Statement of Research
My consistent action research adds purposeful, mindful pedagogical rigor to my courses. Much of my action research is ongoing and varied; the four elements significantly affecting my recent teaching and collaborative projects are: primary and secondary research for General Education taskforce initiatives, trainings in student equity, adding intercultural rhetoric as an approach to cultural learning styles, and developing/teaching curriculum in writing across the disciplines.
General Education Taskforce
As a two-year member of the General Education Taskforce at Central Penn College, I worked alongside committee members on a new mission statement for the Gen Ed curriculum, which, over time, led to additional objectives for overhauling the Gen Ed curriculum. Based on feedback from a SWOT analysis the taskforce researched CORE, distribution, service/civic learning, and cluster models for Gen Ed. We then conducted a comprehensive qualitative/quantitative survey with 200 student respondents and 58 faculty respondents. The Gen Ed initiative aligns with the mission of the School of Humanities and Sciences to provide “a holistic education experience that prepares students to become positive, productive members of their local, national, and international communities…” and “…to broaden their base of knowledge across multiple disciplines.”
Student Equity
Recent trainings and research have led me to a specialization in the field of ethics and inclusivity in the classroom. Using principles from universal design for learning, I created a faculty training exploring best practices for an equitable learning environment for students with learning differences and/or other situational disadvantages including physical/cognitive disabilities, PTSD, and/or socio-economic barriers. I also wrote a blog post for CPC's Center for Teaching Excellence with advice, based on my pedagogical foundation in Contrastive and Intercultural Rhetoric, for the equitable treatment of written work from ELL students. As a result, I am working on an essay entitled: “The Magnified Mind: Creative Writing and Student Trauma” and a book of writing exercises that take into account differences in learning styles. These concrete fulfillments in ethics and inclusion enrich the learner-centered features of my teaching philosophy.
Writing Curricula
My background in curriculum development and review is extensive. From 2011-2012 I worked alongside co-faculty to finalize a new discipline-specific research-writing curriculum (Writing for Business, Legal Writing, Writing for the Social Sciences, Writing for the Humanities, Writing for the Sciences, and Writing for Health Sciences). As an instructor, the bulk of my load was in writing for the Social Sciences and Business, for which I researched the standards for creating formal reports, report writing, certified data collection and analysis based on the American Anthropological Association’s standards of ethics. In 2015 I also began to co-develop curricula for graduate-level STEM writing for English 500, the English Academic Writing competency course for all graduate students at Koc University (usually around 250-275 students). Selected seminars included: reading academic papers in the sciences, intercultural rhetoric, writing descriptions and definitions, structuring a computer science paper, synthesizing a literature review, best practices for conference presentations, and high-order/low-order editing. Researching curriculum development for technical and scientific writing (from basic to advanced levels) has increased my versatility as a detailed, organized, genre-practiced writing instructor.