Katie Strom | California State University, East Bay (original) (raw)

Papers by Katie Strom

Professional Development in Education, 2020

Although many researchers agree that teaching is complex and contextually situated, dominant conc... more Although many researchers agree that teaching is complex and contextually situated, dominant conceptions of teacher learning, and the enactment of such learning in practice, tend to be linear and reductionist.
Because simplistic conceptualisations of teaching activity have farreaching
impact on teachers, students, and school systems, generating
a complex theory of teacher learning-practice is nothing short of an
ethical imperative. To tackle this task, we draw from an emerging body
of teacher education scholarship that we consider the beginning of
a ‘complex turn’. Drawing on this literature, we distill a set of conceptual
shifts that, together, offer a set of theoretical tools to (re)think the processes of, and connections between, teacher learning-practice in ways
that better account for the dynamic, multiplicitous, ever-shifting nature of
these activities.

Capacious, 2020

I thought I knew my theory. In the summer of 2018, however, I experienced a mind-body implosion t... more I thought I knew my theory. In the summer of 2018, however, I experienced a mind-body implosion that put me out of commission for approximately twelve months. During that year and afterward, unable to engage in the theorizing and writing I loved-unable to do anything but feel-I discovered that there was a difference between knowing and thinking-feeling theory. In this auto-theoretical essay, I explore the corpo-affective dimensions of anxiety and panic and the discovery of my own deeply entrenched humanist orientations, weaving theoretical discussions of posthumanism with blended poetry and narrative.

Teachers College Record, 2019

Background/Context: Despite noted difficulties with defining and assessing teacher dispositions, ... more Background/Context: Despite noted difficulties with defining and assessing teacher dispositions, U.S. state education departments and national accreditation agencies have included dispositions in mandates and standards both for determining teacher quality and for assessing the quality of the teacher preparation programs that certify them. Thus, there remains a significant impetus to specify dispositions to assess, identify what "good" dispositions look like in practice, and determine the best way to measure them.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we aim to problematize the construct of “teacher dispositions” through a critical synthesis of literature and a discussion of a rhizomatic perspective to generate a (re)conceptualization that is morenclosely aligned with the immensely complex nature of teaching and learning. Second, we draw on samples of university-generated
teacher disposition assessment tools to provide concrete examples that “put to work” this complex perspective on dispositions.

Research Design: To apply ideas introduced in our rhizomatic framework focused on multiple, dynamic assemblages, we conducted a qualitative textual analysis of a sample of 16 widely available assessment tools used by university-based teacher preparation programs to measure teachers’ professional dispositions.

Findings and Conclusions: Overall, the vast majority of disposition criteria included in the tools reviewed were temporal and relational, seeking to assess the interactions of the teacher candidate amidst a variety of potential circumstances as well as material and discursive factors. This reveals a paradox, however, since, despite their more contextual phrasing, these criteria ultimately seek to assess an individual and are high-stakes only for that teacher. Yet, we suggest that the results of this review
may be an indication that the field is moving toward a more multifaceted vision of teaching that can better take into account the dynamic, situated, and relational nature of teaching activity. We also suggest the language accounting for some of the complexity of teaching in the disposition assessment tools we reviewed may be an entry point into a more dynamic, vital materialist vision of
the profession.

Review of Research in Education, 2019

Utilizing a complex theory of teacher learning and practice, this chapter analyzes ~120 empirical... more Utilizing a complex theory of teacher learning and practice, this chapter analyzes ~120 empirical studies of content teacher development (both preservice and in-service) for working with multilingual learners as well as research on content teaching for multilingual students. Our analysis identified three dimensions of quality content teaching for multilingual learners that are complex and intricately connected: context, orientations, and pedagogy. This chapter explores the results of our literature analysis and argues for improving content teaching for multilingual students through improved theoretically grounded research that embraces, explores, and accounts for the expansive complexities inherent in teacher learning and practice.

