Learning to be a research scientist

Before I even went through my Penn GSE orientation, my advisor, Dr. Susan Yoon, enlisted me to work on a major research project backed by the National Science Foundation. We were studying how kids learn complex science in one-off experiences in a museum setting and trying to see if we could improve their learning with augmented reality.

That welcome came to epitomize my Penn GSE experience: I was consistently offered demanding challenges that, in the end, made me a strong learning scientist.

The Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education program gave me a solid base for understanding the philosophy, history, and theory of education. That grounding really helped me prioritize what I value in education.

In addition to our Augmented Reality work, I assisted several significant research projects with Dr. Yoon and Dr. Yasmin Kafai. I saw how research that ultimately changes education is carried out. I learned how to perform a literature review, how to interview, how to conduct a survey, how to analyze data, possible ways to resolve seemingly conflicting results between user data and interview answers, and ultimately, how to design cutting-edge curriculum.

I firmly believe I could walk into most social science research settings and succeed thanks to the strong methodological training I received at Penn GSE.