What Is and What If? (Re)Thinking Synthesis and Praxis for Portfolio Assessment in the Humanities

The National Institute on the Assessment of Adult Learning, Thomas Edison State University

The Art & Science (and Business) of PLA

Atlantic City, New Jersey 2017 

 

Bakhtinian Dialogue and Kantian Classrooms: Towards a Philosophy of Interdisciplinary Studies

Association of Interdisciplinary Studies Conference, University of Maryland

Beyond Talking Heads

Baltimore, Maryland 2017

 

Inside the Virtual Classroom: Academic Expectations, Gaps and Portfolio Development

Council for Adult and Experiential Learning International Conference, CAEL

Waves of Change, Oceans of Opportunity

San Diego, California 2017 

 

Methods, Models and the Matrix: Disrupting the Architecture of Failure 

The League for Innovation in the Community College 

Innovations Conference

National Harbor, Maryland 2018 (pdf)

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The Writer’s Secret: Storytelling as Metaphor and Model for Teaching and Learning

Webster University Teaching Festival

Teaching Toolkit for Engaged Learning

St. Louis, Missouri 2018 (pdf)

 

Theory and Practice: Bakhtinian Philosophy and the Digital Teaching Portfolio

The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard University

Bok Teaching Certificate in Higher Education Pedagogy

Cambridge, Massachusetts 2017-2018 

 

 

​​The Quality Matters (QM) Assurance System for Online Learning

Higher Education QM Rubric Certification

Seventh Edition Session

St. Louis, Missouri 2023

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Others or Same: Intersectionality, Interdisciplinarity and the Question of Synonymity 

​​Association of Interdisciplinary Studies Conference, Wayne State University

Inter/diversities: Intersecting Race, Gender, Class, Abilities, Theories and Disciplines

Detroit, Michigan 2018 (pdf)

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The Intertextualist: Future Teachers, Past Pedagogy, and Dedifferentiation in Multicultural Education

Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education, Arkansas State University        

Fall/Winter 2018. Volume 7. Issue 1. Pages 78-86 (updated copy)

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Multicultural education is thought to consist of five dimensions: content integration, the knowledge-construction process, prejudice reduction, equity pedagogy, and an empowering school culture and social structure. Of the five, equity pedagogy is identified as an essential element by leading scholars in the field. Can equity pedagogy alone create the powerful learning experiences needed for multicultural education? This is an important question to consider as conservatism and dedifferentiation challenge multicultural education. If dedifferentiation is a recurring feature that impacts teachers and students, then we need a pedagogy that accounts for its significance. This article explores the ways a pedagogy of intertextuality responds to dedifferentiation and extends equity pedagogy for the development of future teachers and leaders.

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(Un)Disciplining Interdisciplinarity: Root Metaphors, Matrices and the Limits of Psychology in Postmodern Education   

Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education, (special issue) Arkansas State University 

Spring/Summer 2019. Volume 8. Issue 1. Pages 117-138 (online)

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In interdisciplinary education, metaphors often provide the epistemological clarity that is lacking in our definitions and theories of interdisciplinarity. The problem is that ineffective and unsubstantiated metaphors proliferate. We lack a “root metaphor” or shared world view of interdisciplinarity. Is it time that we move away from thinking in terms of metaphors? Some instrumentalists in interdisciplinary studies argue yes and propose a pragmatic constructionist approach for interdisciplinary education. This article challenges that position. It determines that an intertextual view of interdisciplinary learning is not only more appropriate, but it integrates the competing theoretical and pedagogical approaches in the field. This article also reveals the metaphor best positioned to sustain this integration, thus bridging the widening gaps between the academic disciplines.