Posthuman Pedagogies in Higher Education, 2019

Educators are socialized into 'commonsense' ways of seeing the world that support rational, human... more Educators are socialized into 'commonsense' ways of seeing the world that support rational, humanistic, anthropocentric thinking. The U.S. schooling system further reinforces these perspectives by defining education in quantitative terms, turning teachers, students, and learning processes into numerical data points. These perspectives tend to shape educational leaders' understandings of leadership and research. As they enter professional doctorate, or three year EdD programmes, many educational leaders bring with them entrenched views of objectivity and and linearity, as well as a view of leadership as enacted by individual human actors. This chapter discusses ways to disrupt commonsense thinking reinforcing individualistic, representational, and human-centered worldviews by drawing on pedagogies informed by posthuman thinkers (including Braidotti, 2013; Code, 2006; Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Plumwood, 2002) to reframe practice and educational research in more affirmative, connected, multiplistic terms that emphasise productive difference and relations with the more-than-human world. Both authors teach courses in three-year professional doctorate programmes in educational leadership, and provide examples of instruction that put to work these ideas in our classes. The chapter concludes with suggestions and connections for (re)imagining how such pedagogical projects may be useful to other educators in higher education settings.

In this critically reflective essay I draw on critical posthuman concepts as narrate an experienc... more In this critically reflective essay I draw on critical posthuman concepts as narrate an experience teaching a class on identity and social justice in a summer leadership program. After locating myself historically and politically, and introducing posthumanism, I then share about my learning-with the students: in coming into composition with them and their experiences, I realized that they were interested in learning about LGBTQ issues, which I had not included in my syllabus. This encounter forced me to confront my own heteronormative gaze and the way it informed my syllabus and my expectations of the students. I modified the course and, in forging an alliance with them
around issues that were central to who they were becoming, produced new modes of subjectivity-a becoming-ally. This experience also opened up new
understandings of a pedagogy of virtualities, a pedagogy that allows for the actualization of students' and teachers' potentialities through joint activity.

In this paper, we present two case studies of first-year, secondary science teachers who particip... more In this paper, we present two case studies of first-year, secondary science teachers who participated in an urban teacher residency. We adopt a situated analysis approach,
framed by rhizomatics, a non-linear theory of social activity, to investigate the ways they attempted to enact practices consistent with the inquiry-based, social justice focus of their pre-professional program. Our investigation was guided by the question, “How do two science teachers construct their instructional practices in their first year of teaching?” We argue that the practices that emerged for both teachers were shaped by negotiations between the teacher, her students, and other contextual factors. As such, teaching practices are not a direct product of teacher learning, but are rather co-constituted by multiple elements, and therefore are fundamentally hybrid. Such insights add to the extant body of research on the relationship between teacher learning and practice, and can assist in developing teacher preparation programs that can support the non-linear, multiplicitous, and relational nature of teaching.

We are a self-study collective consisting of four educators in three states (California, New Jers... more We are a self-study collective consisting of four educators in three states (California, New Jersey,
and Maine) and in different teacher/leader education contexts. Over the past six years and through multiple self-studies, one theme we continually return to is “putting theory to work” to help us think and teach differently. One common point of agreement between the four of us is that the linear, reductionist thinking that continues to dominate education research is inadequate for inquiring
into self study and teacher education phenomena, and thus we have been drawn to complex theories that reframe the world, and our collective existence and movement with/in
it, as multiplistic, relational, vital, and materially embedded. As a self-study community, drawing on complex theories, such as rhizomatics and new materialisms, has aided us in theorizing our own collective development since our doctoral studies. In this collaborative selfstudy,
we turn a more purposeful lens on how theory shapes our instructional practices and our subjectivities as teacher-researchers, inquiring, “How does theory affect our practices? How does theory affect us as educators-researchers?”

In this essay, the authors argue that by using perspectives such as critical posthumanism to info... more In this essay, the authors argue that by using perspectives such as critical posthumanism to inform teacher preparation, educators can develop leaders
in schools and beyond who can be a central part of an effort to think and live differently in a deeply polarized, “post-truth” era. They present four examples that describe specific pedagogies and practices that aim to prepare critical leaders with complex, connected mindsets to create positive change in schools and societies.

