hello! Just wanted to add my intro / bio so I could start posting to the DML Commons feed for Design Based Research.

My general about me goes like this.

I’m a second year doctoral student in Urban Schooling and Learning Sciences at University of California, Los Angeles in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. I graduated with my MA in Race & Ethnic Studies in Education from UCLA in 2013. I’ve been involved as a researcher in the UCLA Lab School, a facilitator for the Council of Youth Research youth participatory action research out-of-school-time program, an instructor for First Year Composition, and a technology integration coach for UCLA Center X Partnerships.

I formerly worked with the greatest age group ever – teenagers – to learn about all different aspects of social studies in Washington, D.C. as a public school teacher. In that world, and continuing to be important to me was involvement in the use of teacher-led professional development and networks on Twitter, especially #sschat, and #ntchat, and Edcamps, which grew out of taking the networking/learning from twitter offline to in-person conversations. I’ve more recently become involved with the EduColor collective (#educolor, and EduColor.org)

I am currently interested in the possibilities of utilizing Critical Race Theory, sociocultural theory, Youth Participatory Action Research, Design Based Research, and emerging technology to design more empowering and authentic social studies curriculum and instruction. That design includes teacher education and professional development arenas, because without teacher utilizing the research we engage with I tend to think it is mostly useless…but that might be because I will always think of myself as a teacher.