Rebecca Quintana featured in AERA newsletter as an emerging scholar

An SOE lecturer and U-M learning experience designer, she was recognized as an emerging scholar, as selected by the AERA Online Teaching and Learning SIG committee.  

According to chair Ana-Paula Correia, the SIG Online Teaching and Learning April Newsletter honors and connects with members and advocates in this challenging time: “As online teaching and learning takes center stage during the COVID-19 pandemic, Online Teaching and Learning SIG members have been creating and sharing resources to support efforts on transitioning face to face teaching and learning to virtual, remote and online formats.”

The newsletter shares that Quintana’s research focuses on the design of online learning environments and use of educational technologies to support learning at scale. Quintana investigates how design representations and practices can support design teams, the processes and resources that are needed to support hybrid and blended instances of online courses, and methods that allow learners to take on a more consequential role in course design and iteration. 

Her doctoral research centered on the role of visual representations in collaborative knowledge construction, specifically within a rich simulation environment in middle school science classrooms. In higher education settings, Quintana has extended this work through the study of how technology-mediated role-based simulations can support multifaceted activity that involves focused discussion and communication among participants adopting different roles as they use and exchange multiple resources and information to explore sociopolitical issues within an experiential learning context.