A Work in Progress:
Reflecting on the Game of Doctoral Education
Casie McGee
Introduction – A work in progress
• Every game is a work in progress.
• In the beginning…
• Gaming and Education
The story of my progress through the EdD program is a story told in levels.
WIP Level 1
Collaboration – This gamer’s perspective
The creation of a video game requires collaboration.
The person with the ideas may not be skilled at programming, and even if she is, she
may have absolutely no artistic ability.
Even if someone is lucky enough to be able to create the ideas, the code, and the art,
game designers still need peer reviewers, constructive criticism, alpha and beta testers,
and some platform on which to distribute the finished product.
We cannot be everything and do everything, and that is why collaboration is so
important. In order to create the best product, we each need to be the best we can at
what we do, and we need to let others do the same.
WIP Level 2
Collaboration – Peers
Group 1: CI 704
Group 2: CI 703
• Flexible, productive, friendly
• Tense, stifling, unfriendly
• No leader, de facto or otherwise
• Two self-appointed leaders
• Produced research and submitted
for publication
• Scrambled to meet the minimum
standards of the assignment
• Still friendly
• Hostile
I work better in a friendly, less stressful environment. For me, collaboration should not be a
combative process, and I should not finish a project feeling like I have been on the
battlefront.
WIP Level 2
Collaboration – Faculty
Teaching Mathematics Education
• Adjunct/GA
• 12 classes, many of them repeats
• Completely online
• Technology upgrades
Co-teaching EDF 517
• Spring 2016
• Huge class
• Fall 2016
• Small class
• Second co-teacher
When I started this program, I thought I was an excellent teacher. After spending time with
and learning from Dr. Meisel, I see that I still have lots of room for improvement.
WIP Level 2
Research - Perspective
• As far as I can see, there are two types of research, the kind
where one searches for information and the kind where one
collects data.
• My law school experience gave me experience collecting
information and analyzing it.
• This is an essential skill, but it is not enough.
• Almost every course in the Ed.D. program has been
designed to provide opportunities to learn and improve
both types of research skills.
WIP Level 3
Video Games and Research
• CIEC 700 – Deus Ex: Human Revolution
• Gather data while playing
• EDF 625 – World of Warcraft
• Qualitative study of raid progress as measure of learning
• LS 703 – World of Warcraft
• Proposal to study players’ perceptions of their own learning
• CI 701 – Food Math
• Develop curriculum in a video game
• CIEC 630, CIEC 699 – Food Math
• Create a video game
We can learn a lot about how to teach by studying games, including finding ways to make students less afraid to
fail and motivating them with rewards matched to the level of effort and skill involved.
WIP Level 3
Scholarship - Perspective
• I was completely new to scholarship.
• I had presented at a couple of conferences here and there
but I had never even attempted academic publication.
• I was a blank slate.
• I have had the opportunity to fill in that gap with some
wonderful experiences.
WIP Level 4
Scholarship - Reflections on Reflexivity
and Learning: A Study in World of
Warcraft
• Panel presentation with Dr. Campbell and two other students
• Only about five people in the audience
• Short and awkward
• The rest of the conference
• Tastycakes
• Coffee
• World of Warcraft as legitimate research
The most important reason for conferences is so that people in the same field can stay in
contact and discuss their ideas. Networking is the key.
WIP Level 4
Scholarship - We Are… LGBT: Assessing
Campus Climate for LGBT People at Marshall
University
• Appalachian Studies Conference
• Successful presentation
• Notoriety
• Networking
• Educational Studies, the journal
of the American Educational
Studies Association
• Rejected after six months of
review
• Informative comments
I was happy for the reviewers’ feedback. I felt like their feedback was a sign of their respect
for my effort and my potential.
WIP Level 4
Curriculum - Perspective
• In teacher preparation courses, I was told that students like me fail.
• Children raised in poverty, children raised by single mothers, children
of teenaged parents, and children with “special needs” cannot be
expected to succeed in the public school system because of the
challenges they face at home.
• These are the messages that teachers-in-training receive. These are the
ideas that they (we) internalize and act upon when teaching.
• These are pieces of a hidden curriculum that students learn when they
interact with those teachers.
WIP Level 5
Personal Theory of Curriculum
• Hidden Curriculum
• Social Reconstruction – Counts
• Scholar Academic – Adler
• Social Efficiency – Bobbitt
• Learner-Centered – Dewey
My curriculum theory is balance and realism. I do not believe that valuing knowledge for its
own sake has to compete with valuing knowledge for its usefulness to future work and life.
Similarly, I do not believe that preparing for the future negates the possibility of caring for
the present.
WIP Level 5
Conclusion
• I am a work in progress.
• I have found my niche, where I can make a meaningful contribution to a new and
exciting field.
• I am ready for the next level.
WIP Level 6
Thank You
My Committee
Others
• Dr. Lisa Heaton, Chair
• Dr. Meisel
• Dr. Beth Campbell
• Dr. Nicholson
• Dr. Jessica Hanna
• Kelly Templeton
• Doc seminar planning committees
• Everyone I forgot to mention!
WIP Level ?