News/Research

Amy Catterson

25 Feb, 2015

Amy Catterson

Amy's dissertation research will be conducted in collaboration with three high school teachers in a low-income public high school in the East Bay. As a former educator in an East Bay school herself, Amy is driven by the question: How do we integrate networked digital technology into adolescent literacy classrooms to enhance learning opportunities for all students, not just those in affluent areas? With these teachers, Amy will design and research literacy curricula that uses freely available online platforms to open up new dialogic spaces in and out of the classroom. Amy hopes that this study will create authentic opportunities for students to read, write, and create in a variety of genres, connect students to wider audiences within the discipline of study, and nurture students’ cultural and linguistic identities. The study will add to a small but growing body of research on technology-supported adolescent literacy instruction; furthermore, Amy hopes to develop an inquiry framework to share with 6-12 educators or administrators who seek to better utilize networked technology in their literacy programs.

CALL FOR RAS

While conducting this research, Amy hopes to work with highly organized undergraduate students who have a strong interest in education and educational technology and who would be willing to commit to 5-10 hours of assistance per week. Ideally, these students would be interested in continuing the assistanceship through the spring of 2016 (though she will also consider shorter tenures). During the spring 2015 semester, RAs would identify and organize available technologies and their affordances, catalogue citations, and research publication requirements. RAs may also visit Amy's dissertation site in the late spring to interview the intervention teachers and get to know the school culture. If available this summer, RAs would help Amy edit and organize data collection measures in preparation for the fall. During the fall 2015 semester, RAs would travel to the school site with Amy to collect, organize, and analyze videotaped observation data and student work. There may be opportunities for RAs to coauthor publications or submit conference presentations based on their contributions to this research. Amy is committed to making this a valuable learning experience for you, and would love to hear your goals for the assistanceship and to support you in achieving those goals. She is also a more than adequate baker.