LDT Doctoral Students’ Portfolio
Tingting Yang
Program Assessment
I genuinely appreciate the well-designed program curriculum, supportive faculty, and the most lovely and caring CIS community. Firstly, the curriculum of our program is well-designed to guide students to grow as qualified researchers in the LDT field, meanwhile offers us freedom and support to explore topics of our interests. The first-year courses prepared me to explore my research ideas with more enthusiasm and confidence. I appreciated EDIT 8100 (Foundations in LDT, facilitated by Dr. Hill) and EDIT 8990 (Doctoral seminar, facilitated by Dr. Choi and Dr. Hill) for nurturing my research ideas and EDIT 8190 (Design and Development Tools, facilitated by Dr. Kopcha) for developing my designing thinking. These first-semester courses prepared me to dive into my doctoral research inquiry. The following guiding courses such as EDIT 9610 (Conceptual Framework, facilitated by Dr. Stefaniak) was especially helpful for narrowing down and refining my research focus. Secondly, the LDT faculty is a group of awesome people. They are very supportive and caring. Lastly, the LDT program has a super warm and encouraging community I will never praise enough. Our program coordinator Janette was amazing at welcoming all newcomers and helped us quickly fit into this community. I appreciate her warmth and caring especially as an international student. The feeling of being in a community is very valuable during the quarantine of COVID-19 when department head Dr. Rieber host online social events to connect and encourage us. Meanwhile, I appreciate the service and help from LDT office staff, they make LDT a very warm community. In addition, student associations CISGA and ITSA are very helpful in supporting our doctoral study with many social and academic events.
I have too many compliments and appreciation for our program, meanwhile, I also have some suggestions. Firstly, I would suggest our department host more academic or social events to connect the community together, also important to inform and encourage the community to participate. I enjoyed every communal event in CIS but find such opportunities rare or unknown in time. I hope we can have more chances to interact with faculty members as well as doctoral students. The second suggestion is about sharing more information about ongoing and coming research projects led by faculty in our program. Although the department website provides basic information about each faculty’s research interests and areas of expertise, as doctoral students in our program we may be more interested in specific projects they’re doing and planning to do. I think sharing such project information helps doctoral students know more about our faculty and our program, meanwhile has the potential to enhance the connections between faculty and students. My final suggestion is related to the doctoral seminar. The sudden cancel of the doctoral seminar in the 2020 Spring semester and the extension of the seminar to three semesters all caused confusion for my cohort. Although we all understand the special situation caused by COVID-19, we wish we could be informed in advance.
Self-Assessment
My first-year doctoral study has been both challenging and rewarding. I am very glad and proud to find myself become more determined and passionate about my research questions.
Firstly, I appreciated the high-quality courses at UGA. The first year’s LDT courses prepared me to narrow down my research ideas and questions, I have a better view of my research ideas and focuses now. Meanwhile, the methodology courses I took and am taking now helps equip myself as a researcher as well as a reviewer for others’ study. Secondly, I am satisfied with the research progress I am making now. The passing year has been intensive academic training for me. I appreciate the chance to be closely involved in the project SAVE4Chilren, through which I experienced a process of conducting educational research in the LDT field, including research design, implementation, data collection, data analysis, writing manuscripts, and making revisions for publications. I enjoyed this academic learning experience as well as the collaboration with other researchers. What I experienced and learned in this project is what I expected for my academic training. Meanwhile, I appreciate the chance to explore my research ideas in this project. Many thanks to the project PI also as my advisor, Dr. Choi, for his support and guidance. Lastly, my experience as a doctoral student in another country put many great while different insights into my mid-twenties’ thinking about myself and the world. I have been consciously and unconsciously influenced by many amazing people since I came here. I genuinely appreciate all of them and am very glad to feel my growth.
There are also some areas I find myself were not doing well and aim to improve in the following years. My communication skills are needed to be improved, including my verbal and written communication. Meanwhile, I found myself not patient enough for my study and research. I am determined to practice my patience during my doctoral study years. In addition, I would like to be more active in asking for other’s supports and feedbacks, rather than isolating myself in a work or passively waiting for assistance.