Research
My research focuses on examining the ways race—and in particular, whiteness—is taken up within education. My current research uses a lens of Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) to examine and push back on the ways whiteness manifests itself in teachers and within teaching.
Here are the descriptions of some of the work I was able to do with colleagues while at MSU.
Michigan State University
Pushing Back on Anti-CRT Legislation
Colleagues who I co-led a university-wide “Learning Community” titled Anti-Racist Dialogue Group looked at emotions and responses from individuals and our institution in response to a letter of love written to support practicing teachers in light of anti-CRT legistlative efforts in the state.
Development of Ambitious Elementary Instruction
I worked on an NSF and Spencer funded project with researchers from Michigan State, University of Connecticut, and the University of Virginia to investigate ambitious teaching practices for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year teachers. I worked on coding videos using the PLATO protocol, code existing transcripts, and assisted in data collection and analysis.
Physicians as Educators
Working with Drs. Randi Stanulis, Stacey Pylman, and Brian Mavis, I worked on a research team exploring the identity of physicians teaching in the medical college at MSU. I was the study coordinator, responsible for writing and submitting the IRB application, as well as scheduling, conducting, and transcribing interviews.
Mentoring in the Moment (MiTM)
I volunteered on a project working with Dr. Joanne Marciano and Dr. Randi Stanulis, where our team is trying to better understand how mentor teachers and student teachers interact in educative ways "in the moment" of teaching during the day. I helped collect, code, and analyze data as well as wrote up findings for publications and presentations.
Mentors As Teacher Educators (MATE)
Working with Dr. Joanne Marciano and Dr. Randi Stanulis, I helped collect, code and analyze data related to teachers who demonstrate mentoring in educative ways, as well as helped write up findings for publications and presentations. Our research team was continuing to learn about best practices for mentoring interns following up on the (MATE) research from the previous year.
Teacher Resignations
I volunteered on a project with Dr. Alyssa Hadley Dunn called: Leaving a profession after it’s left you: Teachers’ public resignation letters in an era of neoliberal reform. On this project we examined teachers’ public resignation letters and interviewed these teachers who left the profession to better understand the ways in which neoliberal reform efforts push these teachers to quit in public ways. Duties included qualitative data collection and analysis, arranging and conducting participant interviews, transcription, coding, manuscript revision, and conducting a literature review.
Project PLACE5
I worked with Drs. Anna-Lise Halvorsen (MSU) and Nell Duke (U of M) on Project PLACE, funded in part through the Lucas Foundation; we studied 50 low SES second grade classrooms in their implementation of a project-based Social Studies curriculum. Duties included qualitative data collection through teacher and student interviews and classroom observations as well as quantitative data collection and input into SPSS and analysis in a large-scale quasi-experimental design project.