Research statement v.2
I am interested the ways in which network spaces facilitate knowledge transfer among teachers. Specifically, I am curious about how online network spaces, especially those spaces not originally intended for educational purposes, are utilized by teachers in order to facilitate their own learning through informal interactions with one another, and how communities of practice are formed in these spaces. Unrelated to this, I am also interested in how standardized assessments are developed, delivered, and interpreted, and how that process impacts education reform and the standards movement.Research statement v.1
I am interested the ways in which network spaces facilitate knowledge transfer among teachers. Specifically, I am curious about how online network spaces, especially those spaces not originally intended for educational purposes, are utilized by teachers in order to facilitate their own learning through informal interactions with one another. I am also interested in how the knowledge of transfer impacts teachers’ pedagogical, content, and technological knowledge. Finally, I am wondering about the ways teachers adjust their discourse practices in these spaces and how those discourse practices reflect the process of knowledge transfer within these networks and assimilation to these networks.
In the beginning, I had one clear purpose in my research interest: identify the knowledge transfer that is going on in social media spaces. It seemed to me, from participating and observing social media spaces, that there was a great deal of knowledge transfer occuring in these spaces that was not being accurately described. On the one hand, vocal users were heralding in exuberant statements how Twitter or a Ning site HAD CHANGED THEIR LIVES. On the other hand were the teachers being introduced to these types of sites, venturing into the spaces, and then largely disappearing. I’m incredibly curious about the ways people are studying these spaces, and the ways that literacy, discourse, and learning are interacting.
That being said, I have spent a large amount of my time in recent months and years writing and thinking about the standards movement and high-stakes testing. Not wanting to lose that particular focus of my ongoing passion, I elected to amend my research statement to reflect this enthusiasm. While my reading for this RDP has centered around my original statement, making room for this other, seemingly unrelated curiosity, is beginning to spark connections that otherwise would have been stifled out of my original myopic vision. While I have not coalesced these two interests into one, neatly defined question, by keeping both in view I am making associations that I wouldn’t otherwise make. This, in my opinion, is a good thing.
About Andrea