Ah well, we’ll see if this goes to the right place or not.
I’m Mark Baker, a first-year student in the Educational Psychology program here at Penn State. I’m currently living in a slightly dilapidated second-story apartment in “historic downtown Bellefonte” along with my wife Nikki, our ten-month old daughter Evelyn, and a slough of rats, ladybugs, and beetles. Notwithstanding the unwanted tenants, I’m loving it here; it actually reminds me of home in many ways. I’m originally from a small town in Montana (though we would call it a city over there) and so the rural nature of central Pennsylvania is pretty much what I’m used to. My wife, however, hails from Washington D.C. and so I think she gets bored sometimes (especially being stuck in Bellefonte without a car). Our daughter keeps us on our toes as she continues to learn to walk, talk, and generally amaze the heck out of her parents.
As a first-year student, I am not really sure what my academic interests are yet. Broadly speaking, I enjoy learning and teaching (I taught for Kaplan for two years). I’m working on some research now in the areas of written argumentation and persuasion, and also teacher efficacy in multicultural classrooms. In my undergraduate education, I did some research into learning strategies, such as speed reading, concept maps, and mnemonic devices. I’m also interested in statistics, psychometrics, and standardized tests. It will be interesting for me to learn about how disruptive technologies can be used to assess learning, not just facilitate it. And then there’s a vague, rather fuzzy interest called “technology.” Now I’m not really a techno-buff, unlike the majority of our class (or so it seems to me). At this point in the course I am realizing I am still stuck in Web 1.0 and frankly I don’t really know how to use this one-button Web 2.0 yet. I don’t own any smart phones or even a laptop. Our home in Bellefonte has no internet connection. Yet I believe that educators and educational researchers should have at least a working knowledge of how to use the technology that students are increasingly demanding within the classroom. That’s one reason I’m here (as well as to relay that knowledge to the rest of my department), and honestly I think this will be a challenge for me as someone who really isn’t used to being connected to anyone outside of my family and a handful of close friends, let alone the whole world.
Another challenge I’m already beginning to see is one of a shift in basic philosophical worldview. As a student in psychology, “learning” has been defined for me as an individual increase in knowledge. And that’s the liberal, cognitive viewpoint. It is a whole other paradigm to view learning as a social construction, a conversation, a relationship. I’d never heard of Vygotsky before last semester. I guess he was always overshadowed by the more popular (at least in psychology) Russian Pavlov. Even in ed psych we mostly study individual differences, individual learning patterns, etc. It is a drastic step to discuss community. Nevertheless, I am excited to be taking that step.
Lastly, just a couple of fun facts about me are that I play the trombone (quite well, I think), I am an amateur magician, and I speak Spanish fluently (I lived in Bolivia for two years). I look forward to getting to know all of you in the next few months!