In this study, we set out to explore processes of individual and group becomings of a self-study ... more In this study, we set out to explore processes of individual and group becomings of a self-study collective over time and distance, and with/through technology. Born out of a self-study project in one of our early doctoral courses, our self-study community has evolved over several years to one that is hybrid in nature. As we have continued our collaboration through online media, a tension arose at the juncture of our fundamentally relational work together, our need for the physical, embodied aspect of learning and self-study and the hybrid, often disembodied, experience provided by substituting online meetings for those conducted in-person. In this article we explore these tensions through pivotal moments and lines of flight in our self-study work over the past year. To frame these moments, we draw on ideas from posthumanism, which offers ways to conceptualize our collective as a multiplicity, account for the relational and material aspects of our work, address the agency of non-human actors (such as technology) in our collaboration, and consider our self-study practice a dynamic, complex, contextualized, situated phenomenon.

Background/Context: New teachers must cope with various instructional, personal and organizationa... more Background/Context: New teachers must cope with various instructional, personal and organizational challenges, an experience that often leads to difficulties enacting innovative, student-centered instructional practices learned in their preservice programs
and contributes to high rates of teacher attrition.
Purpose: Drawing on complexity theory, this review of empirical research takes an organizational or “systems” perspective on the experiences of first-year teachers as they transition from preservice education to the teaching profession. In so doing, we aim to shift away from constructions of the teacher as an autonomous actor and instead build a more complex, nuanced, and layered
understanding of the multidimensional influences that work together to shape the practices of novice teachers.
Research Design: We conducted a metasynthesis of 46 studies that met the following criteria: (a) were focused on first-year teachers, (b) offered sufficient description of participants’ professional practices, (c) featured participants who attended a university-based preparation program, and (d) were conducted since 1990. We first recorded each study’s methods, findings, and descriptions of first-year teacher practices. As a second level of analysis, we used a complexity lens to identify the systems
comprising first-year teacher practices, noting how those systems and their component or elements interacted to shape first-year teaching.
Findings/Results: We found that common patterns of interactions between and among systems of first-year teaching—including the teacher herself, the classroom, the school, and the larger district, state, and federal environments—tend to reinforce traditional, teacher-centered practices. Yet, in some studies, conditions surfaced that enabled participants’ to enact student centered and equity-minded teaching practices learned in their preservice programs.
Conclusions/Recommendations: Authors suggest that taking a complex systems view of beginning teaching, rather than singularly focusing on the teacher’s actions out of context, can reveal opportunities for fostering more supportive, enabling conditions fornew teachers to enact innovative practices that many preservice programs promote and experience a smoother transition into
teaching.

This paper, which will accompany a presentation at the October 2017 Convening for the Carnegie Pr... more This paper, which will accompany a presentation at the October 2017 Convening for the Carnegie Project on the Educational Doctorate (CPED), argues that faculty in EdD programs have a responsibility to prepare their students to think differently to address the massive injustices occurring in our school systems, which are connected up to those occurring in society and across the globe. I argue that we need to recognize that objectivity and neutrality, and the ideal of being a-political as educators, is a myth created by our dominant thinking patterns, or rational humanism. A form of thinking that casts the world as reductionist, ordered dualities, rational humanism upholds the status quo and works to increase inequality along multiple dimensions. Instead, I advocate for a shift to a critical posthuman (that is, “human and…”), vital materialist perspective. Such a perspective offers a radically different way of understanding the world as proliferating, ever-shifting multiples—a perspective which is promising for creating more complex, textured, multi-faceted understandings of social activity like education and ultimately pursuing different, more just ways of relating to each other and living together (Strom & Martin, 2017). I then offer examples that demonstrate how these ontologically-different ideas might inform our practice as faculty in EdD programs to create possibilities for pursuing different futures.

Special issue of Issues in Teacher Education with guest editors Kathryn J. Strom and Adrian D. Ma... more Special issue of Issues in Teacher Education with guest editors Kathryn J. Strom and Adrian D. Martin

The articles presented in this special issue each take up lines of posthuman, complex, materialis... more The articles presented in this special issue each take up lines of
posthuman, complex, materialist thinking, answering questions of “how
might we live,” “how might we educate,” and “how might we research
education/teaching” with affirmative, monistic, immanent, multiplistic
theories of difference. These serve as points of departure from normative
(humanistic) ways of thinking about teacher education, teaching, and
research on teaching. We envision the theoretical scope of the articles
in this issue as spanning a continuum, ranging from modes of thought
that trouble and dismantle normative and circulatory social categories to
conceptual and methodological frameworks that reinterpret the human
condition itself. The broad and diverse conceptual and methodological
approaches in this collection are “put to work” as guiding frameworks
regarding a wide range of equity and social justice issues relevant to
education and teacher education.

