Call for Art 2018 Research Topics related to Open Call for Art theme

Below is an overview of research that is currently being pursued by graduate students in the Department of Learning and Performance Systems. For more information that may be useful to artists as you consider artwork to submit to the Open Call for Art, please see our department website at https://ed.psu.edu/lps.  For more information on the Open Call for Art, click here.

Some of the topics include:

• My current research project examines how adult education organizations in Chicago, Houston, and Miami are helping adults and immigrants with low levels of education to prepare for careers and postsecondary education (i.e., career pathways). I am also beginning a project on the Read To Your Child Program, which enables inmates in PA correctional institutions to read a book to a child via a video recording.
• I’m interested in researching how children develop STEM skills through interaction with educational toys and games.
  My research focuses on how youths develop their interests, particularly in STEM areas through interacting with social and technical resources in informal learning activities.
• I have a couple projects in process. One is developing a location-based coding project to help students develop geographical awareness within their own local communities as well as develop their own personalized versions of mobile games that they may not be as accessible to, especially in rural areas (i.e. PokemonGo). Another project is determining the STEAM pathways that can be reached through technical theatre and how these pathways can be reached through naturally existing structures in technical theatre.
  I am working with North Korean defectors at their restaurant to understand their learning about a new society engaging emotional labor at service works.
• Military and distance education Identity of adult educators in the military
• I conduct research on youth and adult learning through digital and tangible media, content creation tools, and communities of practice in formal, informal and naturalistic learning environments. I emphasize learning that happens in everyday life and informal settings, and interrogate our assumptions of what is meaningful or impactful learning, particularly with and through technology. For example, most of my work explores hobbyist communities around making and gaming, and their relationship to interest formation, digital identities, career pathways, and sociocultural learning. I further examine how implicit values and assumptions in our technologies affect diverse participation and broader social values. My work takes the stance that culturally-situated preconceptions are embedded in our cultural tools and symbols, and that broadening participation and encouraging civic engagement involves reconceptualizing not only how we support different groups but the values that influence and are integrated in our designs. Specifically, my current projects involve middle and high school learning and collaboration with maker toolkits in after school settings; youth with dis/abilities learning with tangible robotics kits and coding platforms; college students engaged in learning and collaboration through e-sports (i.e., gaming competitions); and diversity and inclusivity in making and gaming.
• I am interested in technology-mediated interdisciplinary research. My current work explores learners’ conceptual understanding at the interface of sustainable engineering design, education, and AR technology. Here are two links: https://www.farihasalman.com/greendesigners https://ed.psu.edu/news/2015-04-06-news/COIL-grants
  Employment and earnings outcomes for education participants, what happens after skills training. Ex: effectiveness of prison skills training programs and recidivism, welfare work training requirements and their effectiveness in transitioning people from poverty to independence and self sufficiency, etc
• Adults with disabilities, stigma, access to learning, Universal Design, distance education
• COIL Research: designed to promote self-motivation and increase peer-to-peer support in online courses by using affect-related achievement representation
• Life Science Education: Needs assessment for a life science education organization
• Digital Badges: help build a national digital badge consortium for ISTE
• Assess makerspace pedagogy for a STEM after school program
  Self-regulated learning in adaptive learning, knowledge structure, distance education, online learning
• I’m interested in adult community arts programs, especially those engaged in social justice work like prejudice reduction, social inclusion, and bringing awareness to social issues of concern. I am currently researching a social justice theatre program for my dissertation called Theatre of Witness – based in Philadelphia, PA and Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland. This program focuses on truthful, authentic storytelling about difficult social issues, often between perpetrators and victims. The performers are the people themselves telling their stories on stage and they are working together to bring about healing and change that is visible to the audience, who “bears witness” to this process. They are often transformed by it, as the performers are as well. This process helps to develop empathy and also to humanize the ‘other’ – which is the focus of my research.