“Kisha Cunningham, Ph.D.” originally appeared in the 2016 edition of Arising, the Research Journal of Savannah State University.
Story by Amy Pine. Photography by Hon Low.
Kisha Cunningham, Ph.D., is one of four SSU professors working on the Collaborative Regional Educational (CORE) Initiative, a program led by Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama, and funded by the U.S. Department of Education that seeks to prepare students in K-12 for college and careers by improving access to technology and expanding methodologies in the classroom.
During the two-year study, Cunningham, along with SOTE colleagues Cora Thompson, Ed.D., Andrea Moore, Ph.D., and Mihaela Munday, Ph.D., will work to identify teachers in grades 8-12 who are interested in utilizing technology in the classroom. Cunningham and her colleagues will examine the use of technology in the classroom, find ways to utilize technology to identify career interest and career readiness, and provide training to the selected teachers and assist with any technology needs they may have.
“Most of our youth know more about technology than we do. In order to make sure that they’re engaged in coursework and that we are reaching them, we need to make sure that we have avenues for them to get information,” Cunningham says. “It’s very important for us to provide those avenues to technology and teach them about being responsible users of technology.”
Access to technology can be especially challenging in rural areas, where Cunningham and her fellow researchers will focus their attention.
“Our goal is to have a mobile computer lab that we can take to schools and rural classrooms. They may not have that type of technology there, so we’re going to bring it to them,” Cunningham says.
Finding new and innovative ways to integrate technology into the classroom is nothing new for Cunningham, who has dedicated much of her career to issues of technology, gender equality and accessibility.
Students in rural classrooms often don't have the same educational resources as those in metropolitan areas, creating a deficit in their education that can follow them throughout their academic and professional careers. Kisha R. Cunningham, Ph.D., an assistant professor of technology education in Savannah State University's School of Teacher Education (SOTE), hopes to change that.
Cunningham received bachelor of science and master of science degrees in technology education from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, where she was a Ronald McNair Scholar, and a Ph.D. in workforce education and training development with a focus in postsecondary technical leadership at The Pennsylvania State University.
Her research has been presented at numerous conferences, including the International Technology Engineering Education Association conference, MAP/MRO Conference, the School-to-Career Connection Conference, the Association for Career and Technical Education Conference, and the International Vocational Education and Training Association in Hong Kong.
She joined the faculty of Savannah State in 2013 after spending three years serving as a technology education/computer instructor at Neighborhoods Focused on African-American Youth Inc., a nonprofit organization in Marietta, Ga., dedicated to positively changing the outcome of African-American youth. A trained dancer, Cunningham also served for nine years as executive director of the Paisley Academy of Performing Arts, a nonprofit organization in Marietta, Ga., that encourages children and adults to explore performing arts from a historical perspective.
Cunningham has contributed articles to numerous scholarly publications and has taken a leadership role on several grant programs focused on gender equality in technology education. Since joining the SSU faculty, she has focused much of her classroom teaching on engineering technology education, incorporating academic concepts with hands-on learning.
“STEM education is so important now because of where our students are when it comes to math and science,” Cunningham says. “We want them to enter into fields of engineering technology and math, but we don’t want everyone to become engineers and mathematicians. We need teachers. We need people who are prepped and prepared to teach that content to the next generation of engineers and mathematicians.”
In addition to her classroom teaching schedule, Cunningham serves as the grant pedagogy specialist for the university’s Georgia Math Science Partnership (MSP) grant program. Through the MSP program, Savannah State has created a two-year professional development program for area middle school science teachers.
“As teachers, we sometimes get so caught up in lecturing that we leave half of our classroom behind. I’m a stickler for finding new instructional strategies to get that information out so that everyone is reached in the classroom,” says Cunningham, who works with the MSP program’s in-service teachers on pedagogical issues such as how to engage in active learning and how to gauge student success.
For Cunningham, some of the most valuable educational tools come from her own personal experiences observing young students. In the university’s STEM Education Teaching and Learning Lab, a maker space utilized by area children in grades Pre-K-12, as well as SOTE teaching candidates and in-service teachers from the MSP program, Cunningham witnesses these concepts put into practice.
“We see active learning in place [in the lab],” Cunningham says. “It’s awesome to give (the students) a concept, tell them what the theme of the day is, and give them an activity and actually see the light bulb go off.”
