Here are current and past faculty, graduate students, and collaborators involved in the CSEER group interested in computer science and engineering education.
Faculty
Dr. Aman Yadav. Aman is a Professor at Michigan State University and Director of Masters of Arts in Educational Technology. His research focuses on computing education research in K-12 classrooms. He has been a PI/Co-PI on several National Science Foundation (NSF) funded projects related to preparing teachers to embed computational thinking and computer science in their teaching. His work has been published in a number of leading journals, including ACM Transactions on Computing Education, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Journal of Engineering Education, and Communications of the ACM. He previously served as the teacher education representative on the CSTA board and chaired the CSTA Assessment Taskforce.
Dr. Michael Lachney. Michael is an Assistant Professor in the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology program at Michigan State University. Michael brings his expertise in ethnographic methods, anthropology of education, critical race theory, and science and technology studies to the field of educational technology. His research focuses on the design and implementation of culturally responsive computational media and technologies, with specific attention to the potential of computing to strengthen school-community relationships. His work has been published in numerous journals, including Computer Science Education, Learning, Media and Technology, Social Epistemology, and Computational Culture
Current Doctoral Students
Matt Drazin. Matt is a doctoral student in the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology (EPET) program at Michigan State University. His current research interests lie in the realm between community, social movement building, technology, and education. Matt has an undergraduate degree in computer science from Michigan State University and is looking forward to being able to leverage his background and experiences to explore how to engage youth in computing. He is currently working on a project with Aman and Michael to bring physical computing to black youth in Detroit Downtown Boxing Gym.
Kyle Dunbar. Kyle is a doctoral student in the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology program. As a Technology Integration Specialist in a middle school, she is broadly interested in the intersection of equity, technology and project-based learning. Her research interests include the role project-based learning may play in student academic identity development and teacher expectations. She is currently exploring how to engage students in computing through codable robots in middle school mathematics lessons.
Swati Mehta. Swati is a doctoral student and a research assistant in the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology program at Michigan State University. Her research interests focus on implementing student-centered learning approaches in K-12 and higher education settings with primary focus on problem-based learning. Earlier, she worked as an Assistant Professor in an MBA institute in India, where she obtained the opportunity to involve students in case-based learning that was integral to the management curriculum.
Sukanya Moudgalya. Sukanya is a doctoral student in the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology program. She is primarily interested in active teaching-learning strategies, problem-solving, and learner collaboration/cooperation, both face-to-face and online. Her background is in Engineering. She came to Michigan State after completing a Masters degree in Learning Technologies from University of Texas-Austin. During her time in Austin, Sukanya was was involved in a project called ‘Alien Rescue’, a STEM-based learning environment that focused on developing problem-solving skills of 6th-grade students. She has a bachelors degree in Biotechnology from SASTRA University in India.
Katie Rich. Katie is a doctoral students in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology program. She stated her PhD after ten years as a curriculum developer for Everyday Mathematics at the University of Chicago. She is interested broadly in the use of technology in elementary mathematics education. From the student perspective, she is interested in exploring how dynamic representations and manipulatives can support conceptual development, and how integration of computational thinking concepts into mathematics curricula can promote readiness for computer science education in later grades. From the teacher perspective, she is interested in exploring how digital delivery of curriculum materials can support teachers in making productive adaptations for their particular contexts.
Phil Sands. Phil is a doctoral students in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University. His research focuses on the impact of self-regulation in the computer science classroom, issues relating to teacher pedagogical knowledge in computer science, and the use of online learning environments to broaden participation in computing. Currently, Phil serves as the K-12 Outreach Coordinator for the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University. Previously, Phil worked as a K-12 statistics and computer science teacher in Michigan and Maryland, and also as a software engineer.
Past Doctoral Students
Dr. Jon Good is a Research Evaluation And Assessment Consultant for Leadership And School Improvement group at Oakland Schools. His research interests include computational thinking, computer science education, teacher education, and creativity. He previously worked in Pre-K through Grade 12 schools in the areas of faculty development, technology management, curriculum development, and teaching multiple courses related to computing. He has been published in Education and Information Technologies and TechTrends. His awards include College of Education Deans Scholar Fellowship, the Frank B. Martin CUMREC Fellowship (2013-2014), and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research / Humboldt University of Berlin.
Dr. Sarah Gretter. Sarah is a learning specialist at the HUB for Innovation and Learning at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on digital literacies. Specifically, she is interested in the competencies that educators should acquire to successfully help students understand and create digital media. Previous work includes an Ed.M. in Mind, Brain, and Education from Harvard University, where she researched the cognitive implications of digital literacies for teaching and learning. Her dissertation project focused on integrating digital literacies in teacher education programs, as well as understanding the factors that play a role in the integration of these skills in K-12 education.
Dr. Mauricio Herron. Mauricio is an assistant professor in the department of education at Universidad Del Norte in Colombia. He currently coordinates the Master in Education program and works on two statewide projects on teacher professional development (PI) and education for peace (Co-I) funded by Colciencias. In his dissertation, he explored US elementary preservice teachers’ beliefs about effective classroom instruction and the characteristics and behaviors of effective teachers. He recently replicated this study with Colombian elementary preservice teachers. Results from Mauricio’s research suggested that there are strong similarities between US and Colombian preservice teachers’ beliefs about teacher effectiveness at the beginning of their teacher education (first and second year). He is working with the Center for Faculty Professional Development at Universidad del Norte in developing pedagogical strategies to assess students’ beliefs.
Dr. Alex Lishinki. Alex is a researcher at American Instituites for Research. His research focuses on examining how problem solving influences students’ learning in introductory computer science ideas. During his time at MSU, Alex conducted a series of studies to investigate how students learn to program in an undergraduate introductory programming course. One of his papers won the best paper award at International Computing Educational Research (ICER) conference. In addition, he also presented his work at ACM SIGCSE (Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education). His dissertation examined how cognitive, motivational, affective, and dispositional factors interact to influence learning to program. Results from his study exhibited that when all factors are considered together, students’ problem solving ability is the only significant prediuctor of their learning outcomes.
Dr. Chris Seals. Chris is an Assistant Professor in Veterinary Clinical Medicine at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests broadly include motivational aspects in learning, specifically for teachers of underrepresented students. He has served as a research assistant on two grant funded projects: the NRMN-CAN project under Dr. Aman Yadav to study the challenges and needs of underrepresented minority postdoctoral fellows in STEM fields and the MSUrbanSTEM Teacher Fellowship program to study the pedagogical practices of K-12 urban teachers who teach STEM content. Additionally, his dissertation explores motivational constructs that are altered due to math teacher participation in growth mindset interventions across various school settings. Prior to starting his PhD journey, Chris worked as an admissions counselor and program coordinator at the University of Louisville for nearly 5 years.
Dr. Ninger Zhou. Ninger is a postdoctoral researcher at University of California – Irvine where she is working on CS1C@OC project to train in-service teachers to satisfy California’s new teacher certification pathway in computer science. Ninger’s disseration examined the effects of multimedia story reading and questioning on preschoolers’ vocabulary learning, story comprehension and reading engagement. Results from her study showed that multimedia stories on iPads significanlty influenced childrens’ target vocabulary and engagement level, but not their comprehension.
Image Credit: Saksham Gangwar