Sum up my first year?

Ok, so I have been terrible at keeping up this blog. I thought for sure I'd do it during school. Well, that didn't happen did it. Here's my attempt to begin going better. The last two semesters, which have been my first in the doctoral program, have been tough. It took me a while fall semester to get into the swing of things, but I think I've got the procedure down now. This semester hasn't been quite as bad.

I am working on a meta-analytic review of the problem-based learning (pbl) literature. My professor Andrew Walker and I are coding pbl articles that display cognitive outcomes between traditional and pbl groups inside and outside of medical education. We have a presentation at AECT in October in California. I have learned so much about pbl, research, and meta-analysis by working with him.

With everything else I am volunteering with a research group who has created a simple software called Instructional Architect. It collaborates with the National Science Digital Library and allows anyone to create simple webpages. It is targeted at K-12 teachers to help them have webpages with instructional information and links to online learning resources that students can view in or out of the classroom. The great part about this software is that its funding comes from grants so it is free to the public to use. The research team also delivers free professional development workshops on the software.

My summer school work has already started, but I am enjoying my work and excited to move ahead in this program!

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