EDLD 9435- Transformative Practice II
  • EDLD 9435 proved to be one of the most interesting classes I have taken in my educational journey.  The course focused on diversity and social justice in education, two topics of which I am extremely interested. We began the course discussing the difference between diversity education and social justice, with the latter being discussed as it relates to actionable items in our leadership roles.  Each week, we focused on another minority group and read context sections along with voices from these groups in our textbook. We went through chapters on race and racism all the way to ableism and youth oppression.  I really appreciated the honest, authentic voices in the course readings and the fact that Dr. Cain also provided materials that would enhance the readings. It was quite a bit of reading each week, but the readings were good and extremely useful. In addition to the engaging readings for the class, our online meetings were far from boring and involved activities to keep the class moving. The assignments for the class also varied in format, allowing each type of learner to feel connected to the work. For my meaningful assignment selection, I chose  the critical reflection paper and the book presentation and accompanying report. Early in the semester, we wrote a critical reflection paper, allowing us to investigate our own privileges and minoritized groups. This was a great assignment to begin the semester and was extremely easy to write.  The second assignment came later in the semester, but was also one I enjoyed a lot. Given the option of presenting on either a book or docuseries about diversity or social justice, I chose  How to be an Antiracist and truly gained new perspectives from this book. The course was wonderful and opened my eyes to new "isms" I was unaware of prior to the class, like youth oppression and elder oppression.  In addition to learning from this class, I feel it made me a better human being, more aware of the oppressions and privileges that exist every day.  
  • Course Syllabus
  • Meaningful Assignments

EDUR 9231- Qualitative Research in Education 
  • Although this class was not exactly what I thought it would be, I still think I gained some clearer direction regarding not only qualitative research but how it will or will not apply to my dissertation. The course began with an assignment to interview someone related to a topic that was outside of our field of study.  I chose to interview my campus' Associate Provost about policy, which ended up being a discussion about Covid and its application at Georgia College.  This assignment not only gave me the chance to met with a new administrator on my campus, but I also learned about how Covid had changed class policies from a more inside perspective. After that, we were given a transcription rom the professor to code and then analyze.  The English major in me loved this process or analysis of patterns. However, I can see that qualitative research is a very tedious process and may not be the best option for my research questions.  The semester ended with an art-based qualitative project in a group.  I selected to be in the visual arts group and we used our unique perspectives to represent a transcript from one of our group members in the form of visual art.  Artistic representation is not something I am extremely comfortable with so I struggled with this assignment.  In the end, though, I was pleased with how our project came together.  I chose the  transcription analysis project and the final artistic representation PowerPoint group project for the meaningful assignments this semester.  
  • Course Syllabus
  • Meaningful Assignments