Jeff Carpenter
Associate Professor of Education and Director of Teaching Fellows Program | Elon University
Elon, NC, UNITED STATES
Jeff Carpenter is an educator who researches, theorizes, and teaches about new and innovative modes of student and teacher learning.
Biography
I am a teacher educator who researches, theorizes, and teaches about new and innovative modes of student and teacher learning. In particular, I am interested in ways by which collaboration, technology, and collaborative technologies facilitate the teaching and learning process. Currently, I am researching the Edcamp model of professional learning and how social media can enhance student learning and teacher professional development.
Having myself spent time as a student and K-12 teacher outside of the United States, I approach education, teaching, and learning from a global perspective. I primarily teach courses to students in our Secondary, K-12, and Middle Grades Teacher Education Programs. I also teach outside the School of Education in Winter Term study abroad and Global Studies courses.
I am a native of Seattle, Washington, and the child of educators. I taught English and ESOL in public and private schools in Japan, Honduras, Boston, Virginia and North Carolina for 10 years. I also worked with high school dropouts and taught in the Secondary Teacher Education Program at the University of Virginia before coming to Elon. Outside of the U.S., I have lived in England, Ecuador, Japan, and Honduras, and traveled to 40 countries on six different continents.
Areas of Expertise (5)
Sociology
Technology
Teacher Learning
Collaboration
Social Media
Media
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Videos:
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Accomplishments (2)
Best Research Paper Award
Teacher Education Network, Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, Best Research Paper Award, International Society for Technology in Education, 2017
School of Education Scholarship Award
2013 and 2017
Education (3)
University of Virginia: Ph.D., Curriculum and Instruction 2009
Harvard University: Ed.M., Teaching and Curriculum, Specialization in English 2001
Rice University: B.A., English and Sociology 1997
Magna Cum Laude
Links (4)
Media Appearances (6)
‘Elon University Faculty: Passionately Curious’ celebrates faculty scholarship
Elon University online
2018-11-14
The 2018 edition of the President’s Report highlights the accomplishments of the university’s outstanding educators. These intellectual leaders exemplify the kind of drive and commitment that makes Elon such a distinctive academic community.
Morrison and Carpenter publish articles
Elon University online
2018-10-30
Scott Morrison, assistant professor of education, and Jeffrey Carpenter, associate professor of education and director of the Teaching Fellows program, recently authored several research and practitioner-focused articles.
Elon faculty showcase research during Planning Week
Elon University online
2018-08-23
Planning Week marks the start of the academic year and provides an opportunity for faculty receiving funding from the Faculty Research and Development Committee to present their work.
‘There’s no algorithm for teaching’
The Burlington Times-News online
2016-09-15
The article highlights a "Teaching for the 21st Century Classroom" course taught by Jeff Carpenter through which Elon students observe teachers at a Burlington high school.
Jeffrey Carpenter authors article on digital backchanneling
Elon University online
2015-05-01
Jeffrey Carpenter, assistant professor of education and director of the Teaching Fellows program, published the article in the journal Educational Leadership.
There’s a Big Hole in How Teachers Build Skills, and Pinterest Is Helping Fill It
Slate online
2015-04-02
For most of us, Pinterest brings to mind crafts we’ll never make, places we’ll never visit, and wedding dresses we’ll never buy. But when teachers log on to the social scrapbooking site, they search for things like pasta-noodle skeletons, rock-candy recipes, and numbered cootie catchers—not as part of a crazy home-decorating scheme, but to actually use in their classrooms.
Event Appearances (5)
Exploring How and Why Educators Use Pinterest
2018 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting New York, NY
K–12 School and Instructional Leaders' Descriptions and Perceptions of Their Professional Learning Networks
2018 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting New York, NY
Teachers Advice Seeking in the r/Teachers SubReddit
2018 American Educational Research Association Annual Meetin New York, NY
Teacher-Led Networked Educational Organizing in the United States
2018 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting New York, NY
Exploring How and Why Educators Use Pinterest
2018 Society for Information Technology in Teacher Education Annual Conference Washington, DC
Articles (3)
Mining social media divides: an analysis of K-12 U.S. School uses of Twitter
Learning, Media and Technology
Kimmons, R., Carpenter, J. P., Veletsianos, G., & Krutka, D. G.
2018 This study utilizes public data mining to explore participation divides of all available K-12 institutional Twitter accounts in the U.S. (n = 8275 accounts, n = 9,216,853 tweets). Results indicated that U.S. schools used Twitter to broadcast information on a variety of topics in a unidirectional manner and that hashtags included a variety of intended purposes, including affinity spaces, education topics, emotive language, and events. Those schools in wealthier, more populated areas were more likely to use Twitter, with wealthy, suburban schools being the most likely to use it and poor, rural schools being the least likely. Furthermore, factors such as charter school status and urbanity influenced the content of school tweets on key issues, with schools in more populated areas tweeting more about coding and college than schools in less populated areas and charter schools tweeting more about college and the politicized educational issue of common core than non-charters. These results reveal participation differences between schools based upon demographics and provides a basis for conducting future large-scale work on publicly available artifacts, such as school tweets, that may be meaningfully used as education research data.
Leading by learning: exploring the professional learning networks of instructional leaders
Educational Media International
Trust, T., Carpenter, J. P., & Krutka, D. G.
2018 Leaders in education are often the sole person in their particular role in a school, and have thus frequently struggled with professional isolation. In recent years, social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter have created new opportunities for educators, including instructional leaders, to expand their professional learning networks (PLN) to include a wider array of people, spaces, and tools. This manuscript presents the findings of a qualitative study of 400 instructional leaders’ perceptions of their PLNs. Instructional leaders in our sample included principals, superintendents, librarians, and technology or curriculum specialists, coaches, and facilitators. Data were collected from a convenience sample via an anonymous online survey. Respondents described diverse, multifaceted networks composed of people, spaces, and tools. They reported that their PLNs supported their growth as learners, educators, and leaders. Participants asserted that their PLN activities positively impacted their learning and practice in a number of different ways. PLN impacts were described in terms of particular knowledge and skills, but also in relation to dispositions and community. We discuss our findings in relation to the extant literature. These findings have implications for defining the present and future of instructional leaders’ professional learning.
Educator perceptions of district-mandated Edcamp unconferences
Teaching and Teacher Education
Jeffrey Paul Carpenter, Miles R. MacFarlane
2018 Edcamp unconferences are a non-traditional participant-driven form of educator professional learning. Although Edcamp participation has typically been voluntary, this mixed-methods paper presents participants' (N = 252) perceptions regarding their experiences at Edcamps run by their school districts and where their attendance was required. The majority of participants rated their Edcamp experiences positively. Many participants compared the content and format of their Edcamps favorably to the professional development available to them. Participants also offered feedback regarding how their Edcamp experiences could have been improved. We discuss these results and their implications for the Edcamp model and educator professional learning.
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