Vanderbilt Peabody Learning & Design Master’s Program

This week's alumni spotlight is Caroline Golson '17!

Drawing maps of Peabody from memory in Inquiry into Contexts! How accurate were we?

Learning & Design is a unique program due to its ability to be useful for a variety of people. Students from a variety of backgrounds learn from one another and pursue the career of their dreams!

Graduation day! We are so proud to be the newest Vanderbilt alumni! Congratulations to everyone who graduated today!🥳

Through L&D, Shira has had the opportunity to take classes related to her interest in mathematics education. Read about her favorite elective here!

A huge congratulations is in order for the 2021-2022 L&D Cohort for presenting their Capstones this morning! 🥳 We are so proud of everyone’s hard work to get to this point, and can’t wait to finish out our last weeks of graduate school!

Alumni Highlight: Regina Yorkgitis (M.Ed. '20)

Since graduating from the Learning and Design program in 2020, I've been teaching at a public charter school in Center City, Philadelphia that focuses on expeditionary learning. When I'm not teaching, I work as a Site Lead for Girls Who Code's Summer Immersion Program and lead high school trips, most recently to Kona, Hawaii for 2 months in 2021.

The choice to enroll in Learning and Design was a great one! Conversations I shared with my professors and my cohort often pop into my head as I make decisions as a STEM educator. Through L&D I learned that creating a meaningful design begins by deeply understanding a context. Through my courses, I learned techniques to be a better listener and observer, and therefore a better and more conscientious, and successful designer of lessons and experiences for my students.

Here are my two cents for future and current L&D students: 1) Create a toolkit document that you can refer to after graduation. Anytime I had an aha! moment during a class discussion (and there were MANY), I jotted it down in a notebook or a Google Doc. I go back to the document when I need some inspiration in my professional life. 2) Go to Kay Bob's and try the various dipping sauces on your study break. The mango sauce is definitively the most delicious condiment in the entire world.

When deciding on a graduate program, Yiran was looking for a program that would allow her to study education in a broad sense. She found that in L&D.

Prospective students: Reach out with any questions you have about elective opportunities at Peabody through Learning and Design!

The opportunity to engage in partnership design work is one of the foundations of Learning and Design. Read more about Stephanie's experience here!

We were so grateful for the opportunity to meet with admitted students during our L&D admitted student webinar today. We can’t wait to welcome you to campus in the coming months!!

Admitted students, feel free to say hello👋🏼 in the comments to begin connecting with one another!

Stacey has loved living in Nashville while completing the L&D program, and she has particularly enjoyed getting to know Nashville's green spaces! Read more about some of her favorites here:

When deciding on a graduate school program, Jackie found a lot to love about Vanderbilt and L&D. Read here to hear about why she chose to enroll in L&D!

For our final semester of L&D, we are going to be learning more about current L&D students through student spotlights!

Since moving to Nashville, Pete has enjoyed exploring many different places in the city. Read about some of his favorite places:

This semester, L&D students had the opportunity to learn more about the design process through working with a community partner to identify a problem of practice and create a deliverable. We could not have done this without the generosity of our partners - we are so thankful for them! Please check out these pictures to learn more about our partnerships!

We are so proud of our Learning and Design alumna, Tiffany Jackson (M.Ed. ‘19), for being featured in TIME Magazine’s recent article, “From Teachers to Custodians, Meet the Educators Who Saved A Pandemic School Year.”

Please follow this link to read Tiffany’s story and learn about the other educators featured by TIME: https://time.com/6094017/educators-covid-19-school-year/

We had an exciting week in Learning and Design!

On Thursday, in our EDUC 6080 class, we had the chance to visit Dr. Noel Enyedy's lab to learn about embodied cognition and implications for design in the classroom.

Today, L&D students had the opportunity to pitch ideas for their Capstone projects to faculty. Pitching and receiving feedback is an essential step in our process.

Humans of Learning and Design, 2021 – 2022 Cohort

Jamie Francis

I graduated from Westminster College in May 2021, with my degree in Elementary Education and my minor in special education and teaching English as a second language. While at Westminster, I was a part of the division two women’s lacrosse team for all four years and the National Abilities Center, a peer skiing program out of Park City, Utah.

