. Through data analysis, we identified six steps in our particular journey of learning self-study: (1) advancing a willingness to improve; (2) acknowledging the power of reflection, (3) examining practice through collaboration, (4) identifying changes in practice, (5) developing new identities, and (6) sharing with others. We offer our experience of learning self-study to provide readers with one set of signposts, support, encouragement, and direction for the teaching and learning of self-study methods. Findings from this research may provide insights to new self-study researchers, scholars who teach self-study research, and experienced self-study researchers who provide on-going support for self-study colleagues.
In Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, she published “Leveraging critical friendship to navigate doctoral student role transitions” with Amanda Kate Burbage.
The abstract reads:
The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of critical friendship on a first- and last-year doctoral student’s novice and expert mindsets during role transitions. Doctoral students are challenged to navigate role transitions during their academic programs. Experiences in research expectations, academy acculturation and work-life balance, may impact doctoral students’ novice-expert mindsets and contribute to the costly problem of attrition. Universities offer generic doctoral support, but few support sources address the long-term self-directed nature of self-study.