Our introduction to this special issue on “Thinking with Theory in Teacher Education” dedicates ... more Our introduction to this special issue on “Thinking with Theory in Teacher Education” dedicates considerable space to broadly discussing the current U.S. political context to emphasize why, at this precise moment in history, we—educators, teacher educators, and educational researchers—are in dire need of different ways to understand the world and our connections and interactions with/in it. We argue for the need to use these emergent understandings to become and live differently—as well as to shape systems of schooling and educate differently. To frame this issue, we first summarize the U.S. federal government's transition to extreme right wing and ultra-conservative political ideologies. We present an argument that " good and common sense " —that is, rational ways of knowing—is woefully inadequate to build the needed justice movement to resist the implications of a far-right nationalist agenda for public education. We emphasize the need to shift from rational humanist ways of thinking to posthuman, materialist theories of difference that can help members of the education community to engage in new modes of thought and action to counter the growing movement of neofascism in some political circles in the U.S. and, ultimately, pursue the interests of equity and social justice. As St. Pierre (2001) points out, " Living and theorizing produce each other; they structure each other. Not only do people produce theories, but theories produce people " (p. 142). In thinking with different theories (as illustrated throughout this volume), we can produce ourselves differently—and in turn, produce different ways of living, of teaching, and of learning to resist the encroaching influence of ultra-conservatism in U.S. public education policy and practice.

Background/Context: New teachers must cope with various instructional, personal and

In this chapter we revisit a previously conducted study to examine the methodological processes a... more In this chapter we revisit a previously conducted study to examine the methodological processes and digital tools that enabled a rhizomatic self-study.

This book chapter uses a lens of new materialism and self-study methodology to analyze and discus... more This book chapter uses a lens of new materialism and self-study methodology to analyze and discuss the construction of hybrid (blended) pedagogical practices of members of a self-study research community.

In this book chapter, we think with rhizomatic concepts to consider the assemblages that have pro... more In this book chapter, we think with rhizomatic concepts to consider the assemblages that have produced nomad processes of becoming-teacher-educator and consider productive sites of resistance within the neoliberal academy.

Professional Development in Education, 2020

Although many researchers agree that teaching is complex and contextually situated, dominant conc... more Although many researchers agree that teaching is complex and contextually situated, dominant conceptions of teacher learning, and the enactment of such learning in practice, tend to be linear and reductionist.
Because simplistic conceptualisations of teaching activity have farreaching
impact on teachers, students, and school systems, generating
a complex theory of teacher learning-practice is nothing short of an
ethical imperative. To tackle this task, we draw from an emerging body
of teacher education scholarship that we consider the beginning of
a ‘complex turn’. Drawing on this literature, we distill a set of conceptual
shifts that, together, offer a set of theoretical tools to (re)think the processes of, and connections between, teacher learning-practice in ways
that better account for the dynamic, multiplicitous, ever-shifting nature of
these activities.

Capacious, 2020

I thought I knew my theory. In the summer of 2018, however, I experienced a mind-body implosion t... more I thought I knew my theory. In the summer of 2018, however, I experienced a mind-body implosion that put me out of commission for approximately twelve months. During that year and afterward, unable to engage in the theorizing and writing I loved-unable to do anything but feel-I discovered that there was a difference between knowing and thinking-feeling theory. In this auto-theoretical essay, I explore the corpo-affective dimensions of anxiety and panic and the discovery of my own deeply entrenched humanist orientations, weaving theoretical discussions of posthumanism with blended poetry and narrative.

Teachers College Record, 2019

Background/Context: Despite noted difficulties with defining and assessing teacher dispositions, ... more Background/Context: Despite noted difficulties with defining and assessing teacher dispositions, U.S. state education departments and national accreditation agencies have included dispositions in mandates and standards both for determining teacher quality and for assessing the quality of the teacher preparation programs that certify them. Thus, there remains a significant impetus to specify dispositions to assess, identify what "good" dispositions look like in practice, and determine the best way to measure them.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we aim to problematize the construct of “teacher dispositions” through a critical synthesis of literature and a discussion of a rhizomatic perspective to generate a (re)conceptualization that is morenclosely aligned with the immensely complex nature of teaching and learning. Second, we draw on samples of university-generated
teacher disposition assessment tools to provide concrete examples that “put to work” this complex perspective on dispositions.

