Transforming Identities

How an EdD Program Develops Practitioners into Scholar-Practitioners

Stephen J. Pape, Camille L. Bryant, Ranjini Mahinda JohnBull, Karen S. Karp, Jill Alexa Perry, Stephen J. Pape, Camille L. Bryant, Ranjini Mahinda JohnBull, Karen S. Karp, Camilla L. Bryant

• Publisher: Myers Education Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781975505394
• eBook ISBN: 9781975505417
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

2024 SPE Outstanding Book Award Honorable Mention

Transforming Identities is the story of one doctoral program that was developed to transform the individuals who participated in the program personally and professionally, leading to improved ways of working within their professional practice. The book details the components of the program believed to have contributed to students' transformed personal and professional identities. The description of the program serves as a frame for 14 individual, compelling stories of transformation. These stories include identities experienced during the program, programmatic components that were mechanisms for change, and the impact of these alums' transformation on their professional organizations. In the final chapter, the editors look across the alums' stories of transformation to inform those who are developing/redeveloping doctor of education programs. Mechanisms of change highlighted by these former students include courses, communities of practice, advisers, and comprehensive examination. The book also synthesizes alums' descriptions of the phases of their transformation, what it means to be a scholar-practitioner, and what meaningful contributions "look like" within their professional contexts.

The Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Doctor of Education (EdD) program was created with the expressed programmatic outcome of developing leaders who possess the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to rigorously examine educational problems of practice with stakeholders within their context of professional practice. Transforming Identities frames this discussion of identity transformation from an improvement science perspective as depicted by Bryk et al. (2015) (see also Author et al., 2022). Using this framework for the Applied Dissertation, the program supported its scholar-practitioners to partner with their colleagues in educational institutions and to independently take on the challenges and opportunities they encountered in their work within their context of professional practice. The initial chapters in the book provide an overview of the EdD program, to frame the remaining chapters in which graduates from the program describe their inspirational stories of transformation. They describe the ways in which the program components, including their dissertation, transformed their identity as well as their work within their context of professional practice. These stories present the ways in which these change agents within their organizations have served as insiders who, with greater knowledge and access to knowledge, were able to become the bridge between research and practice, and practice and research and thereby change their organizations from the inside. These stories of transformation highlight how their skills and insights accurately identify the variability in the contexts in which their problem of practice is situated, the variability in the successes of interventions within similar contexts, and the most appropriate way to move the organization forward toward improved outcomes. Each chapter tells the author's story of transformation from practitioner to scholar-practitioner through the dissertation study and beyond.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Chapter 1 The JHU EdD Program: Designed to Transform Local Contexts Through Shifting Student Identities
• Chapter 2 From Doctoral Students to Scholar-Practitioners: Mechanisms for Identity Transformation
• Chapter 3 The Role of Research Methods Courses in Transforming the Identities of Scholar-Practitioners
• Chapter 4 Trees and Transformation: From Seed to Forest
• Chapter 5 My Doctoral Journey: See Them With Your Heart
• Chapter 6 Understanding Myself to Try to Better Understand You
• Chapter 7 An Opportunity of Practice
• Chapter 8 An Unexpected Transformation Journey
• Chapter 9 Discovery and Reflections of a Multilingual Learner and Scholar-Practitioner
• Chapter 10 The Courage to Change
• Chapter 11 Helping People Learn to Think Differently
• Chapter 12 Transforming My Identities: From Hustler to Scholar-Practitioner
• Chapter 13 Changing My Stripes
• Chapter 14 From Instructional Coach to Instructional Leader: Identity Transformation in an EdD Program
• Chapter 15 Design Thinking: An Essential Framework for Complex Problems of Practice in Education
• Chapter 16 Leadership for Educational Justice—Awake, Align, Arise, and Act
• Chapter 17 Winter Always Turns to Spring
• Chapter 18 Lessons Learned from Scholar-Practitioners and Suggestions for the Field
• Editor and Author Biographies
• Index