PhD Portfolio
Robin Davidson Smith
GOALS
I am committed to helping develop the virtual high school project, but I am equally committed to completing my doctorate. As a teacher I prize education for my students, but I also want to educate myself as fully as possible. This program will address two of the issues most vital to me: How can I best design experiences that will enable my students to learn how to learn? What systemic changes—from teacher education to school construction—should be made to create a more effective public education in Virginia?
I have been entranced by technology since I took an audio-visual course as independent study and—pregnant with my first child—helped the professor produce a film on visual literacy. Four years later—pregnant with my second child—I took my first computer class on a black screen with green symbols and learned to write binary code to create a grading program for myself. As I continue to evolve as a teacher, I keep learning to interact with technology and my students in new ways. Twenty–eight years after that first technology class—with my last child off to college, I am ready to take the next logical step. Working to develop this virtual high school project is my next logical step.
Several years ago I researched alternative courses for high school English; my department was unhappy with the courses guidance was accepting for credit but too understaffed to work ourselves with students who needed to repeat a class or who wanted to take two English sections per year. The next year my school system asked me to evaluate computerized learning systems they were considering buying. While I was in Kazakhstan for two weeks last year working with English teachers, I had to convince Longwood University that my English 150 Research and Writing students were not going to be neglected; the staff and my students were pleased with the virtual class I designed for the two weeks of my absence, drawing from my research into alternative coursework. This year I began working with the Commonwealth Governor’s School, a high school that connects a community of learners in a virtual environment. Because of these experiences, I have given considerable thought to the benefits and limitations of technology. My professional life has been leading to my participating in this virtual high school project and to my getting a doctorate.
My collaborative experiences will also assist me in this work. Instructional technology classes I took at UVA were organized around a collaborative process. You can view a unit on Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman that I completed with a partner. I have worked within a departmental structure for my entire professional life; with the advent of the SOL end-of-course tests in English, collaboration became a necessity. I have always worked with social studies teachers, science teachers, and librarians on research projects. At the Commonwealth Governor’s School, we team teach all courses and do interdisciplinary units as a matter of basic design. We depend on broadcast technology to help develop this community of learners that covers Spotsylvania, King George, and Stafford counties, and we are working on becoming more adept at using other technology.
My leadership activities are largely collaborative. I am working with the Teacher Leadership Network on national and state-wide education initiatives. A small group of us just finished designing an informational brochure for education policy makers. I am working with the Teacher Forum of Exemplary Teachers under the aegis of the Department of Education to assist in developing multi-tiered teaching licensure for Virginia. Teachers can no longer afford to remain locked within our own classrooms—even if we have physical classrooms!
I have numerous research interests.
Right now I am delving into the Medici family because I am writing
online lesson
plans for a PBS special. This summer I traveled to Seattle
to observe the action research component of the Teacher Network Policy
Institute; I am fascinated with that research model. The fact that
I must do research daily is what makes me continue to find teaching
a delight after 28 years. I also love guiding students through the
whole process and helping them to discover the joy in identifying and
refining a question, exploring and evaluating sources, and finally
making sense of their findings. My master’s thesis ended up being
120 pages long because looking at The Mabinogion led to Havelock
the Dane, which demanded a cultural comparison of the Celts and
Anglo-Saxons, which led to prehistory, which led to myths, which
led to. . .
.
And that’s the cool
thing about learning—one thing logically leads to another. My
years of learning have led me here—ready to start on my Ph.D.
at George Mason University.
October 2003; April 2004
Addendum. I have finally figured out what I want to do when I grow up: I want to educate teachers. For years I have had strong feelings about the inadequacies of public education and the failure of policy makers and teacher education programs to attend to teachers' knowledge about teaching and learning. This summer the School of Continuing Education at the University of Virginia asked me to give an institute for special education teachers who needed to become highly qualified in secondary English. I was asked because the people organizing the instutite knew me and my work from years ago. Years ago I would have been able to do a useful, engaging institute, and my thirty years' experience as a classroom teacher would have given me the "street smarts" and "street credibility" I needed to make a strong connection with the institute teachers. My four years working on my doctorate at GMU, however, have helped me to refine my ideas about teaching and learning and given me the theoretical background and skills I need to work with teachers more effectively, more profoundly. Inexorably, my experiences have been leading me to make this choice--and to make it possible.
October 2006