Research Design: To apply ideas introduced in our rhizomatic framework focused on multiple, dynamic assemblages, we conducted a qualitative textual analysis of a sample of 16 widely available assessment tools used by university-based teacher preparation programs to measure teachers’ professional dispositions.

Findings and Conclusions: Overall, the vast majority of disposition criteria included in the tools reviewed were temporal and relational, seeking to assess the interactions of the teacher candidate amidst a variety of potential circumstances as well as material and discursive factors. This reveals a paradox, however, since, despite their more contextual phrasing, these criteria ultimately seek to assess an individual and are high-stakes only for that teacher. Yet, we suggest that the results of this review
may be an indication that the field is moving toward a more multifaceted vision of teaching that can better take into account the dynamic, situated, and relational nature of teaching activity. We also suggest the language accounting for some of the complexity of teaching in the disposition assessment tools we reviewed may be an entry point into a more dynamic, vital materialist vision of
the profession.

Review of Research in Education, 2019

Utilizing a complex theory of teacher learning and practice, this chapter analyzes ~120 empirical... more Utilizing a complex theory of teacher learning and practice, this chapter analyzes ~120 empirical studies of content teacher development (both preservice and in-service) for working with multilingual learners as well as research on content teaching for multilingual students. Our analysis identified three dimensions of quality content teaching for multilingual learners that are complex and intricately connected: context, orientations, and pedagogy. This chapter explores the results of our literature analysis and argues for improving content teaching for multilingual students through improved theoretically grounded research that embraces, explores, and accounts for the expansive complexities inherent in teacher learning and practice.

Posthuman Pedagogies in Higher Education, 2019

Educators are socialized into 'commonsense' ways of seeing the world that support rational, human... more Educators are socialized into 'commonsense' ways of seeing the world that support rational, humanistic, anthropocentric thinking. The U.S. schooling system further reinforces these perspectives by defining education in quantitative terms, turning teachers, students, and learning processes into numerical data points. These perspectives tend to shape educational leaders' understandings of leadership and research. As they enter professional doctorate, or three year EdD programmes, many educational leaders bring with them entrenched views of objectivity and and linearity, as well as a view of leadership as enacted by individual human actors. This chapter discusses ways to disrupt commonsense thinking reinforcing individualistic, representational, and human-centered worldviews by drawing on pedagogies informed by posthuman thinkers (including Braidotti, 2013; Code, 2006; Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Plumwood, 2002) to reframe practice and educational research in more affirmative, connected, multiplistic terms that emphasise productive difference and relations with the more-than-human world. Both authors teach courses in three-year professional doctorate programmes in educational leadership, and provide examples of instruction that put to work these ideas in our classes. The chapter concludes with suggestions and connections for (re)imagining how such pedagogical projects may be useful to other educators in higher education settings.

In this critically reflective essay I draw on critical posthuman concepts as narrate an experienc... more In this critically reflective essay I draw on critical posthuman concepts as narrate an experience teaching a class on identity and social justice in a summer leadership program. After locating myself historically and politically, and introducing posthumanism, I then share about my learning-with the students: in coming into composition with them and their experiences, I realized that they were interested in learning about LGBTQ issues, which I had not included in my syllabus. This encounter forced me to confront my own heteronormative gaze and the way it informed my syllabus and my expectations of the students. I modified the course and, in forging an alliance with them
around issues that were central to who they were becoming, produced new modes of subjectivity-a becoming-ally. This experience also opened up new
understandings of a pedagogy of virtualities, a pedagogy that allows for the actualization of students' and teachers' potentialities through joint activity.

In this paper, we present two case studies of first-year, secondary science teachers who particip... more In this paper, we present two case studies of first-year, secondary science teachers who participated in an urban teacher residency. We adopt a situated analysis approach,
framed by rhizomatics, a non-linear theory of social activity, to investigate the ways they attempted to enact practices consistent with the inquiry-based, social justice focus of their pre-professional program. Our investigation was guided by the question, “How do two science teachers construct their instructional practices in their first year of teaching?” We argue that the practices that emerged for both teachers were shaped by negotiations between the teacher, her students, and other contextual factors. As such, teaching practices are not a direct product of teacher learning, but are rather co-constituted by multiple elements, and therefore are fundamentally hybrid. Such insights add to the extant body of research on the relationship between teacher learning and practice, and can assist in developing teacher preparation programs that can support the non-linear, multiplicitous, and relational nature of teaching.

