The objective of my professional aim is to examine teacher leadership development theories and facilitate teaching and learning opportunities that include culturally relevant and anti-bias pedagogy. My research focuses on promoting reflective teaching and technology practices throughout higher education programs to help students and developing teachers better understand their important role as leaders. See also Publications.

Research interests

• Technology in education, especially artificial intelligence and machine learning

• Practicum mentor-mentee relationships

• Social-emotional learning and resiliency

• Outdoor classrooms and nature-based programs

• Apprenticeship programs in secondary programs

• Students and teachers seeing themselves as capable leaders

My recent research focuses on the importance of developing positive mentor-mentee relationships during teacher preparation programs. I encourage all my students to explore how developing culturally-relevant, anti-bias, and equitable teaching strategies is necessary to have the highest impact on children’s learning, while incorporating social-emotional learning (SEL) and outdoor education in their classrooms.

Educational leadership contributions

During my doctoral research studies, my hypothesis involved gaining an understanding of public-school elementary teachers’ experiences with outdoor environmental classrooms. The conceptual framework was informed by social emotional learning (SEL), ecological literacy, and teacher self-efficacy based upon practice and experiences. One of the gaps I discovered in my research is the lack of confidence that many teachers feel in terms of being trained and prepared with adequate teacher leadership skills.

Acquiring teacher-leadership skills may help teachers overcome the barriers related to funding, instructional time, and pedagogy in ways that promote more support for their outdoor learning model at the K-12 school climate level. Although outside the scope of my study, a shift such as this could possibly redefine the notion that some teachers lack the leadership skills necessary to further the development of their outdoor classrooms.

Recent academic achievements

Since completing my Ph.D., I’ve continually worked in the field of applied research as it pertains to my college teaching positions. My recent contributions to the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and educational leadership include the following:

• Achieved faculty tenure and promoted to Associate Professor at Columbia Basin College (May 2022)
  Teach early childhood education courses for the Washington State stackable certificates and AAS and BAS degrees, which provides students with a comprehensive overview of effective teaching skills for early childhood and elementary school programs.

• Successfully applied for and awarded University of Washington grant for $20K for two years at Columbia Basin College (2020-2022)
  Revise CBC’s ECE courses to better prepare students to teach in inclusive classrooms by improving curriculum to be culturally relevant, equitable, anti-bias and differentiating instruction to meet the needs of all children; Served as grant liaison between CBC and UW Early EdU program for two years.

• Developed and facilitated a teacher mentor pilot training program for Child Care Aware of Eastern Washington (2021)
  Partnering with the University of Washington’s (UW) Early EdU for Inclusion team, this professional development provides mentor teachers of CBC practicum students with additional inclusive resources and connections needed to align our current curriculum redesign process with field placements. Through our continued partnership, CBC examines how our ECE AAS and BAS degree coursework prepares our students for completing practicums and student teaching assignments during the 2021-22 school year.

• Participated in the creation of a 4-course graduate level certificate program: Transformational Leadership and Organizational Development and Change (2018)
  By exploring various classic and emergent models of leadership, learners thoughtfully apply critical thinking to assess and to bridge leadership concepts into personal leadership practices. In this certificate program, students integrate systems thinking, change and transformational considerations in local and globe organizations to evaluate and design leadership developmental approaches.

Research and statistics college courses taken

Data Science Essentials certificate, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

College of Computing and Information Science; Certificate completed in March 2023

CIS445 – Exploring data sets with R; completed May 2022
CIS446 – Summarizing and visualizing data; completed June 2022
CIS447 – Measuring relationships and uncertainty; completed July 2022
CIS448 – Data cleaning with Tidyverse; March 2023

Graduate research courses, Walden University, Minneapolis, MN

The Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership; Ph.D. completed in August 2018

EDUC9001 – Dissertation Research Project; completed August 2018
RSCH8350 – Advanced Qualitative Reasoning and Analysis; completed May 2016
RSCH8300 – Qualitative Reasoning and Analysis; completed May 2014
RSCH8200 – Quantitative Reasoning and Analysis; completed December 2013
RSCH8100 – Research Theory; completed June 2013
EDUC8428 – Design in Education Research; completed August 2012

Other research courses, University of Washington and Pacific Oaks College, Seattle, WA

School of Education; Master of Arts completed in June 2000

HD299 – Master’s Thesis Research Project; completed at Pacific Oaks College in June 2000
STAT321 – Data Science and Statistics for Social Sciences; completed at UW June 1993