Dr. MaryJo Rosania Harvie’s scholarship explores how arts-based, humanizing pedagogies cultivate belonging, well-being, and meaningful learning through the process by which artistic experiences become relational experiences.
Current Research Projects
I am Poem - Cultivating Belonging in Higher Education
As of Summer 2026, this research has been submitted for publication.
Cultivating Belonging in Higher Education Through ‘Where I Am From’ Poems shares an arts-based, narrative-centered project designed by two university professors to cultivate belonging, relational awareness, and culturally responsive teaching in higher education classrooms. Inspired by Lyon’s “Where I’m From” poem, the arts-based writing project invited undergraduate and graduate students in education courses at both institutions to reflect on identity, memory, family, place, culture, and lived experience through poetry, visual imagery, and peer sharing. As teacher educators committed to reflexive and humanizing pedagogy, the researchers developed the “Where I am From” poem assignment to understand students’ funds of knowledge better, avoid cultural hegemony, and create classroom conditions where students’ stories could be recognized as meaningful sources of knowledge.
This project may serve as a model for current and future educators to examine the histories that shape their students, designed for use in the present-day classroom, cultivating belonging through relational pedagogy, and consider how identity-centered practices can inform more inclusive teaching.
The study asked: How does the use of “Where I Am From” poems cultivate a sense of belonging in art and education courses? and How does the process improve relationships between students and their professor? Study participants included 62 undergraduate students and 19 graduate students enrolled in education and/or art courses at one small and one mid-sized private institution in the northeastern United States. Students were introduced to the poem format through instructor modeling, guided brainstorming, and a flexible poetic structure. Depending on the course focus, students shared poems aloud, through discussion, or through visual and voice-over presentations. Following the experience, students completed anonymous surveys reflecting on identity, peer connection, belonging, and implications for future teaching.
SoTL Research - Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Reflections on Teaching in the age of AI: A Self Study
This study has concluded and will be submitted for publication in the 26-27 academic year.
This self-study examined my teaching practice situated within an Art and Child Development course, and how the intentional development and integration of AI-supported reflective tools influence my pedagogical decision-making, instructional clarity, and role as an educator within a constructivist, relationship-centered learning environment. Guided by self-study methodology as articulated by LaBoskey (2004), this inquiry was iterative, reflective, and improvement oriented. The project took place within a 15-week timeframe and was included as one of four units in a semester-length undergraduate Art Education course. The study positioned my own teaching practice as both the site and subject of investigation, therefore I served as the researcher and the subject. The course, Art and Child Development, is designed as a project-based course, centering around an interactive and intergenerational, community-based partnership with a group of third-grade students at a local elementary school. The course content is human centered, practical, and is grounded in the work of the Fred Rogers Institute, in particular, the Six Fundamentals of Learning and Growing (Rogers, n.d.).
Within this context, students also engage in their own “self-study/analysis” to analyze their Creative Types, Learning Styles, and Executive Functions to learn about the importance of the arts in learning, but also to critically analyze AI outputs and the use of AI to analyze and synthesize information. I designed a lesson in which undergraduate students utilize a pre-build GPT to synthesize multiple self-assessments and learning artifacts, followed by structured critique of AI-generated outputs for clarity, accuracy, bias, and alignment with human experience. This process supported ethical inquiry into when AI can meaningfully augment learning and when human judgment, empathy, and reflection must remain central. Data sources for the study included reflective teaching memos, student artifacts, observation notes, and iterative lesson and GPT revisions, allowing me to systematically examine how developing and implementing this AI-infused approach reshapes my instructional choices and reflective practice. With a class of 24 students, the purpose of the study was not to evaluate AI as a tool in isolation, but to document how engaging AI as a reflective partner within arts-integrated, project based and interactive community-engaged pedagogy contributes to the ongoing growth and improvement of my teaching practice, leading to a deeper understanding of human-centered, career-forward AI integration in educational contexts.
In-Process Research Projects
Art Materials & Wellbeing Study
In my work as an art education professor, I am interested in the impact that engaging with the arts has on focus, well-being, confidence, and energy. Anecdotally, I have seen over the years in my profession as an art educator, that certain art processes tend to help increase these areas for participants of all ages.
In the special topics course, Spring 2025, Instructing Art in Alternative Settings, students tested various art activities with the goal to choose activities to include in a special event for the Health Humanities minor, the Health Humanities Night of the Arts.
Additionally, I am working on a project modeled after the University of Virginia “Art Room” (from the UVA website, “The Art Room fosters healing and self-discovery through the transformative power of artistic expression. It is a safe and inclusive space where students, regardless of background or artistic ability, can explore their emotions, communicate without words, and embark on a journey of personal growth. The Art Room is intended to empower students to navigate life's challenges, promote mental wellbeing, and cultivate a sense of community and connection.” 2025), that will include creating a similar type of space in the Art Education classroom on South Campus.