We are a self-study collective consisting of four educators in three states (California, New Jers... more We are a self-study collective consisting of four educators in three states (California, New Jersey,
and Maine) and in different teacher/leader education contexts. Over the past six years and through multiple self-studies, one theme we continually return to is “putting theory to work” to help us think and teach differently. One common point of agreement between the four of us is that the linear, reductionist thinking that continues to dominate education research is inadequate for inquiring
into self study and teacher education phenomena, and thus we have been drawn to complex theories that reframe the world, and our collective existence and movement with/in
it, as multiplistic, relational, vital, and materially embedded. As a self-study community, drawing on complex theories, such as rhizomatics and new materialisms, has aided us in theorizing our own collective development since our doctoral studies. In this collaborative selfstudy,
we turn a more purposeful lens on how theory shapes our instructional practices and our subjectivities as teacher-researchers, inquiring, “How does theory affect our practices? How does theory affect us as educators-researchers?”

In this essay, the authors argue that by using perspectives such as critical posthumanism to info... more In this essay, the authors argue that by using perspectives such as critical posthumanism to inform teacher preparation, educators can develop leaders
in schools and beyond who can be a central part of an effort to think and live differently in a deeply polarized, “post-truth” era. They present four examples that describe specific pedagogies and practices that aim to prepare critical leaders with complex, connected mindsets to create positive change in schools and societies.

In this study, we set out to explore processes of individual and group becomings of a self-study ... more In this study, we set out to explore processes of individual and group becomings of a self-study collective over time and distance, and with/through technology. Born out of a self-study project in one of our early doctoral courses, our self-study community has evolved over several years to one that is hybrid in nature. As we have continued our collaboration through online media, a tension arose at the juncture of our fundamentally relational work together, our need for the physical, embodied aspect of learning and self-study and the hybrid, often disembodied, experience provided by substituting online meetings for those conducted in-person. In this article we explore these tensions through pivotal moments and lines of flight in our self-study work over the past year. To frame these moments, we draw on ideas from posthumanism, which offers ways to conceptualize our collective as a multiplicity, account for the relational and material aspects of our work, address the agency of non-human actors (such as technology) in our collaboration, and consider our self-study practice a dynamic, complex, contextualized, situated phenomenon.

Background/Context: New teachers must cope with various instructional, personal and organizationa... more Background/Context: New teachers must cope with various instructional, personal and organizational challenges, an experience that often leads to difficulties enacting innovative, student-centered instructional practices learned in their preservice programs
and contributes to high rates of teacher attrition.
Purpose: Drawing on complexity theory, this review of empirical research takes an organizational or “systems” perspective on the experiences of first-year teachers as they transition from preservice education to the teaching profession. In so doing, we aim to shift away from constructions of the teacher as an autonomous actor and instead build a more complex, nuanced, and layered
understanding of the multidimensional influences that work together to shape the practices of novice teachers.
Research Design: We conducted a metasynthesis of 46 studies that met the following criteria: (a) were focused on first-year teachers, (b) offered sufficient description of participants’ professional practices, (c) featured participants who attended a university-based preparation program, and (d) were conducted since 1990. We first recorded each study’s methods, findings, and descriptions of first-year teacher practices. As a second level of analysis, we used a complexity lens to identify the systems
comprising first-year teacher practices, noting how those systems and their component or elements interacted to shape first-year teaching.
Findings/Results: We found that common patterns of interactions between and among systems of first-year teaching—including the teacher herself, the classroom, the school, and the larger district, state, and federal environments—tend to reinforce traditional, teacher-centered practices. Yet, in some studies, conditions surfaced that enabled participants’ to enact student centered and equity-minded teaching practices learned in their preservice programs.
Conclusions/Recommendations: Authors suggest that taking a complex systems view of beginning teaching, rather than singularly focusing on the teacher’s actions out of context, can reveal opportunities for fostering more supportive, enabling conditions fornew teachers to enact innovative practices that many preservice programs promote and experience a smoother transition into
teaching.

