Associate Professor of the School of Education Max Frazier, Ph.D., who is also currently serving as interim director of the School of Education, will present at the faculty-sponsored Research and Refreshment on Nov. 14 in the Dugan Library. The event serves as a way for students, staff and faculty to hear about research that the featured presenter has done in their particular field.
In 2004, Frazier published “The Technology Coordinator’s Handbook.” The third edition was released in April 2017 and Frazier donated a copy to the Dugan Library. Frazier said when the library received the copy, they asked him to do a presentation about the book and his research.
Frazier calls the research he did in spring 2015 his “Odyssey across Kansas,” which consisted of driving 2,300 miles in the state to visit various schools and classrooms.
In fall 2014, Frazier had been working on state accreditation. Frazier explained, “I finished that and I was burnt out. I said I needed a break … something different. I went to the university and said I’ve been in higher education for 12 years. I’ve been teaching students how to be teachers but I haven’t actually stepped foot into a classroom in a long time. I’d like to take a semester off and visit a bunch of schools, classrooms and talk with people about what has changed in the last decade.
“So I wrote a proposal and said, ‘These are the things I want to do and places I want to go,’ and they gave me the semester off. I spent a lot of time contacting people asking if I could come to their district and interview them. During the winter months, I stuck to areas closer to Wichita, like Cheyenne and Maize, and then during the spring I went to Topeka, Kansas City and Garden City.”
In total, Frazier visited 31 schools and interviewed 48 people, including technology coordinators, teachers, principals and superintendents.
With this research, Frazier updated his book and put out the third edition. The book was based on his 1999 doctoral dissertation. He first published the book in 2004 and released a second edition in 2012. During his travels, people in the school districts he visited told him the book was out of date, which led to the publication of the new edition.
He hopes many of his colleagues will be inspired to take up their doctoral dissertation once again. The dissertation was a big focus in their lives for 18 months to two years, Frazier explained.
“That’s what I’d like to get across to my colleagues — find something you really like, that you’re really passionate about,” he said. “(I want to encourage them to) find a way to work on it, and continue to work on it. Write an article or maybe even write a book. It’s not as hard as you might think but it takes a lot of time and effort,” Frazier said.
Although Frazier’s research and book are done, he still has plenty to do. Starting next fall, Frazier, along with his colleagues, will get ready for program accreditation in spring 2019.