Vanderbilt has always been set for my plans because my Dad attended here for graduate school. I chose the Learning and Design Program because it included learning about informal learning, which would expand my knowledge on how to be strategic in the classroom and include multiple, diverse techniques for teaching students. I strongly believe in the foundation of informal learning and understanding the theories behind it.

For my Capstone, I am interested in exploring energy and movement in the elementary classroom. I believe that students’ energy can be used as a resource in the classroom as an asset to learning and not a distraction. I am interested in this because, growing up, the lessons that I enjoyed and learned the most from included some kind of movement and the use of my energy.

In my free time, I enjoy hiking with my labradoodle, Bleu, camping in the Uinta Mountains, exploring new restaurants and cafes throughout Nashville, coaching my middle school girl’s lacrosse team, and skiing in my hometown of Park City, Utah. So far, my favorite part about moving to Nashville has been cultivating relationships with new people!

Now it's easier to send Vanderbilt Peabody Learning & Design Master’s Program a message.

This morning, in our EDUC 6080 class, we had the unique opportunity to spend class time at JTM Middle School. While at the school, we learned about the Middle Years Program of the International Baccalaureate and observed examples of ambitious teaching and learning. We were so thankful for the opportunity to go into the field to apply what we are learning in class!

Thinking about applying to L&D? Read about Basak's L&D experience to see if the L&D program can benefit you in the same way it benefitted Basak!

Hello! My name’s Basak and I graduated from Learning and Design M.Ed. in May 21’. During L&D, my desire to further continue studying and researching about learning was strengthened, so I applied for the Learning, teaching and Diversity Ph.D. program at the Teaching and Learning Department and was offered a spot! Currently I am in my first year of my Ph.D., my advisor is Dr. Emily Phillips Galloway and my specialization is Language Literacy and Culture. I am working as a Research Assistant on the TRANSLATE project that helps emergent bilinguals use their home language in the classroom through a new curriculum and also conducting research as I prepare for my first-year project. Working with emergent bilinguals, their teachers and their community is what I am really passionate about! I am also really interested in learning outside school and trying to find ways to include my passion for food anthropology into anywhere possible in the things that I do.

I think the classes I took during L&D have really impacted my understanding of several concepts, theories and they helped me shape my ideas for what I really want to research. Culturally Responsive Pedagogy was an amazing class that helped me build a solid foundation for understanding what it means to look at educational settings through a culturally responsive lens. I had just done a book review and a paper on Dr. Milner’s class in the summer term so I was really excited to get a spot in his class. CRP helped me look at concepts such as culture and diversity at a more personal and critical level. Designing and Studying Environments for Informal Learning was also really influential in my understanding of what educational settings are outside the school and how their design is either facilitating learning or hindering it through poor design choices. Dr. Hall is a phenomenal mentor if you are interested learn about learning outside of school contexts. I also loved Language Education and Diversity that I took in the Spring, it was everything I was interested in and more! Dr. Goodwin provided a very wide range of multimodal resources for that class and I left with knowing so much more! Improv class with Dr. Leander was another hit that led me into adding improv activities in my research in elementary emergent bilingual classrooms. I would wholeheartedly recommend all these classes!

One thing that I learned during L&D and I carry with me during my Ph.D. is that you can elevate your learning in one class through what you learn in another class. All the classes I took helped me with one or the another’s assignments and they deepened my interest and understanding. As for anyone who might be interested in doing a master’s at Learning and Design, it is the best program there is if your interests are varied and if you have an appetite for formal and informal learning settings. L&D allows you to tailor the program to your interests while it builds a solid foundation to expand on either in research or in professional practice.

As an international graduate student with two kids, I would like to encourage anyone interested in L&D to go for it because you will be supported at many fronts and the graduate and professional student community at Peabody is really pretty amazing.

