Projects

Innovative teaching and learning

People walking down a dark hallway

New teachers’ induction support systems

New teachers face numerous decisions as they transition from teacher preparation into enacting practice (i.e., their induction period). They must reconcile conflicting messages about what and how to teach from the academic world of the preparation program and the practical world of their school of employment. Interviews with new teachers provide evidence of why new teachers seek supports for professional leaning to complement formal induction programs offered by schools and districts. Findings demonstrate how new teachers’ agency is stretched as they navigate the edu-verse, a complex learning ecology of supports accessed locally and through social media.

Representative Publications

Staudt Willet, K. B. (under review). Early career teachers’ expansion of induction support systems with social media.

Works-in-Progress

Social media’s impact on instruction: Beginning teachers’ self-directed professional learning

Educators as data scientists

Data science and learning analytics in education are useful, but we have limited information about the effectiveness or recommendations to guide the design of learning opportunities for professionals working in education. At the same time, we know that, in general, well-designed learning opportunities, even those brief in duration, can improve computational skills. Our purpose is to explore the design and effects of data science workshops for educational researchers.

Representative Publications

Rosenberg, J. M., & Staudt Willet, K. B. (2021). Balancing privacy and open science in the context of COVID-19: A response to Ifenthaler & Schumacher (2016). Educational Technology Research and Development, 69, 347–351. doi:10.1007/s11423-020-09860-8

Works-in-Progress

The design and effects of data science workshops for educational researchers

Who is an educational data scientist?

Educators’ informal learning and invisible labor

Representative Publications

Staudt Willet, K. B., & He, D. (under review). Educators’ invisible labor: A systematic review

Krutka, D. G., Heath, M. K., & Staudt Willet, K. B. (2019). Foregrounding technoethics: Toward critical perspectives in technology and teacher education. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 27(4), 555-574. Retrieved from http://learntechlib.org/p/208235/

Works-in-Progress

Interrogating education research through an invisible labor lens

Online communities

Many threads connected as a web

Affinity spaces hosted in web forums and social media

Representative Publications

Na, H., & Staudt Willet, K. B. (2022). Affinity and anonymity benefitting early career teachers in the r/Teachers subreddit. Journal of Research on Technology in Education. doi:10.1080/15391523.2022.2150727

Staudt Willet, K. B., & Carpenter, J. P. (2021). A tale of two subreddits: Change and continuity in teaching-related online spaces. British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(2), 714-733. doi:10.1111/bjet.13051

Staudt Willet, K. B. (2019). Revisiting how and why educators use Twitter: Tweet types and purposes in #Edchat. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 51(3), 273-289. doi:10.1080/15391523.2019.1611507

Greenhow, C., Staudt Willet, K. B., & Galvin, S. (2021). Inquiring tweets want to know: #Edchat supports for #RemoteTeaching during COVID-19. British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(4), 1434-1454. doi:10.1111/bjet.13097

Works-in-Progress

Teachers without borders: Professional learning spanning social media, place, and time

U.K. and U.S. emergency learning networks on Twitter during COVID-19

Emerging methods

Learning analytics and social network analysis

Representative Publications

Staudt Willet, K. B., & Carpenter, J. P. (2021). A tale of two subreddits: Change and continuity in teaching-related online spaces. British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(2), 714-733. doi:10.1111/bjet.13051

Staudt Willet, K. B., & Carpenter, J. P. (2020). Teachers on Reddit? Exploring contributions and interactions in four teaching-related subreddits. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 52(2), 216-233. doi:10.1080/15391523.2020.1722978