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Professional Development  Statement

During first year of my doctoral studies, every single experience I gained helped me broaden my horizons. This page will help you learn more about my studies and how these research experiences made contribution to my professional development. 

 

Coursework 

 

In the fall of 2013, I took three courses; EDIT 6190 - Design & Development Tools, WFED 9200 - Advanced Research Design and Methods and WFED 8990 - Research Seminar. All of these classes helped me to adapt a doctoral student role in academia. EDIT 6190 was a really good first class for our program. Weekly readings, learning about how different learning theories and related methods inform our field, and designing a 'tool' to promote learning by using technology helped me to gain a deeper understanding of Learning, Design, and Technology program. WFED 9200 was a challenging course for me but helped a lot to start to think about potential research topics and to learn about general structure of an expected Chapter 1 for my dissertation. WFED 8990 provided me with the opportunity of learning about faculty members' research, doctoral students' studies and different conferences that we can attend.   

 

This semester, I am taking 5 courses! EDIT8190 - Design and Development Tools and WFED 8990 - Research Seminar are similar to the ones I took in the fall semester. EDIT 8190 helped me to learn more about designing a tool using design-based research methodology in general. During research seminar sessions, doctoral students' dissertation presentations helped me to see clearly how I should work on, plan in detail and think about my research interests and dissertation topic. Incubation sessions were also really helpful to hear about my friends' research ideas and to talk about suggestions.

 

EDIT9990 - The Art of Writing provided me with an opportunity to allocate time for my own research and think about academic writing. Face-to-face meetings with Dr. Hill has helped me a lot to think about conceptual background of my paper and how to have better time management and writing skills. ERSH8310 was the first method course I took, I enjoyed learning to use of SPSS for Analysis of Variance and gaining hands-on experience with analysis of example data. LLED 7769- International Graduate Internship II lead me focus on my oral skills for the classroom and cultural aspects of teaching with emphasis on presentation skills and audience awareness. 

 

Research

 

First and foremost it was a great experience for me to be a graduate research assistant so far. I have never felt like I was working! I have been involved in the ‘Inquiry in Action’ project under the supervision of Dr. Kopcha and Dr. Deissler. The purpose of the project is to design a web-based tool that integrates digital content into existing print-based materials produced by the USDA Forest Service. My responsibilities have been reviewing literature to build the materials around an inquiry framework, designing procedural scaffolds that assist students and teachers in structuring their tasks and steps in an inquiry process, creating documents for interview protocols, and editing USDA Forest Service Scientists' interview videos to embed our web-based tool so far. After first design iteration of our web-based tool, we will have expert review and teacher feedback to revise our design before real class implementation. I believe, this project helped me to gain better understanding of first phases of design-based research methodology and I will gain more research experiences during following phases of the project. 

 

Another project that I have been involved in for two months is 'GHSU-UGA Medical Partnership and St. Mary’s Health Care System Using Mobile Technology to Enhance Learning and Teaching in Third-Year Medical Clerkships' project under the supervision of Dr. Hill. My responsibilities have been organizing medical school students iPad usage logs (data organization) and analyzing some general patterns that they have using the iPads. I believe this project is a great opportunity to gain first-hand experience with qualitative data analysis which I aim to master during my doctorate studies.  

 

Apart from all course work and research assistantship responsibilities, I have involved in a team with three other first year LDT doctoral students (within the scope of Dr. Branch's EDIT 9990 course, student-led research team concept) for the sake of research! We have been thinking about publishable research ideas for future collaboration and writing a manuscript to submit to a well-recognized conference. This has been a great experience to learn dynamics of academic collaboration and independent study so far.  

 

Teaching

I love teaching. I was a teaching assistant in my home country and responsible for computer lab sessions for several courses (Please view my resume - teaching experience section for more information) and I really miss to be in classroom, interact with students and help them to create better artifacts with the help of technology. I am further looking for opportunities to teach both online and in class in the US, too. As far as I hear from other doctoral students in our program being a teaching assistant for EDIT 2000 is a really valuable teaching experience and to be eligible for future opportunities I took two big steps this semester.

 

I am observing EDIT 2000 this semester. I am attending the 09:30-10:45 session on Tuesdays to learn about dynamics of a project-based classroom, classroom culture of an undergraduate course in the US, differences and similarities between strategies to interact with students that I know, and different technologies to support teaching and learning. This has been a really inspiring experience so far!

 

I am also attending LLED 7769 course which focuses on cultural aspects of teaching and English language for the classroom with particular attention to pronunciation, oral and body language skills, presentation skills and audience awareness. I have learnt a lot about standing in an undergraduate class as an international teaching assistant in the US in this course and I belive this was an important experience before being a teaching assistant.

 

Participation and Service

 

  • Attended the Design Based Research Conference in September, 2013

  • Applied to be a volunteer for AECT conference, 2014 

  • Proposal submitted for Roundtable Presentation to AECT, 2014

  • Member of CISGA student organization

  • Member of ITSA

 

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