Kendra Andrews is a specialist in the field of Composition and Rhetoric with a specific focus in critical digital pedagogy and 21st century literacies. She is currently in the dissertation stage of her PhD in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media at North Carolina State University and she will graduate in May 2019.
Under the direction of Dr. Chris Anson and Dr. Casie Fedukovich, she has developed as a composition researcher who works with both empirical data and complicated narratives to account for the contemporary landscape of technology and writing practices. Guided by a focus on First-Year Writing faculty, technologies, and ecologies of understanding, she is committed to developing rich frameworks that carefully articulate the range of technological practices enacted by contemporary writing instructors.
Her dissertation, “Technologies, Pedagogies, and Ecologies: An Analysis of the Primary Ecological Factors of Faculty Attitudes and Technology Integration by First-Year Composition Faculty in North Carolina,” complicates the relationship between teacher attitudes, the broader context or mitigating factors determining those attitudes, and the teachers’ uptake of digital technologies in the classroom. Her dissertation work may also be instrumental as a larger framework or heuristic for all writing programs to be better prepared for critically integrating technology in the 21st century writing classroom.
“the onus for technological change has primarily fallen on updating technologies, tools, and software; however, that process is Sisyphean in task since technological change is never stable but always exponential. As a response to this unsuccessful approach, there needs to be a shift in focus from the “what” of technology to the “who.”
Aside from her dissertation work, she has also spent her time during her doctoral studies conducting empirical research for several projects developed under a National Science Foundation research grant for multi-institutional research involving faculty and writing across the curriculum, specifically in upper-level STEM courses. She has presented this work at the international, national, and regional levels with the NC State PI, Dr. Chris Anson.
In her commitment to writing pedagogy research, she served for two years as the Graduate Assistant Director (Assistant WPA) of the First Year Writing Program under Dr. Casie Fedukovich. She worked with the WPA and Assistant WPA, Dr. Zachary Beare, to lead mentoring workshops between faculty mentors and first year GTAs in the English M.A. program, and also mentored the GTAs throughout their time in the First-Year Writing Program.
She has also gained administrative experience outside of the First-Year Writing Program while working as a Research Assistant in the Campus Writing and Speaking Program (CWSP), directed by Dr. Chris Anson. As a Research Assistant in CWSP, she is responsible for working on writing initiatives with seasoned faculty from across the curriculum during our semester seminar and our workshops.
Kendra’s passion is teaching, especially her work with teaching multimodal composition and digital pedagogy. As noted on the home page, she believes that there needs to be greater focus paid to the often overlooked voices of teachers.
Kendra L. Andrews 