Getting ready to apply to L&D? Learn what L&D Alumni Meghan Rector has been up to since she graduated L&D in 2020 to see if L&D can benefit you in the same way it benefitted Meghan:

"Since leaving Nashville and the L&D program, I now exist in two worlds. I'm now the math teacher for a lab middle school attached to Western Carolina University in North Carolina, and just received an opportunity to teach at the university this Fall semester. I came into my masters thinking I wanted to eventually teach at the university level. Thanks to an employment opportunity to collaborate, and teach, in an elementary education class and then supervising student teachers, I developed more confidence than I could have imagined to start in August at the college level. L&D provided me with experiences that taught me the power of community partnerships and a refreshed look about how, and why, design and learning theory need to coexist. My advice to future, or current, L & D members is to use the resources provided for you, remain open minded, and push yourself to use what you've learned to better the lives of students, and fellow educators."

Humans of Learning and Design, 2021 – 2022 Cohort

Stacey Gall

I graduated from Purdue University in May 2020, where I majored in Brain & Behavioral Sciences. I was involved as a volunteer for Purdue's new student orientation program, got to study abroad in New Zealand, and spent A LOT of time going to basketball games. I obviously had a lot of fun while I was there, but my most influential academic experience was my involvement in undergraduate research. I worked as a research assistant in Purdue's Cognition and Learning Lab, where I got to complete a senior honors thesis on how educational videos, like those from Khan Academy, impact students' metacognitive judgements about their own learning.

During my time working as part of the lab, I saw that the effective learning strategies we studied were not being utilized within the broader educational landscape. This discrepancy between research and practice inspired me to apply to the L&D program and similar programs across the country. I ultimately chose L&D because this program gives me the freedom to explore my own varied interests while still providing me with the tools necessary to continue designing for contexts as I continue onto a career path.

One factor that sealed the deal for me to choose Vanderbilt was the location. For starters, I love being on campus. There are so many trees and green spaces that I sometimes forget that I'm in the middle of the city! Centennial Park is my favorite place in Nashville (so far), and I've found that it is much easier to get class readings done when I'm sitting under a tree at the park. I am excited to keep trying new restaurants around the city and can't wait to experience more of what Nashville has to offer.

Learning and Design 2021-2022 Cohort

We are so grateful for the opportunity to be in-person studying together, and we look forward to what the semester will bring!

In our Designing for Contexts class, we have all been paired with a community partner. In the coming week, we will begin to work with these partners to identify a problem of practice. Throughout the semester, we will engage with our partners and apply what we have learned to design a potential solution to the problem. In our Learning and Instruction class, we have been discussing theories of learning and the implications that they have on equitable design of learning environments.

Humans of Learning and Design, 2021 – 2022 Cohort

Anna Gruchot

I graduated from The University of Alabama in May 2021 with my degree in education. I was a part of the Multiple Abilities Program, so I had the unique opportunity to be certified in elementary education, early childhood education, and special education as well as receive gifted and talented training all during my two-year teacher education program.

Vanderbilt has always been a dream for me - from the prestige that comes with studying alongside world-renowned educators, to being located in the heart of Nashville, everything about Vanderbilt impressed me the first time I stepped on campus. I knew that there was no place else that I would want to pursue my master’s degree. Learning and Design stood out to me for a few reasons. I know that I want to be a classroom teacher and intend to apply for classroom teaching jobs next year. However, I wanted to take a year, after doing a full year of student teaching, to continue developing both personally and professionally. L&D has the structure to ensure that I am learning what will be relevant and useful in my future classroom, while also offering me the freedom to deeply engage with topics that are interesting to me in a way that I may not have been able to in another program.

Coming straight out of student teaching, I have a lot of interests in many different areas, and I have a strong desire to soak-up all that I can before entering the classroom next year. In L&D, I intend to center my coursework, and likely my Capstone, around literacy development and teaching young students to read. I am really interested in developing a repertoire of skills and instructional practices that will positively influence my own literacy instruction for a classroom of students with diverse language needs.

