LY

I did not expect time to fly quickly when I started my first semester. It was a significant and meaningful year.

 

I learned a lot with the coursework this year. In the first semester, I took EDIT 8100, EDIT 8190, and EDIT 8990. EDIT 8100 helped me build a concrete foundation for LDT, and I understood what was happening in our field. EDIT 8190 taught me design thinking and creativity confidence, and I had a good time designing my project, which focused on the professional development of instructional designers called IDsGo. In this project, I tried to build a website for an online learning community helping instructional designers connect. Creating my design work enabled me to combine my theories and passion into practice, and it enhanced my passion for exploring how I could do as a researcher to solve practical issues in our field. I have taken the doctoral seminar with second-year Ph.D. students and understand how the doctoral study process builds brick and brick.

 

In the spring semester, except for the required courses from LDT, I started to take the research method course QUAL 8400. It helped me to understand qualitative traditions and how to conduct interviews in qualitative research. Also, EDIT 8900 gave me more insight into the research in our field and how we can think about ideas that resonate with our area. EDIT 7350 help me understand how to evaluate an authentic educational project, satisfy various stakeholders’ needs, and how data analysis will help evaluators look into the results and give suggestions. The courses in my first year helped me create a foundation, look at the real world, and learn how to solve problems.

 

I appreciate my major advisor, Dr. Theodore J Kopcha. There are so many tiny things or moments that I can feel he is so supportive. He always gives suggestions on my course selection and helps me arrange my courses. He also discusses research ideas with me, recommending related learning theories, allowing me to narrow my research scope, and providing feedback for my work. He mentioned that the journey of a Ph.D. is long and would take at least four years, so it’s essential to find something that matters to me. He encouraged me out of the struggle when I questioned whether my research interest was unpopular and would be meaningless for our field.

 

I have some expectations for myself in the next academic year. I’m eager to do more writing work since I’m still not confident with academic writing. For future study, I plan to take more research method courses to deepen my understanding of different research methods and strengthen my skills in conducting my research. I will consider taking more cognate courses out of LDT, such as human development and educational psychology, and try to find some overlap between other fields and my research interests.