Current Projects
"Systems Thinking and Holistic-Critical Pedagogy: A Case Study in Educating the Whole Student"
This case study explores and defines holistic (Mayes and Williams 2013) and critical (Freire 2000) pedagogies through the lens of systems theory. Chronicling students' responses to such care in the classroom, this study outlines how tackling teaching and learning from a systems perspective improves the depth and quality of students' work and increases academic success.
"Communities of Practice: How the Classroom Can Sponsor Student Success, Grit, and Persistence within the Context of a Learning Community.”
This qualitative research project aims to identify and measure student grit, persistence, and academic success. Of particular interest are the textual markers of grit and persistence in student writing and learning narratives that could lead to a better understanding of learners' successes and the pedagogies that support them.
Who We Might Have Been: A Memoir in Circuits
Some stories can't be told until after a funeral. In this compassionate yet unflinching look at her family's circuitry, Erica Rogers explores trauma as both inheritance and curse. With the alkaline zing of 9v batteries still on her tongue, she shares her complex story of growing up with an inventor and self-taught engineer convinced he had solved the world's energy crisis. "Dad wanted to be an Edison, a Westinghouse, even a Tesla. Instead, he was a guy standing in the dark," she writes. Casting light and throwing shade at the legacies of teen parenthood, Rogers explores laughter, compassion, and joy as the means by which to convert challenge, disappointment and pain into a renewable source of personal power.