Outside of class, I enjoy staying active through my workout classes, reading a good historical fiction book, and spending time with my family and friends. On Saturdays in the Fall, you will find me either at an Alabama football game or glued to a TV all day watching college football. I have visited Nashville plenty of times over the years, and each time I came back I knew that Nashville fit into my future plans in some capacity. Like so many other young adults who flock to the city, I just find so much to love about it. I enjoy the music scene, overall atmosphere, and the excitement that comes along with living here. I hope to explore more of the best food that Nashville has to offer and get out to some the outdoor spaces - something I miss having so much access to when growing up in New Hampshire.

Humans of Learning and Design, 2021 – 2022 Cohort

Grayson Shelor

I graduated from the University of Richmond in 2014 with a degree in English literature. While at Richmond I worked as a writing tutor, studied abroad, and also developed a keen interest in public health.

After college, I spent two years engaged in national service through AmeriCorps, first on a mobile NCCC team assigned to projects up and down the Atlantic coast between Maryland and Maine, and later with the nonprofit organization, Wyoming Food for Thought Project. I continued to sharpen my focus on local food systems and their effects on food security and health through a fellowship with Allegheny Mountain Institute (AMI) in Virginia. During my Fellowship with AMI and in my following years on staff there I was privileged to help launch an organic vegetable farm on a hospital campus, facilitate a prescription produce intervention for community members with chronic disease, and design a farm-to-school program for 6th-8th graders. I also spent a semester co-teaching a Middle School class on ecology, agriculture, and nutrition and leading students in a schoolyard garden.

When I set out to continue my education, I found that there is truly no other program like L&D! I was searching for a way to unite the many subjects I'm passionate about--outdoor education, nutrition, health, communities, service learning and students' emotional development--while also deepening my exploration of how we humans learn. L&D provides that balance of structure and freedom, while also offering the means to focus on learning beyond classroom walls. A major factor for me in choosing L&D was the supportive cohort model. I've already learned so much from classmates, and truly enjoyed our group collaborations! I also appreciate the program’s focus on immersion within a broader community.

I'm very interested in place and community-based learning, and I love working with Middle and High School students because they are in the process of taking ownership over their communities. I'm intrigued by studying the parallels between how students learn about the world outdoors through the lens of ecology, and how that learning bridges (or could be redesigned to bridge) the gap to civic involvement. Outside of class, I love travel and hiking. I can be found singing in the car, exploring thrift stores, and geeking out over crossword puzzles. I always have a teacup, a novel, and plenty of snacks with me.

Today, we kicked off the Fall semester of Learning and Design with orientation at The Wond'ry! We had a great time getting to learn more about the space and how we can use it to explore our interests, ideas, and talents during our time on campus. After completing our summer coursework online, getting to know and play with one another in person was long anticipated! We are looking forward to the start of classes tomorrow and the official beginning of the 2021 - 2022 school year!

Humans of Learning and Design, 2021-2022 Cohort

Emily Van Dam

I graduated from University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in Elementary Education in May 2017. While at UW-Madison, I completed a teacher education program in Early Childhood and English Second Language Education. Throughout the program, I worked in a variety of classrooms in Madison Metropolitan School District. During my final semester, I student taught in a 2nd grade classroom.

Before coming to Peabody, I lived in Chicago and taught 1st grade for three years. I love working in the early elementary grades because the students learn and grow so much throughout the year. During the summers, I taught a variety of STEM courses through Northwestern University's Center for Talent Development. These experiences led me to develop an interest in STEM education in early elementary grades. I really enjoyed creating the projects and lessons for these summer courses.

While teaching, I continued to develop an interest in curriculum development and design. I knew of the excellence of Peabody and was drawn to the L&D program specifically because of its focus on how people learn both in and out of schools along with how to design curriculum and environments to best support this learning. I was also excited by the many opportunities to get to know and work within the Nashville community.

My focus prior to the program has been primarily in formal learning environments, so I'm excited to learn more about how students (specifically thinking about elementary students) learn in out-of-school learning environments as well. I am curious about how to bridge the gap between these formal and informal learning experiences. I am specifically interested in exploring this in relation to elementary STEM education.

I am brand new to Nashville, so I'm very excited to explore the city. I love trying new restaurants and exploring the different parks around the city. I also am a big music fan, so I'm looking forward to taking advantage of living in Music City and hopefully attend some concerts while I'm here. I'm also just excited to be in person this Fall and spend time getting to know everyone at Peabody!

