| Kathleen Spencer |
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Post Doctoral Research Associate
Kathleen is a post-doctoral research associate at the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach at Tufts University. She earned her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education with a focus on Language and Literacy development. She has experience teaching literacy skills at the elementary, middle school, high school, and undergraduate levels and has taught courses in writing development at the graduate level. She also has experience in both clinical and informal assessment of language and learning issues. Her doctoral research focused on the reading and writing skills of struggling readers with the goal of understanding interrelationships between instructional setting, skill profile and task constraints.
Education Ph.D. in Human Development and Psychology, Harvard University Graduate School of Education. CEEO Responsibilities Kathleen is currently working on a NSF-funded project concerning the integration of engineering and literacy instruction in elementary classrooms. Her focus is on the ways that literacy and engineering instruction can be mutually supportive, with texts providing contexts, clients and constraints for designers, and engineering activities providing a platform for genuine, purposeful use and production of text. In addition, she is looking at the ways in which engineering activities may support literacy learning. She is excited to be a part of a ground-breaking project that crosses disciplinary boundaries and encourages students to view literacy as a set of valuable tools that can be used to accomplish important tasks. |
