Running head: PROFESSIONAL UPDATE 1

AND REFLECTION ESSAY

Professional Update and Reflection Essay

Portfolio 2, Section 2

December 5, 2019

Tareque Mehdi

George Mason University

 PROFESSIONAL UPDATE AND 2
REFLECTION ESSAY

Progress since Portfolio 1

I have come from a country where there is an ‘overpowering examination system’ which

has a lot of influence on evaluating or assessing students. Therefore, the concept of ‘portfolio’

had been overwhelming to me that I did not have to sit for an examination to go to the next phase

in my doctoral program. However, Portfolio 1 had been an eye-opening event for me that it was

a vehicle for my self-reflection and a comprehensive account of my experiences in teaching,

research, and services. I realized how difficult it is to think and write about my ways of knowing,

my researcher self and at some point, this autoethnography is more difficult than paper-based

examination. Portfolio 1 is the first time I tried to define my academic and professional goals; I

tried to formulate a plan to translate my goals into reality through coursework, research

experiences, and field-based activities.

Getting the opportunity to study in the United States has been exciting for me. However,

despite this positive feeling, I also experienced several challenges initially given the English

language barrier, lack of academic writing capacity as well as cultural, and academic issues. I

found myself not reaching out to professors for my needs. It always took more time for me to

translate my ideas and when I had something to share in the class, by the time I am ready the

discussion is finished already, and the class moved to the next topic. This created immense stress

on my personal and academic life which resulted in my exclusion from participating in the class

discussions. I moved on with the help of some great professors in the program who helped me to

identify the most useful on-campus resources in overcoming the challenges I faced. In my

Portfolio 1 presentation, I had the demonstration of my readiness to proceed to the next phase of

the doctoral program by presenting my current understanding of my research area of interest. So,

based on that I received three main recommendations from my committee members. Firstly, to
 PROFESSIONAL UPDATE AND 3
REFLECTION ESSAY

work on my APA referencing and develop writing skills further. Secondly, the committee

recommended me to continue to narrow down my focus in my research area of interest as I

expand my knowledge through research and thirdly, to think about how these areas of research

are informing my work. I have tried to touch base each recommendation from the committee

later and concentrated in those studies and experiences that would help me to achieve those

competencies in academic, research and professional goals before portfolio 2.

Academic, research, and professional goals evolved since portfolio 1

As my academic advisory committee suggested (Feedback Form Attached), I have

continued to expand my literature sources through different courses. After Portfolio 1

presentation, I have taken three courses in Spring 2019 semester; they are: EDUC 803- Teacher

Preparation and Professional Development, EDUC 878- Intercultural Competence: Theory and

Research in International Education, and EDUC 879- Language and Second Language

Acquisition Research in International Education and I have taken three courses in Fall 2019

semester; they are: EDRS 824- Mixed Method Research, EDUC 851- Research on Teacher

Education, and EDUC 897- Independent Study on Technology in Teacher Development. These

courses have been a great learning experience that informed my research interest and helped me

to narrow down my focus to teacher education and intercultural understanding of teachers to

address the diversity in the classrooms and help children develop the ability to live and work

productively and harmoniously with people who have different values, backgrounds and beliefs.

Reading literature was a challenge for me, but Since Portfolio 1, I have pushed myself to

guide me from faculty and published sources, in how to analyze and synthesize research

literature. Now I feel, I am more aware of organizing my literature to go toward my dissertation

phase and I cite comparatively more critical and cognizant articles (i.e., peer-reviewed journals
 PROFESSIONAL UPDATE AND 4
REFLECTION ESSAY

and authentic sources). I have continued to participate in proposal writings which helped me to

learn what information to include and how to write proposals clearly and succinctly. I have also

continued to participate in campus skills development seminars to keep up to date with modern

technological aspects which are bringing change in the education arena as well. I could make

practical and effective use of my leadership education from the LEAD office at Mason when I

started and took the lead of a registered student organization named Bangladeshi Graduate

Students Association. I also see this incident being honoring when the Provost Office at Mason

invited me to talk at the farewell of our former president Dr. Angel Cabrera. I am currently

serving in the President’s Students Advisory Committee and I am giving my voice as the

representative of students. I am also going to join the Journal of Mason Graduate Research

because I faced challenges initially and then got keen interest in research, writing and academic

journals. I will volunteer my vocation in the journal as well as hope to learn about research

papers and academic journals in depth. Since Portfolio 1, I see a transformation in my life and

practices which I wanted so much.

I participated in on-campus write-in days to develop my writing skills. Moreover, I

wanted to check how is it working. So, I collaborated with Dr. Divya Varier and Dr. Lisa

Abrams from Virginia City University to take our previous research which we presented in the

AERA 2018 to the next step and recently we have submitted our manuscript to Journal: Studies

in Educational Evaluation in Elsevier. This research has been my hands-on experience in

academic writing and data analysis. In our ‘Quality of Online Learning’ paper with Dr. Dawn

Hathaway, I co-coded data from student’s portfolios from the LTDR course, co-analyzed the

data, and organized data in Atlas.ti for analyzing and findings. In Summer 2019, I got the

opportunity to work and learn from Dr. Nancy Holincheck and Dr. Debra Sprague through the
 PROFESSIONAL UPDATE AND 5
REFLECTION ESSAY

STEM+C project. This has been a whole new experience as I briefly played the role of an

Instructional Designer for the project. As part of my deliverables, I worked closely with Dr.