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The Architecture of Failure: General Education Curricula and the Rhetoric of Interdisciplinarity 

Planning and Changing: An Educational Leadership and Policy Journal, Illinois State University 

Spring/Summer 2019.  Volume 49.  Number 1/2. Pages 81-92. (online)

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Creating a more coherent and integrated curriculum in higher education is a perennial concern. Critics and philosophers such as Immanuel Kant—one of the fathers of our modern academic system—candidly describe the political, social, and economic influences that underwrite academic fragmentation and dysfunction. Despite its complex definitions and epistemological challenges, interdisciplinarity is often cited as an integral part of plans to reform curricula. This article explores some of those plans, and it challenges present conceptualizations of interdisciplinarity as a change agent. Based on a theoretical study of Kant and Mikhail Bakhtin, a dialogic approach is recommended for curriculum redesign, and failure is recognized as a permanent feature rather than an anomaly in the structure of higher education.

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​The Kantian Effect: Reconceiving the Integration of Knowledge in Interdisciplinary Theory 

Journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences, University of Johannesburg

Fall/Winter 2020. Volume 4. Issue 2. Pages 1-14. (online)

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As reformers in higher education turn to interdisciplinarity as a way to improve teaching and learning in a network culture, multiple definitions and practices proliferate. In response to this problem, leading scholars claim that complex systems theory provides the rationale we need in interdisciplinary education to guide reform. However, complex systems theory alone cannot rationalize interdisciplinarity and inform an integrative pedagogy. Language and texts play a central role. This claim is just as significant today as it was when Immanuel Kant emphasized the importance of texts in his divided model of higher education. This essay reveals that a study of Kantian thought and its legacy has much to teach educators about interdisciplinary teaching and integrative learning. 

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The Myth of the Teacher/Leader: (Re)framing the Role of the Department Chair

National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, The University of Texas, Austin

Summer 2019. Volume XLI. Number 26 (online)

 

Studies show that department chairs are usually unprepared or underprepared to take on their leadership and management roles in higher education. The Four Frames Approach, developed by Lee G. Bolman and Terry E. Deal, is often recommended as an interdisciplinary conceptual tool that chairs can use to negotiate the mixed realities they experience inside and outside the classroom. As framing theorists turn to dialogism to explain epistemology, new metaphors and strategies have emerged that expand our definitions of framing and challenge the idea that teaching and leading are binary.

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Language in Leadership Development: A Dialogic (Re)Assessment of the Four Frames Approach for Educational Administrators

Journal of Educational Leadership in Action, Lindenwood University

Spring/Summer 2019. Volume 6. Issue 1 (online)

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Educators have found the theories of Paulo Freire attractive for a variety of reasons. As more scholars in critical pedagogy highlight the interdisciplinary appeal and applicability of Freirean thought, they have attracted the attention of faculty in a wide range of disciplines and interdisciplines, including leadership studies. However, the integration of Freirean concepts with those in leadership theory can be productive and problematic for teacher-leaders. This article examines what happens when the Four Frames Approach, developed by Lee G. Bolman and Terry E. Deal, is used as a leadership model for Freire’s conceptualization of critical consciousness or conscientization. This study evaluates the role that dialogue plays in conscientization and its increasing importance in leadership theory.

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Languaging Network Learning: The Emergence of Connectivism in Architectonic Thought

International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, Athabasca University

Fall 2020. Volume 21. Issue 3. Pages 304-318. (online)

 

As technological advancements and online education transform higher education, the achievement gap among students is widening rather than closing. Critics suggest that we need to reassess the promises of online education and the connectivism or network learning that is sometimes employed as its pedagogical underpinning. As scholars and practitioners struggle to define connectivism as a learning theory, many often exclude language as a feature in its conceptualization. This practice is at odds with architectonic thought, the philosophical tradition in which constructivist theories of learning are rooted. This article reveals the central role that language and texts play in architectonic thought and why they are inseparable from our understanding of knowledge and network learning. When we recognize language as a medium and model for reflection and criticality in the architectonic tradition, we are better positioned to use pedagogy and computer technology to transform online education and reorient our competing views of connectivism.                                                                     

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