Kate E. O'Hara is an associate professor in the Interdisciplinary Studies program, teaching courses that integrate experiential learning and technology.
O'Hara's work focuses on the effective use of technology to empower users to become agents of social change, as well as teaching strategies that implement the use of high-impact and socially just practices. She uses mixed media in her research, photography in particular, as a method. She also employs the use of narrative and autoethnographic studies within a sociocultural framework.
O'Hara is also an independent instructional designer and teacher educator. She earned her Ph.D. in Urban Education at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, a Master of Arts in Philosophy at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, a Master of Arts in English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication, with minors in English and Sociology, at the University of New Hampshire.
Recent Projects and Research
- O'Hara serves as a liaison for the New York Tech – NYC Public School 152 partnership facilitating all related events, activities, and initiatives. In addition, she designs curriculum that integrates experiential learning, and implements student-centered, culturally responsive, and high impact teaching practices.
- She also conducts narrative and autoethnographic research, in addition to employing arts-based methods in social science research and classroom teaching. Her focus is the use of mixed media, photography in particular, as a phenomenological approach to understanding structures of experience and consciousness.
Selected Presentations and Publications
Recent Exhibitions
- Juried: Encouragement, photograph, (May 8, 2021). What Does Community Look Like? The Brush: Art Gallery & Studios, Lowell, Massachusetts.
- Jurors: Ekua Holmes, Marjorie Rawle, and Beth McLaughlin
- Scaling, photograph, (January 5, 2020). Renewal, Upstream Gallery, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Jurors: Mitchell Goldberg and Sondra Gold.
- Opening the Canopy: Relationship with the Land, mixed media installation (September 2019). Spatial Relations, Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, Red Hook, Brooklyn. Jurors: Fritz Weiss, Susan Handwerker and Joe Banish.
Recent Publications
- O'Hara, K.E. (2021). Transcending and Transforming: Teaching and Learning in the Time of COVID 19. In K. Banda (Ed.) The Kaleidoscope of Lived Curricula: Learning Through a Confluence of Crisis. Information Age Publishing.
- O'Hara, K.E. (2020). Bring Us Back: Photographs for Meaning Making and Knowledge Production. In Tobin, K. and Alexakos, K., (Eds.), Doing authentic inquiry to improve learning and teaching. Leiden: Brill|Sense Publishers.
- Greenblatt, D. & O’Hara, K.E. (2015). Buyer Beware: Lessons Learned from edTPA Implementation in New York State. Thought and Action: The Journal of the National Education Association. Vol 31, Summer 2015.
- O’Hara, K.E. (2015). Traveling the Road of Research: Stories of Teaching and Technology. Brock Education: A Journal of Educational Research and Practice. Vol 24, No. 1.
- O’Hara, K.E. [Ed.] (2014) Teacher evaluation: The charge and the challenges. Counterpoints: Studies in the Postmodern Theory of Education. Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
Honors and Awards
- Presidential Excellence Team Award: Voya Committee: Diversifying STEAM Leadership, New York Institute of Technology, September 2020
- Presidential Engagement Award for Innovative Use of Technology to Engage Students, New York Tech 2017
- The School of Education Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching, New York Institute of Technology, May 2013
- National Finalist for 2001 English Language Teaching Contest, created English Teaching by Video, Academy Shuppan of Tokyo, Japan.
Courses Taught at New York Tech
- FCIQ 101: Foundations of Inquiry
- IDSP 410: Capstone Seminar
- IDSP 450: Internship/Service Learning
- ICPH 300 Core Seminar in Philosophy: Philosophy of Education
- EDIT/EDPC 603: Foundations I: Philosophy and Technology of Education
- EDIT 605: Instructional Applications of the Internet
- EDIT 701: Contemporary Strategies for Technology Integration in the Curriculum
- EDIT 722: Interactive 21st Century Teaching and Learning for Secondary Educators
- EDPC 605: Curriculum Design and Development
- EDSS 620: Social Studies and Technology
- EDTR 606: Social Networking Tools for Training
- EDTR 673: Collaborative Learning Spaces