Holincheck and designed an interactive online learning module on Blackboard application to

help prepare secondary school Physical Education (PE) teachers to work with students on a

Physical STEM and Computation thinking (STEM+C) challenges to design and create an

obstacle course within a physical education space, that incorporates elements of a Rube-

Goldberg machine. For this, I had to learn the foundational models of instructional design to

storyboarding and screen casting, build a solid foundation for the eLearning platform. I have

earned certification on these which I feel is a great addition to my curriculum vitae. Also, as part

of my independent study this semester, I have got the opportunity to co-teach the EDUC 504:

Introduction to Education Technology course with Dr. Thomas Opfer and Dr. Debra Sprague.

One of my recent news is, in September 2019, Dr. Divya Varier and I presented our paper

at the 45th International Association for Educational Assessment Annual Conference (IAEA)

2019 in Baku, Azerbaijan. The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Assessment and Decision-

Making: Individual and Institutional Solutions’. This research work and presentation have been a

great learning experience as well as exposure for me because I was involved with this study from

the planning phase. I remember collaborating with Dr. Varier in developing our ‘conceptual

framework’ where we examined, assessed and connected published research in our topic

(Maxwell, 2006). We used the software Zotero to create a review of the literature and then we

coded the published policy documents on Atlas.ti that helped us to outline our argument on how

we can leverage the role of classroom assessment and teachers’ assessment practices to meet the

learner-centered education in India (Maxwell, 2005, pp. 128-136). I feel, writing memos, coding

documents and back to back discussions with professors created a scope to develop my academic
 PROFESSIONAL UPDATE AND 6
REFLECTION ESSAY

writing skills too. Moreover, presenting on an international platform like IAEA provided me

with the opportunity to share our understandings of our research process and findings and

network with stakeholders and experts like Charles Seclosky in the assessment area. I have made

many networking contacts in my field, valued the importance of being involved within the

professional organizations related to my research interests, and gained an awareness of what it is

like to be in the role as a mentor, instructor, manuscript reviewer, volunteer, and contributor to

conferences.

Relationship between my areas of interest and professional community

As I progressed through the program, I have kept regular contact with my advisor to

review and assess my goals, plans, understandings, and accomplishments, and discussed possible

modifications and additional work needed to facilitate continued progress in the doctoral

program. I have continued to be actively involved in my professional community through

different campus meet-ups, conferences, and volunteering to different on-campus events. I have

taken six courses since my Portfolio 1 in Spring and Fall sessions 2019, all of which have

influenced my thinking and work toward becoming a scholarly and informed researcher. EDUC

878, EDUC 879 informed me of the many understandings of intercultural competence and

language and cultural diversity and ways in which is it measured and assessed. The activities in

this course also made me more aware of my intercultural competence and how I might

incorporate this concept into teacher education and their continuous professional development.

The EDUC 803 and EDUC 878 have been complementing each other and I feel it was a good

suggestion from my committee to take these courses together. In addition to my research

knowledge, EDRS 811 and EDRS 812, I felt like I still lack the skills of analyzing data and

interpret data. I still feel, if I get the opportunity, I will take some advanced research courses to
 PROFESSIONAL UPDATE AND 7
REFLECTION ESSAY

overcome those lacking. The EDRS 824- Mixed Method Research course which I am taking this

semester, informed me about a different research paradigm where researcher mixes both

qualitative and quantitative research approaches within a single study. All these courses have

contributed to my growth as a scholarly researcher, narrow down my research interest to explore

teachers’ intercultural understanding and how does it get manifested into their practice. Due to

the globalization and developments happening around the world, it has become an urgent need

for us to understand cultures other than our own and it is necessary not only for our enrichment

and good citizenship but for our very survival as a nation, as said by the former president of the

University of Michigan, James Duderstadt (Deardorff, 2009). In this case, our educational

institutions will play a central role to prepare our younger generation for the more connected

world where they are bound to interact in different intercultural situations. And if we cannot

prepare our younger generation for this cosmopolitan world then perhaps it is going to be the

fundamental challenge faced by our educational institution as stated by Peter Scott, the editor of

the Times Higher Education Supplement (Deardorff, 2009). Going back to the archive of my

literature review from the courses I have taken, I felt our educators are still far from

understanding how to develop intercultural competence and how to practice it in the classroom.

Many of their questions are yet unanswered. These thoughts are the fundamental questions that

informed my research interest and allowed me to think about this issue in a different context such

as how it looks like in developing countries. When I look at the literature, I see works of

Deardorff, Goode, Mahon, Bennett, Hofstede, Kim, Zhao, Zeichner, Williams, Sleeter, Sercu,

Paige, Maxwell and several others match with my research interest and influence my thinking a

lot.
 PROFESSIONAL UPDATE AND 8
REFLECTION ESSAY

It is difficult for me to think about my intellectual goals, but I think I would like to

further my knowledge of research methods and data interpretations. I always feel good to go

back to my content and literature archive and see what I have done in courses to learn from my

previous assignments and feedbacks. I have been a broad thinker in the very beginning, and it

was quite challenging for me to narrow down my interest. There is a rich conceptual and

theoretical landscape of the topic of my research interest so I have to delve into more literature to

have a strong backup of my research interest and as professional goals, my activity would be to

continue to attend conferences and academic presentations, continue to write articles and think

about my dissertation topic. In the meantime, I would seek out opportunities for co-teaching

experience.