This paper, which will accompany a presentation at the October 2017 Convening for the Carnegie Pr... more This paper, which will accompany a presentation at the October 2017 Convening for the Carnegie Project on the Educational Doctorate (CPED), argues that faculty in EdD programs have a responsibility to prepare their students to think differently to address the massive injustices occurring in our school systems, which are connected up to those occurring in society and across the globe. I argue that we need to recognize that objectivity and neutrality, and the ideal of being a-political as educators, is a myth created by our dominant thinking patterns, or rational humanism. A form of thinking that casts the world as reductionist, ordered dualities, rational humanism upholds the status quo and works to increase inequality along multiple dimensions. Instead, I advocate for a shift to a critical posthuman (that is, “human and…”), vital materialist perspective. Such a perspective offers a radically different way of understanding the world as proliferating, ever-shifting multiples—a perspective which is promising for creating more complex, textured, multi-faceted understandings of social activity like education and ultimately pursuing different, more just ways of relating to each other and living together (Strom & Martin, 2017). I then offer examples that demonstrate how these ontologically-different ideas might inform our practice as faculty in EdD programs to create possibilities for pursuing different futures.

Special issue of Issues in Teacher Education with guest editors Kathryn J. Strom and Adrian D. Ma... more Special issue of Issues in Teacher Education with guest editors Kathryn J. Strom and Adrian D. Martin

The articles presented in this special issue each take up lines of posthuman, complex, materialis... more The articles presented in this special issue each take up lines of
posthuman, complex, materialist thinking, answering questions of “how
might we live,” “how might we educate,” and “how might we research
education/teaching” with affirmative, monistic, immanent, multiplistic
theories of difference. These serve as points of departure from normative
(humanistic) ways of thinking about teacher education, teaching, and
research on teaching. We envision the theoretical scope of the articles
in this issue as spanning a continuum, ranging from modes of thought
that trouble and dismantle normative and circulatory social categories to
conceptual and methodological frameworks that reinterpret the human
condition itself. The broad and diverse conceptual and methodological
approaches in this collection are “put to work” as guiding frameworks
regarding a wide range of equity and social justice issues relevant to
education and teacher education.

Our introduction to this special issue on “Thinking with Theory in Teacher Education” dedicates ... more Our introduction to this special issue on “Thinking with Theory in Teacher Education” dedicates considerable space to broadly discussing the current U.S. political context to emphasize why, at this precise moment in history, we—educators, teacher educators, and educational researchers—are in dire need of different ways to understand the world and our connections and interactions with/in it. We argue for the need to use these emergent understandings to become and live differently—as well as to shape systems of schooling and educate differently. To frame this issue, we first summarize the U.S. federal government's transition to extreme right wing and ultra-conservative political ideologies. We present an argument that " good and common sense " —that is, rational ways of knowing—is woefully inadequate to build the needed justice movement to resist the implications of a far-right nationalist agenda for public education. We emphasize the need to shift from rational humanist ways of thinking to posthuman, materialist theories of difference that can help members of the education community to engage in new modes of thought and action to counter the growing movement of neofascism in some political circles in the U.S. and, ultimately, pursue the interests of equity and social justice. As St. Pierre (2001) points out, " Living and theorizing produce each other; they structure each other. Not only do people produce theories, but theories produce people " (p. 142). In thinking with different theories (as illustrated throughout this volume), we can produce ourselves differently—and in turn, produce different ways of living, of teaching, and of learning to resist the encroaching influence of ultra-conservatism in U.S. public education policy and practice.

Background/Context: New teachers must cope with various instructional, personal and

In this chapter we revisit a previously conducted study to examine the methodological processes a... more In this chapter we revisit a previously conducted study to examine the methodological processes and digital tools that enabled a rhizomatic self-study.

This book chapter uses a lens of new materialism and self-study methodology to analyze and discus... more This book chapter uses a lens of new materialism and self-study methodology to analyze and discuss the construction of hybrid (blended) pedagogical practices of members of a self-study research community.

