Concentration: International Policy and Planning
Bio: Dr. Mercedes del Rosario is a compassionate educator and a passionate advocate for the purposeful use of technology in education. She has an intimate understanding of how technology can be used to leverage the teaching and learning experience while being acutely aware of the challenges of technology integration in terms of access, skills, and resources. She also has an extensive experience in faculty professional development, workshop facilitation, project management, adult learning, instructional design and technology, knowledge management, and technology training for teachers.
She believes, as John Dewey believes, that “education is not preparation for life but life itself.” For her, every experience is a part and parcel of the educational process and contributes to each person’s overall learning, growth, and development. For almost nine years, she was the Director of the ePortfolio Initiative of the City University of New York, LaGuardia Community College, where she was the pivotal administrator of the highly successful ePortfolio Initiative. As a senior member of the College's Center for Teaching and Learning and the Assessment Committee, she also significantly contributed to the College's key undertakings, such as faculty professional development, workshop design and facilitation, evidence-based outcomes assessment, rubrics development (especially, on digital communication and literacy), student success and transfer programs. She also held a concurrent appointment as an Assistant Professor with the Department of Education and Language Acquisition, where she taught Foundation of American Education courses.
She possesses a wide range of professional skills and experiences including project management, teaching, online course development and facilitation, educational research, data collection and analysis, academic writing, public speaking, and conference presentation. She worked in different cities including New York, New York, San Francisco, California, San Jose, Costa Rica, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and Manila, Philippines. Prior to her migration to the United States of America in 1990, she served as the Committee Secretary of the Committee on Public Information, House of Representatives, Congress of the Philippines, where under the supervision of the Honorable Chairman, she led the legislative research and public hearings in aid of legislation on matters pertaining to public information, including press freedom and communication facilities franchises. She also worked in development programs, and regional and local training projects and wrote information materials for various agencies of the Philippine government. She also taught Basic English and Writing courses.
Her scholarly interests are on the integration of technology in education with a focus on technology policy borrowing and its actual implementation and how the variance between the two impacts the teaching and learning experience. Her doctoral dissertation, Technology Integration in Teacher Education Programs in the Philippines: An International Development Perspective (advisor: Prof. Gita Steiner-Khamsi) reveals the complexity of integrating technology since a host of variables, which are by themselves complex, impact technology integration. These variables include national, state and school policies, state and local technology plans or lack thereof, funding or lack thereof, teachers skills or lack thereof, the rapidly changing nature of technology, learning goals and objectives, teacher training and professional development, technology support or lack thereof, to the number of students in a school.
She has an Ed. D. and Ed.M. in International Education Development with a concentration on Policy Studies and Language, Literacy, and Technology, respectively from Teachers College, Columbia University. She also has an M.A. in Instructional Technology from San Francisco State University and a B.S. in Development Communication, majoring in Journalism, from the University of the Philippines at Los Banos. Further, she completed two years of coursework at the University of the Philippines College of Law.
For the past several years, she went on an extended personal sabbatical to pursue her personal interests in literary fiction writing, photography, and traveling.
Something Special about TC: My experience at TC has provided me with the strength and courage to pursue my professional and personal interests. Professionally, it has opened opportunities for me and allowed me to put into practice what I have learned, in particular the use of technology in education with its attendant advantages and challenges. Personally, it has taught me to have the boldness and resolve to pursue my other interests.
Advisor: Dr. Gita Steiner-Khamsi