Once, when I was a reporter, someone asked what I was doing, and I answered, “Finding things out and writing them down.”

Ultimately, the same could be said of research and maybe that’s one of the reasons it appeals.

I understand that journalism and scholarly research are different in very important ways. But at a certain level of abstraction, they look a lot alike. Both concern themselves with knowledge and truth, with what we know and how we know it. Both pose questions, both animate conversation, both exist in a public space. I have appreciated the opportunity to re-engage some of journalism’s ethical and epistemological debates from another angle, to reconsider the questions that sustain my interest in early childhood education, and to re-assess the tools I have for answering them.

This portfolio documents my evolving understanding of research as it has developed in Applied Inquiry I. Included are an overview of my research interests, an exploration of what constitutes “good” educational research, a literature review, and a reflexive blog.