Philosophy of Educational Technology

In this philosophy, I amalgamate my core values as a life-long learner with my experiences as a student, engineer and educator to develop a cohesive vision of how I want to apply technology to the field of education.

I strive to embody this philosophy in my own life as well as act as an inspiration and role model to young women exploring careers in STEM. Earning my engineering degree at the highly challenging Harvey Mudd College, I struggled with imposter syndrome, but I found joy in opportunities like the Global Clinic Program, where I was able to travel to Puerto Rico and collaborate with students and industry professionals on a year-long project to optimize biopharmaceutical manufacturing processes. Piloting new videoconferencing technology, we overcame distance, language and cultural barriers to investigate and present engineering solutions that improved the efficacy of cancer-treating drugs in patients. Later in my career, I served as a panelist at the EmPOWERing Women Conference, representing young women in the male-dominated power industry, where I got to speak about the challenges of under-representation I encountered as I spearheaded the development of new power plant projects that supported the renewable energy sector. 

As I continued to hone my passions and find my purpose, I pivoted my career and chose educational roles where I could have a more direct impact on students. As a STEM educator, I got to relate how I confronted my own fear of heights while earning my skydiving license to students on field trips to indoor wind tunnels, as I taught them how to use the Laws of Physics to calculate then measure their own terminal velocity by flying in the wind tunnel. Most recently, I've been teaching middle school science and math at an all-girls school, where I've fallen in love with the challenges of designing my own curriculum to include hands-on, multi-disciplinary and inquiry-driven approaches to my subjects. For example, I encourage students to design their own solutions to community-driven challenges of energy access and renewable energy while modeling and building wind turbines, ask math students to evaluate the fairness of different sprinting and long-distance track designs using what they know about perimeter and circumference and modeling it in Python, and coach robotics students who develop innovation projects to help elderly patients practice dexterity through art and music using programmable Arduinos and custom 3D printed stylus designs.

 Through the many twists and turns of my career, I’ve found that my objectives of being a lifelong learner, one who learns by trying, struggling and doing, and being a resilient problem-solver who seeks out the resources and technologies needed to succeed have been pervasive in my career and personal life. These are the qualities I want to continue to embody and incorporate into my educational technology philosophy going forward. 

As a teacher, I hope to use technology and empower my students to use technology in a way that explores relevant and contemporary content, follows my pedagogy of learning-through-doing by working together to solve real-world problems, and creates a safe space for my students to collaborate, explore diverse approaches and perspectives and develop the confidence to be their authentic selves as they learn, make mistakes and grow. In pursuit of these objectives, I will develop and adhere to strong standards and norms of technology use that protect my students’ privacy, identity and ability to express themselves authentically. I will curate and select technology tools which are developmentally appropriate and represent a diversity of perspectives, cultures, learning styles. I will set my students up for success by giving them opportunities to struggle, adapt and find solutions by using technology to solve real-world problems and learning-through-doing. Finally, I will be an advocate for educational technology amongst fellow educators, students, parents, administrators, and the local and broader community to push for appropriate access and use of technology in education to empower our students to reach their limitless potential.