This course provides graduate students with opportunities for professional and skills development. With a significant experiential component, this course prepares students to be astute readers of educational research; to participate in public conversations about education-related issues both inside and outside formal educational settings; to articulate the specific skills they are acquiring through their graduate degree; and, to investigate the range of contexts where educational research can contribute to the public good and social change.

Beginning with exercises that connect graduate education to their own biographies as learners, students are invited to investigate the myriad of ways educational research impacts schools, colleges and universities, cultural institutions, non-profit organizations, youth and child-serving organizations, and other public and private groups.

A significant goal of this course is to help students position themselves in conversation with both educational research and the variety of contexts where that research finds an audience. Students also have the opportunity to develop professional skills, including writing for academic and non-academic audiences; presenting educational research in a range of contexts; employing social media and other digital tools for research mobilization; drafting research funding proposals; and applying for ethics approval for research involving human subjects.