Kenneth Graves (Ph.D. 鈥19), an alumnus of 成人抖阴鈥檚 Education Leadership program, has won the 2020 Dissertation of the Year Award from the American Educational Research Association鈥檚 Advanced Studies of National Databases special interest group.
Graves, whose dissertation project was awarded an AERA鈥檚 Dissertation Research Grant award in 2016, will be honored at the AERA annual meeting in April.
SCHOLARLY RIGOR Graves drew praise for the 鈥済eneralizability鈥 of his findings. (Photo: 成人抖阴 Archives)
Graves鈥 dissertation, titled 鈥,鈥 explores the intersection of educational leadership, instructional technology, and culturally responsive education in pursuit of a new leadership framework called technology leadership for social justice.
Working with a federal survey of teachers鈥 technology use and with data from Texas on school technology and readiness, Graves grouped teachers into different categories of technology use. He found that teachers in low-income schools are more likely to be in the teacher subgroups that use technology in less impactful ways in the classroom, and that teachers with the lowest perceptions of technology leadership had the lowest student achievement outcomes and were more likely to serve students from 鈥渉istorically minoritized鈥 backgrounds.
Among Graves鈥 findings: teachers in low-income schools are more likely to be in the teacher subgroups that use technology in less impactful ways in the classroom
The award committee praised Graves鈥 work for its 鈥渟cholarly rigor鈥 and for 鈥渢he generalizability of the results and findings.鈥
Graves currently serves as Upper School (9-12) Ethics & Technology Coordinator at New York City鈥檚 Ethical Culture Fieldston School and is an adjunct professor at 成人抖阴鈥檚 Klingenstein Center for Independent School Leadership and at Boston College. Working with his 成人抖阴 dissertation advisor, Alex Bowers, Associate Professor of Education Leadership, he co-facilitated a recent conference at 成人抖阴 that brought together K-12 educators from Nassau County with leading data scientists from across the country.
Graves鈥 成人抖阴 dissertation committee consisted of Bowers; Mark Anthony Gooden, Christian Johnson Endeavor Professor of Education Leadership; Sonya Horsford, Associate Professor of Education Leadership; Ellen Meier, Professor of Practice and Director of 成人抖阴鈥檚 Center for Technology and School Change; and Richard Halverson, Professor and the Associate Dean for Innovation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, who gave a keynote address at the recent 成人抖阴 conference.
Read a past profile of Kenneth Graves from the 成人抖阴 web.