In all three settings, participants fill out a simple 5-point Likert rating scale (assessing focus, energy, confidence, and emotional state) before and after engaging with specifically chosen art activities.
In the class, students tested eight art activities, which will form the core activities for the Art Room and the Health Humanities Event activity choices. Based on their rating scales and reflection, students will choose three or four activities for the Health Humanities event. Guests at that event will have the opportunity to use the same before and after rating scale when engaging with art processes at the event. In the South Campus Art Space, participants will repeat this process. The number of activities available in that space at any one time is yet to be determined. Participation in the survey is voluntary for guests of the Health Humanities event and the South Campus Art Space, and does not restrict participation in the activities in either space.
Following both events, I will review the results of the rating scales based on:
Material choice
the order that the participant engaged with the materials
and the setting where the materials were used
This study is ongoing and will conclude Spring 2027.
The Work of Fred Rogers in Higher Education
The study included students and faculty at four higher education institutions, who have engaged with the work of Fred Rogers in thier settings. Participants will reflect on the work of Fred Rogers as it applies to high education and in their career goals. The researchers will reflect on how the work of Fred Rogers and the Fred Rogers Institute Educator’s Neighborhood can impact the higher education learning environment.
At Moravian, students in Art and Child Development will engage in the course content, which is rooted in the Six Fundamentals of Learning and Growing from the work of Fred Rogers, and at the end of the course will answer a reflective questionnaire related to the work of Fred Rogers.
The reflective questionnaire will include the following questions:
Now that you have engaged with the work of Fred Rogers, and the 6 Fundamentals of Learning and Growing, please reflect and respond to the following questions:
1. How did learning about the 6 Fundamentals in this course impact your work as a student in higher education?
2. How do you think that learning about the 6 Fundamentals will impact your professional life after college?
3. How did, or will, learning about the 6 Fundamentals impact your personal life outside of the college classroom and your post college life?
Participants will be asked to write a narrative response for each question. The researchers will then review and participant responses for commonalities that emerge from the answers from four higher education settings and populations..
This study is ongoing and will conclude in the 26-27 academic year.
Concluded Research
Doctoral dissertation Summary: Strength, Beauty, & Resilience: The Impact of Self-Reflection & Exploration of Memory on Postmodern, Feminist Educators, Inside and Outside the Classroom (published, March 2022, Kutztown University)
Following this description, I included resources for educators to enable them to build their leadership capacities and rethink the way they see themselves as leaders. Contact me for any further information.
Reflections based on my doctoral dissertation, Strength, Beauty, & Resilience: The Impact of Self-Reflection & Exploration of Memory on Postmodern, Feminist Educators, Inside and Outside the Classroom (March 2022)
My education research study was rooted in autoethnographic methodology and informed by narrative inquiry. Initially, one of my goals was to explore the impact of memories on feminist leaders/educators based on the definition of a feminist leader/educator with which I identified. Another goal was to examine the relationships between myself and the study participants, each chosen based on their feminist leadership/educator traits and our professional relationship. I intended to highlight how our shared and individual memories impacted us as educators. I rooted the study in a few defining terms, including feminist leadership and authenticity, and asked the participants to help to define these terms.
I collected qualitative data through interviews, personal journals, timelining, and an epistolary writing exercise to help define authenticity and explore the characteristics of feminist and postmodern educators. The data highlighted the most important traits these educators and I possessed to examine how they developed through a lifetime of educational experiences. Rooted in a feminist leadership theoretical framework and framed by postmodernism and educator critical reflection, the study highlights how relationships and critical reflection on memories are significant for educators and enable them to make deeper connections with students and colleagues.
What I Learned
Our experiences and stories create us. Every individual has impactful and defining stories from their time in school because we all experience education in one way or another. Two students can be in the same class, with the same teacher and course content, and have entirely different experiences. When a person decides to enter the education field as a teacher or eventually school leader, their experiences inevitably shape how they approach the job and their relationships with students and colleagues. The participants reflected on their experiences through writing prompts, including a written interview, journal entries, a timeline exercise, and an epistolary (letter writing) writing exercise.
When analyzing the data, I considered the research questions and some sub-questions to dive further into the data.
My research questions included:
How does a feminist educator's school trajectory, including experiences inside and outside school, contribute to their authentic and feminist leadership style?
Are there specific moments and memories that influenced the future?
How do past experiences in education create more authentic teachers or leaders?
What is the effect of critical reflection on the past? How does that shape the current reality for educators?
What is the role of intuition in the daily practice of feminist, postmodern educators?
How does being an authentic educator affect who we are in our personal and professional lives?
What is authenticity in an educator, and how does feminist leadership inform or affect the authenticity or vice versa?
How does an authentic educator make an impact on those around them?
