Thank you for visiting my portfolio website.
I am grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to develop my interests and skills over the course of the past year and a half through the M.Ed. program in International Education Policy and Management.
Introductory Portfolio Overview
Over the course of my master’s degree program at Vanderbilt, I have had the opportunity to be exposed to a wide array of unique challenges, questions, histories, and contextualized applications in the arena of international educational theory, research, and practice. I brought into the program a set of experiences in early childhood education, as both a teacher in the United States and volunteer in international contexts, which grounded me with a fundamental interest in ECE as a pathway to global development, and even more interestingly, as a space within which so many complex questions become central. What do modern societies believe the role of young children is, and how does childhood take shape globally? What should education be preparing children for—productivity, future workforce involvement, the unlocking of their freedom of thought and creativity, the provision of fundamental medical and nutritional needs? How do we define what “success” means for students, specifically in the early years, but across the educational trajectory? What does it mean to build a functional system of education involving diverse perspectives and practices that enables access, quality, and equity for all students? For me, early childhood education provides a rich environment within which to explore these issues. This portfolio captures many of my interests in this area, but certainly is not exhaustive. I intend to keep engaging in these topics, and most importantly, I intend to use the skills and perspectives I have gained in a globally-informed program to make meaningful contributions wherever I am through the ability to ask important questions, evaluate and hold nuanced perspectives, and practically engage in the implementation of critical programs and policies that enable all students—from the early years through adulthood—to access high-quality educational opportunities.
This portfolio serves to capture my interests, as well as my skills, through a sample of work both internal to my graduate courses and completed through external professional experiences during my course of study. I developed strong interest at the intersection of policy, practice, and research, and the important work of framing and communicating these fields to public audiences in order to enact change. The first artifact speaks to my ability to independently analyze and communicate critical information in a professional capacity that would be used to inform local advocacy efforts. The second demonstrates my ability to delve into a complex theoretical landscape, and concisely compare nuanced policies across contexts. The final installment of this portfolio highlights my ability to execute a collaborative project merging both policy and data analysis skills, and to effectively convey the significance of the project findings. Taken together, these artifacts show the three qualities I most hope to embody in my future endeavors: passion for the work I am doing, pursuit of a nuanced and contextualized understanding of how policy translates to practice, and a collaborative and optimistic attitude to engage with whatever projects and questions emerge.