In this book chapter, we think with rhizomatic concepts to consider the assemblages that have pro... more In this book chapter, we think with rhizomatic concepts to consider the assemblages that have produced nomad processes of becoming-teacher-educator and consider productive sites of resistance within the neoliberal academy.

Exploring Gender and LGBTQ Issues in K-12 and Teacher Education: A Rainbow Assemblage, 2019

In this volume, we ask what happens when the researcher in forms of intimate scholarship is decen... more In this volume, we ask what happens when the researcher in forms of intimate scholarship is decentered--no longer the focus, but merely one part of an entangled material-discursive formation collectively producing the “results” of the inquiry. In the midst of the current ontological turn in qualitative research, we argue that this form of scholarship offers the opportunity to address directly the question of the posthuman subject and generate thinking for the field of qualitative research more broadly. In particular, chapters in this volume highlight ways that researchers of teaching and teacher education practices can advance conversations and knowledge in education while exploring theories with an ontological view of the world as fundamentally multiple, dynamic, fluid, and co-constituted by entangled material and discursive forces. Authors “put to work” posthuman, non-linear, and multiplistic theories and concepts to disrupt and decenter the “I” or researcher-subject in self-focused methodologies, and/or to analyze knowledge and practice as co-produced by multiplicities of human/material and incorporeal elements in which the self is but one temporally “individuated” or “subjectivized” component. In the introduction, we provide brief discussions of intimate scholarship and posthuman perspectives, followed by an orientation to the content of the this book.

Dominant conceptions in the field of education position teacher development and teaching as linea... more Dominant conceptions in the field of education position teacher development and teaching as linear, cause and effect transactions completed by teachers as isolated, autonomous actors. Yet rhizomatics, an emergent non-linear philosophy created by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, offers a perspective that counters these assumptions that reduce the complexity of classroom activity and phenomena. In Becoming-Teacher: A Rhizomatic Look at First-Year Teaching, Strom and Martin employ rhizomatics to analyze the experiences of Mauro, Bruce, and June, three first-year science teachers in a highly diverse, urban school district. Reporting on the ways that they constructed their practices during the first several months of entry into the teaching profession, authors explore how these teachers negotiated their pre-professional learning from an inquiry and social-justice oriented teacher residency program with their own professional agendas, understandings, students, and context. Across all three cases, the work of teaching emerged as jointly produced by the activity of multiple elements and simultaneously shaped by macro-and micropolitical forces. This innovative approach to investigating the multiple interactions that emerge in the first year of teaching provides a complex perspective of the role of preservice teacher learning and the non-linear processes of becoming-teacher. Of interest to teachers, teacher educators, and education researchers, the cases discussed in this text provide theoretically-informed analyses that highlight means of supporting teachers in enacting socially-just practices, interrupting a dominant educational paradigm detrimental to students and teachers, and engaging with productive tools to theorize a resistance to the neoliberal education movement at the classroom level.

In the following essay, I discuss my own uneasy and nonlinear journey from the classroom to Deleu... more In the following essay, I discuss my own uneasy and nonlinear journey from
the classroom to Deleuze, describing the concepts and lines of thought that
have been productive in thinking differently about teaching and teacher
education. I also detail my encounters with the surprising orthodoxies
of using Deleuzian/Deleuzoguattarian thought. From these, I suggest
that ‘being Deleuzian’ is itself a molar line that serves as an exclusionary
mechanism, working to preserve high theory for the use of only a select
few. Instead, I argue for the potential of making such nonlinear thinking
accessible to mainstream audiences to interrupt the linear, status quo
thinking undergirding a global educational neoliberal movement.

This paper describes the first cycle of an action research study investigating the impact of new ... more This paper describes the first cycle of an action research study investigating the impact of new blended learning courses in a professional doctorate program, the results of which will inform future course planning and pedagogy. Specifically, core researcher-faculty members associated with the program were interested in understanding how a blended learning program impacted students' learning experiences. In our findings from this initial inquiry, we detail both constraining and enabling elements of the hybrid experiences provided to students. We also describe the revised action plan created from these findings to improve our ability to utilize the online portion of our doctoral coursework to meet our larger goals of preparing educational leaders to fight for issues of social justice in K-12 settings and beyond.

Posthumanism and Higher Education: Reimagining Pedagogy, Practice, and Research , 2019