Dr.Angel Pazurek has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT). AECT is an international professional organization of designers and educators whose activities are directed toward advancing knowledge and practice in the use of technology for teaching and learning. Established in 1923, it is the oldest professional organization related to instructional design and continues to maintain a central position in the latest advancements in this field, including a greater focus on the learning process and the learner experience in technology-mediated learning environments. Its diverse membership includes professionals in education and development at colleges and universities, the Armed Forces, museums, libraries, hospitals, and many other workplace settings.
As a new member of the AECT Board, Pazurek attended a leadership symposium this summer in Bloomington, Indiana. The symposium centered on mentoring leadership qualities, goal development and vision sharing, as well as action planning for the future of the organization. Being of greatest service to AECT members as well as to the future of the field at large both grounded and informed these activities and conversations.
AECT has ten divisions and Pazurek represents the newly established Learner Engagement Division on the AECT Board while also serving on this division's Leadership Team. Pazurek’s interest in learner engagement focuses on using a phenomenological approach to understand how learners experience engagement in online learning spaces and how teachers and designers can help foster it. Contemporary approaches to phenomenology can be used to leverage it as both a philosophy and methodology to gain the insight and pedagogical sensitivity necessary to design tech-mediated learning environments and facilitate learning experiences that are both engaging and meaningful.
This year’s AECT international conference will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada from October 21-25, 2019. It will include over 500 peer reviewed presentations, panel discussions, workshops, technology demonstrations, roundtables, and poster sessions. Many of LT’s graduate students and faculty will be attending and presenting their scholarship at this event.