About Me
About me
I am a learning and data scientist who seeks to identify, examine, and address geographic variability in learning opportunities – for our teachers, our students, and our communities. My work is motivated by my own K-12 teaching career in the secondary mathematics, computer science, and engineering classroom in rural Central Appalachia. I use mixed methods – namely computational social science and qualitative analysis – to investigate variability in the distribution of students’ and teachers’ STEM learning opportunities across geographic communities. Conceptualizing learning as situated, my research program is guided by the following overarching questions:
- Where and to what extent does space support student and teacher learning? In what ways?
- Where and to what extent does it limit them? How?
- How might digital resources and collaborative technologies be designed and implemented to span geographic distance and reduce differences in learning opportunities?
My work particularly attends to geographic differences in teacher learning opportunities. U.S. schools serve some well and others poorly – including teachers. As primary points of student contact, we often rely on teachers to realize excellent student learning outcomes within an under-funded and under-supported system; however, we rarely acknowledge that the same systemic issues and barriers to student learning also shape teachers’ professional learning. My scholarship conceptualizes teachers as lifelong learners, with the goal of working toward robust STEM learning opportunities for both students and teachers.