I looked for patterns in the data and derived themes from this in vivo coding process. I also coded the data using a set of a priori codes developed based on descriptors of postmodernism (Slattery, 2013) and descriptors of a feminist leader (Kark et al., 2007) and postmodernism to ultimately answer the proposed research questions. When exploring the research questions, I sought to understand how specific moments and memories influenced each participant's future behaviors and beliefs as an educator. The experiences may be positive or negative, but the importance lies in their impact on the educator.
Overall, when looking at the descriptors, one can say that postmodern educators can see the multiplicity in their lives and are not only comfortable with uncertainty but are willing to embrace it, engage in the experience, examine assumptions, and be transformed by removing boundaries. These traits are aligned with those of a feminist leader/educator; one can say that a feminist leader and educator models the behaviors they appreciate in stakeholders. They are collaborative, creative, and enthusiastic and enjoy collaborative problem-solving.
As a researcher, I attempted to quantify the qualitative data by performing a content analysis based on all inductive and deductive codes for each data sample: questionnaire, journal, timeline, letter, and interviews. The content analysis was performed by taking a frequency count for each set of codes for all five pieces of data.
Some of the most interesting surprises came from timelining the data. I asked the participants to create a timeline to help them to organize their experiences before writing their letters to themselves. I then transferred the participant's timeline data to an interactive timeline to visualize the events and overlaps in our trajectories. I created this interactive timeline using the Northwestern University, McCormick School of Engineering, Knightlab Timeline JS interactive timeline generator. I used this strategy to visualize the overlaps in my and the participant’s experiences and to visualize the events as they transpired over our lifetimes. Through timeline creation, I could see a lifetime and the similarities and differences between the two generations included in the study based on when they started school.
The qualitative data, and the stories my participants told, were defining and powerful. Each educator had stories that described relationships and creativity as vital to their authenticity as educators/leaders. I also focused on Thomas Armstrong's work to examine crystallizing or paralyzing experiences and how my participants processed and applied these memories, basically how they impacted the individual professionally or personally. My dissertation is filled with poignant quotes from my participants that exemplify these concepts. At this point in the presentation, I will share some quotes that define authenticity, show how they looked at both positive and negative experiences as opportunities, and communicate this in the research. This diagram became an important visual for the research findings:
I will also address the common themes in writing. I intend to highlight the themes of Belonging, Positive Reappraisal, and Resilience through quotes from my research participants.
Frustration
Belonging & appreciation (or lack of)
Positive reappraisal
Changed view of education/ teachers/leaders (Loss of respect for authority figure - or opposite)
Formation and communication of true self (authentic self) - or loss of true self
Emotional intelligence/resilience
Flexibility/ open-mindedness
Continued learning & growth
The Arts
De-siloing education/education outside of school
The Value of the Interactive Timeline
To make a visual comparison, I created an interactive timeline of my and the participants' educational experiences to examine the timespan of the experiences in relationship to each other. The timeline is included in Appendix H. Timelining is considered useful because it can “...look beyond aggregated views of their data to see specific events, how they unfolded, and how they were connected” (Disney, 2020). By timelining the data, I could see where we entered each other's lives and how many influential events happened before we set foot in a classroom or decided to become educators. Although this is a small sample, it indicates our experiences' significant role in our interactions with students and colleagues.
The act of timelining became one of the most significant and surprising aspects of the research:
Most striking was seeing, in this format, the number of years between when Wendy and I started school and when Dorothy and Alice started school. The age difference does not seem as significant until you see it in the timeline format. Wendy and I are from a generation that experienced education before the internet and social media. The timeline format demonstrates the generational differences that may have affected our school experiences. Alice, the youngest of the participants, displayed high levels of emotional resiliency and open-mindedness. Although she is younger, she seemed to understand the impact teachers make on students much earlier and more easily. Dorothy demonstrated the most consistently high levels of the four characteristics of a feminist leader. Her mother was a school leader, and as she reported in the data, a big influence on her career path. The timeline also demonstrates how the instability participants experienced growing up influenced their school memories and contributed to their desire to be authentic in all aspects of life, including their careers.
Practical Applications (how it can be applied to our real lives)
This research brought some important things to light for me as a school leader and educator for which I did not give enough credit. Most importantly, it highlighted the importance of Positive Reappraisal for these educators, whom I see as feminist & authentic. I also realized this trait in myself and how undervalued this was in my self-reflection. In this presentation, I will define Positive Reappraisal and explain how our instinct may be to shy away from negative experiences when engaging in self-reflection. Creating an experience timeline or composing a letter to self may be emotionally challenging, but in fact, reflecting on all experiences can be valuable. Through this reflection, we realize our resilience and what we ultimately learned from them. We are constantly shaping our identity through interactions and relationships, no matter how brief or extended. If we can look critically at each interaction and its impact on our feelings of authenticity, we can start to gain the most from each experience. I will show quotes from my participants that demonstrate the importance of positive reappraisal and how it defines them as educators and leaders.