Curating and Creating with Care:
History / Social Studies
Guiding questions for critiquing resources from online educational marketplaces
Catharyn C. Shelton, PhD
Assistant Professor of Educational Technology | Former K-12 Teacher
About
Catharyn Shelton, PhD
Biography
Catharyn Shelton, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Educational Technology at Northern Arizona University's College of Education. Catharyn teaches undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in educational technology while researching how teachers learn and lead online. Catharyn brings a background as a P-12 classroom teacher (high school Spanish, special education, and bilingual elementary). She is passionate about supporting teachers as leaders to realize equity and justice outcomes in education.
In her primary research, Catharyn focuses on how teachers share and enact (or learn to, try to, or fail to share and enact) justice-oriented education approaches on platforms such as TeachersPayTeachers or Instagram. Her work has critiqued the role that for-profit online platforms play in dictating what teachers see, produce, and engage within such spaces. Catharyn's published research appears in Teachers College Record, Learning Media and Technology, Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, as well as in popular presses including Slate, Kappan, Educational Leadership, and Edutopia. Catharyn is a mom to three little firecrackers and is based in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Expertise
Awards
2023, Recipient, Scholar of the Year, Northern Arizona University College of Education.
2023, Recipient, President’s Award for Ethnic Diversity, Northern Arizona University.
2022, Recipient, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice Award for the Educational Specialties Department Anti-Racist Working Group, Northern Arizona University College of Education.
2020, Recipient, National Technology Leadership Initiative (NTLI) Fellowship Award for "exemplary research related to technology in social studies education," College and University Faculty Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies.
In the News
Authored by Catharyn:
Lesson plan platforms for teachers have a racist problem in Slate, August 2020
How to design a culturally responsive Bitmoji classroom in Edutopia, October 2020
Quotes and Mentions:
TikTok is Raising National Security, Privacy Concerns. Should Educators Steer Clear? in Education Week, March 2023
New York City Blocks ChatGPT at Schools. Should other Districts Follow? in Education Week, January 2023
Gas is the latest app to catch fire with kids. What you need to know about it in Education Week, December 2022
Why Teachers Pay Teachers in ASCD Blog, October 2022
What Teachers Pay Teachers is learning from bad lessons and upset teachers, EdSurge, February 2021
TikTok teachers go viral in these Covid times, EducationHQ, October 2020
Resources for Teachers
Print-and-go guidance for P-12 teachers, inspired by our research.
Guiding questions for critiquing resources from online educational marketplaces
Research
Catharyn Shelton, PhD
Teachers Learning and Leading Online
Teachers turn to online sources for classroom inspiration and support, ranging from teachers' blogs and social media, to virtual marketplaces. Online teacherpreneurs are current and former P -12 teachers who share their ideas and resources in the teacher-to-teacher marketplace of ideas - spaces including TeachersPayTeachers.com, Instagram, and Pinterest, often for financial gain (Shelton & Archambault, 2018). This practice may empower teachers as leaders in their profession, rather than corporate curriculum distributors. It also presents challenges around the quality of teacher-created content, who gets to have a voice in the creation of curricula, and the platformization of teachers' work. In response, Catharyn and colleagues have called for supporting teachers' development of critical digital literacies centered on justice-oriented approaches, while also advocating that for-profit platforms operating in the education sphere be held accountable.
Humanizing Online Learning
How can online teacher education courses be (re)designed with a humanized and democratic approach? Recently, we applied critical, humanizing approaches to design and support online learning experiences for teachers that are humanized and culturally responsive (Shelton, Aguilera, Gleason, & Mehta, 2020). An example of my humanized approach to online learning is showcased on Feminist Pedagogies Online's Annotated Assignments, where my annotated assignment, Dissecting Current Events Through Collaborative Virtual Mind Mapping with Google Draw is shared.
Teaching
Catharyn Shelton, PhD
University Teaching
Northern Arizona University
2020-present
California State University Stanislaus
2018-20
K - 12 Teaching
Arizona State Secondary Certification in Spanish, English, and Psychology
Most of Catharyn's K-12 classroom teaching was spent in the high school Spanish classroom, working with linguistically and culturally diverse students at a large urban public school. During that time, she was named the Arizona Language Association's Early Career Educator of the Year and was awarded a $10,000 Century Link grant for classroom iPads for her project-based learning proposal. She also brings K-12 experience as a bilingual elementary teacher, professional development coordinator, mentor of student teachers, and special education paraprofessional.
Publications
Catharyn Shelton, PhD
If you need access to any of the publications below, please email me and I'd be happy to share: catharyn.shelton@nau.edu.
