Sarah 101 | W2 Introductions | Discussion

Hi everyone,

This is Sarah, coming to you live from the MSU EPET program! My path here has been winding and long, but I couldn’t be more excited for this next stage in my career and learning.

I have my Bachelor’s in English Literature and Music Performance from Frostburg State University. I spent the majority of my younger years training to be a classical clarinetist, but after my first reading of Hamlet, I knew I had another calling. I left the music conservatory world, and uncovered my passion for teaching English. After finishing my Master in the Art of Teaching degree, I taught three years of high school English in Maryland public schools. I found so much joy in teaching and am still missing my students, but I could not ignore the issues I saw in the school system. I struggled to get my students to write in multiple complete sentences for assignments, yet I knew they were texting nonstop the entire class. I lost valuable class time addressing “electronic device” restrictions imposed by the administration and was forced into implementing district-selected software rather than the applications that I knew would engage the students. In the end, my motivation to be a part of improving the future of education was what drove me to apply to MSU’s doctoral program.

I am currently a TA in TE 150 and a member of Chris’ research team, hoping to use my time here to address the challenges I faced as an educator. I want to start to understand how technology is impacting students’ literacy and identity development. Specifically, I want to look at student’s literacy and identities on social media compared to students’ literacy and identities in a traditional classroom. My goal is to gain expertise in new literacies and identity development, as well as experience completing research on social media platforms.

Right now, I have a very open mind about my career goals, but I think I will be looking to balance both research and teaching as part of my work. Two areas that I am interested in related to this course are:

1. New literacies and digital literacy
2. The impact of technology on how students learn (generally, from the perspective of blending both Ed. Tech. views and Ed. Psych. views)