My academic research focuses on engaged learning – oftentimes referred to as high impact pedagogical practices – with a particular focus on service-learning and community engagement. I have investigated this both in regards to practice and policy within teacher preparation and, more broadly, across higher education. Most recently, my emphasis has been on the rise of digital learning technologies and their influence on the practices and policies of teaching and learning in higher education. My scholarship includes eight books and dozens of academic articles, book chapters, policy reports, and book reviews. I have published in some of the top journals in the field – such as Teachers College Record, Educational Researcher, Equity & Excellence in Education, Educational Studies, the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, and the Journal of Philosophy of Education; and with some of the top academic publishers, including Palgrave, Routledge, and Corwin. My books have won prestigious awards, been translated into several languages, and have been reviewed in numerous academic journals, such as Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Teachers College Record, Educational Studies, and the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning. My research has been cited in thousands of academic publications and used in dozens of undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs around the country and internationally. Please click on the links below (or from the pull-down menu under “ACADEMIC RESEARCH”) for some of my key scholarship in these particular areas.
A note about the theoretical foundations of own scholarship: Kurt Lewin is credited with saying that there is nothing so practical as a good theory. To that end, I use pragmatist, feminist, and poststructuralist theorists -- such as John Dewey, Robyn Wiegman, Stanley Fish, and Michel Foucault -- to help "clear away the underbrush" of complex issues. I think of these theorists and their numerous overlapping (and, yes, oftentimes contradictory) perspectives as heuristics to guiding my own analyses of the "wicked problems" of education. Below is some of my scholarship that explicitly talks about and makes use of these theorists.