Humans of Learning and Design, 2021 - 2022 Cohort

Bonnie Mills

I graduated from Auburn University in 2010 with a degree in Secondary Education Social Sciences. My first teaching position was at Currey Ingram Academy in Brentwood, TN where I taught 6th grade. Every student was on an IEP and I learned a lot about special education and students with learning differences. After that I taught 12th grade Government and Politics at my alma mater, Franklin High School, in Franklin, TN. My passion for civics education and teaching and working with young people really grew during this time and set me up well for my work with Generation Citizen the past 5 years writing and delivering professional development for middle and high school teachers on Action Civics, PBL, democratic classrooms, and cultural
responsiveness.

My work coaching and partnering with teachers inspired me to come to Peabody and continue developing my skills and understanding of adult learning. Learning and Design felt like the perfect place to do this - learning about how people learn and how we can create the environments most conducive for learning. I'm excited about being able to better support teachers and other adults in their continued learning and development in their professions. I'm just so pumped to be learning alongside people who share similar passions - both professors and students! I'm excited about learning things I never even considered before the program.

I grew up here in Nashville and in addition to loving that so many of my friends, family, and memories reside here, I also love that Nashville keeps surprising me - there's always a new restaurant to try, a band I've not heard of, a park I've not explored! I read a lot in my spare time - mostly fiction, but I love all genres. I recently finished The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai and I strongly recommend it! I am a total podcast j***y - again all genres though I've been listening a lot lately to We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle. I also really enjoy cooking - trying new and/or making old recipes for my family and friends. I adore a good cheese plate. My favorite place to be is on a hike in a national park. My husband and I have a curious, chatty, hilarious one-year old daughter, Anne, who adds joy, light, and pure magic to our family. We also have a 12-year-old rescue pup, Grace, who we adore.

Humans of Learning and Design, 2021 – 2022 Cohort

Kevin Hoffman

I've worked with public charter schools in California for nine years. I've taught middle and high school mathematics; served as a math curriculum director; and supported instructional technology for a 40-school organization during that time!

I'm really excited in instructional leadership at both a school and district level, and I specifically want to be able to approach that work leading with deep expertise in learning theory. I was also an engineering major in college, so the L&D framework - taking theory and thinking about how to apply it in the design of a learning environment - feels really exciting to me!

I really enjoy cooking, baking, running, and hiking! I also really enjoy playing and watching soccer, so I'm hoping to find some places in Nashville to do that. I am so excited to explore the food scene and some of the open space around the city! And I've been really pleased that reading "I'll Take You There" for class has added some sites of social justice significance to my Nashville itinerary.

Humans of Learning and Design, 2021 – 2022 Cohort

Danielle Cadet

I attended Bryn Mawr College where I majored in Sociology. A Posse Scholar, I was very active in student advocacy projects. I had a brief 2-year stint in law as a capital habeas paralegal before realizing my passion for instructional design and program development.

Peabody has such a strong collection of faculty members who have been nothing short of welcoming even before I matriculated. The L&D program is very rigorous. It is the perfect space for me to nuance my pedagogy beyond its academic stakes and examine specific theories within the learning sciences. The most exciting aspect of the program is also the most terrifying to me: the capstone project. I have too many ideas that I am excited to pursue, but I am looking forward to narrowing my focus in the Capstone Seminars. What is comforting about the process is the fact that the Peabody community has a wealth of resources to support all of my academic interests.

I am interested in the social interactions and psychological processes that shapes learning experiences. I know my capstone will not be specific to learner development within a particular subject. Rather, it will be an exploration in how learning experiences, environment design, or professional development are shaped by complex interactions between social and psychological factors. Specific factors and contexts: TBD!

I enjoy baking. (My goal is to attempt one new recipe a month.) Otherwise, you can find me on my patio, chipping away at all the books I've bought but never got around to reading. I've never lived in this region before, so I am excited to explore all the things that I cannot find in the northeast. Right now, Central BBQ has my heart with their smoked wings. My next stop is the zoo and a few museums in the area.