Selected Recent Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Shelton, C., Archambault, L., &Harris, L. (2023). The quest for quality within an online educational
marketplace: Indicators of expert-evaluated quality in U.S. history activities. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education. Advanced online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21532974.2023.2210318
Schroeder, S., Curcio, R., & Shelton, C. (2023). Crafting the consumer teacher: Education influencers and the figured world of K-12 teaching. Learning, Media and Technology. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2023.2207140
Carpenter, J., & Shelton, C. (2022). How and why teachers use Teachers Pay Teachers. Journal of Research on Technology in Education. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2022.2119452
Shelton, C., & Archambault, L. (2022). Educators engaging in online educational marketplaces: A vision for teacher education to prepare critical consumers, careful creators, and discerning professionals. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 30(2), 155-166. Retrieved from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/221214/.
Shelton, C., Curcio, R., Carpenter, J., & Schroeder, S. (2022). Instagramming for justice: The potentials and pitfalls of culturally relevant professional learning on Instagram, TechTrends. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-022-00758-1
Carpenter, J., Shelton, C., & Schroeder, S. (2022). The educational influencer: A new player in the educator professional landscape. Journal of Research on Technology in Education. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2022.2030267
Harris, L., Archambault, L., & Shelton, C. (2022). Issues of quality on Teachers Pay Teachers: An exploration of best-selling U.S. history resources. Journal of Research on Technology in Education. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2021.2014373
Shelton, C., Koehler, M., Carpenter, J., & Greenhalgh, S. (2022). Lifting the veil on TeachersPayTeachers.com: An investigation of educational marketplace offerings and downloads. Learning, Media and Technology, 47(2), 268-287. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2021.1961148
Shelton, C., Geiger, T., & Archambault, L. (2021). Becoming a better teacher through online teacherpreneurship? Factors influencing online teacherpreneurs’ perceived gains in teaching practice. Elementary School Journal (Invited Special Issue). Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1086/715521
Koehler, M., Shelton, C., Carpenter, J., & Greenhalgh, S. (2020). Where does all the money go? Free and paid transactions on TeachersPayTeachers.com. Teachers College Record.
Shelton, C., Schroeder, S., & Curcio, S. (2020). Instagramming their hearts out: What do edu-influencers share on Instagram? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 20(3).
Shelton, C.C., & Archambault, L. M. (2020). Learning from and about elite online teacherpreneurs: A qualitative examination of key characteristics, school environments, practices, and impacts. Teachers College Record, 122(7), 107-132.
Shelton, C.C., & Archambault, L.M. (2019). Who are online teacherpreneurs and what do they do? A survey of content creators on TeachersPayTeachers.com. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 51(4), 398-414. doi: 10.1080/15391523.2019.1666757
Shelton, C.C., & Archambault, L. M. (2018). Discovering how teachers build virtual relationships and develop as professionals through online teacherpreneurship. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 29(4), 579-602.
Selected Recent Peer-Reviewed Chapters
Shelton, C., & Archambault, A., (in press). What teachers should know about online education resource marketplaces. In What PreK-12 Teachers Should Know about Educational Technology in 2023: A Research-to-Practice Anthology
Shelton, C., Schroeder, S., Curcio, R. (in press). The Teacher-to-Teacher Online Marketplace of Ideas (TOMI): A Future of Curriculum? In R. Hartshorne, Handbook of Social Media in Education, Consumer Behavior, and Politics.
Joseph, D., Lanterman, C., Shelton, C., Lemley, C., DeGroat, J., Sandigo, A., Ingram, J. (accepted4/2023). Drawing on “Peoplehood” to Humanize Higher Education Anti-Racist Work. In Building Anti-Racist Communities.
Harati, H., Shelton, C., Sujo-Montes, L., Tu, C., & Armfield, S. (2022). Illuminating the marginalization of international students in the United States and ways forward: A collaborative autoethnography. In Huffman, S., Cunningham, D., Shavers, M., & Adamson, R. (2022). Opening Pathways for Marginalized Individuals in Higher Education. IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-3819-0, pp 192-209.
Shelton, C.C., Aguilera, E., Gleason, B., & Mehta, R. (2020). Resisting dehumanizing assessments: Enacting critical humanizing pedagogies in online teacher education. In Ferdig, R.E., Baumgartner, E., Hartshorne, R., Kaplan-Rakowski, R. & Mouza, C. (2020). Teaching, Technology, and Teacher Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Stories from the Field. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). https://www.learntechlib.org/p/216903/, pp 125-129.
Selected Recent Editorially Reviewed Articles
Shelton, C., & Carpenter, J. (2023, February). Four strategies for vetting online lesson materials. Educational Leadership, 10-11.
Archambault, L., Shelton, C., & Harris, L, (2021, May). Teachers beware and vet with care: Online Educational Marketplaces. Kappan.
Shelton, C. (2020, October 9). How to design a culturally responsive Bitmoji classroom. Edutopia.
Shelton, C. & Archambault, L., Harris, L. (2020, August 7). Lesson plan platforms for teachers have a racist problem. Slate.
Updated May 5, 2023 by Catharyn Shelton
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