Inquiry Oasis – Research at UA’s College of Education with Jeffrey Anthony
The University of Arizona’s College of Education is not just molding future educators – it’s shaping the future of education itself. In this riveting episode, Jeffrey Anthony, the coordinator of Grants Development, pulls back the curtain on the cutting-edge research happening right within the university’s walls.
Discover:
- The significance of early childhood robotics and its potential in transforming the education sector.
- How UA’s research is contributing to global workforce development strategies.
- Stories of students-turned-researchers, and the passions that drive their work.
- Potential implications and transformative capacities of current studies.
Episode Highlights:
- [02:05] Introduction of Jeffrey Anthony and his journey with UA’s College of Education.
- [09:20] Unraveling the vast research scope within the College.
- [16:45] The bridge between academic research and real-world impacts.
Listen to the Episode:
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Transcript (Unedited)
Tom Heath
A beautiful Sunday in the old pueblo. You’re listening to KT DT Tucson. Thank you for spending part of your brunch hour with us on your downtown Tucson community sponsored, all volunteer powered rock and roll radio station.
Tom Heath
On this week’s show, we’re going to speak with Jeffrey Anthony. He’s a repeat guest, but in a new role. We’re going to talk about his project called The Inquiry Oasis. It’s from the University’s College of Education, and it’s a podcast delving deep into the research of its faculty. Today is September 3, 2023. My name is Tom Heath and you’re listening to life along the streetcar.
Tom Heath
Each and every Sunday, our focus is on social, cultural, and economic impacts in Tucson’s urban core, and we shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about, from a mountain to the University of Arizona and all stops in between. You get the inside track right here on 99.1 FM, streaming on downtownradio.org. Also available on your iPhone or Android with our very own Downtown radio app. And if you want to interact with us here on the show, facebook and Instagram are probably the best ways to do that. And if you want more information about us, our book listen to some past episodes, you can head over to our website, lifelongthstreetcar.org. And of course, our podcast is out there on lots of different platforms in case you want to catch some of those as well as you’re out. Maybe walking the dog here as it rolls into fall and summer, maybe wrapping up. I don’t know. It’s September. It’s supposed to be cooler. Maybe we’re in for a reprieve. Coming up here soon. It’s Labor Day weekend, which
Tom Heath
means at Hotel Congress, it’s HoCo Fest. I don’t know if you’ve been attending any of the events they’ve had there. This is an annual event and this may be the last of its kind. I’ve heard rumors that this is the last HoCo Fest, although I think Labor Day weekend will always be some event at a Hotel Congress, in my personal opinion. We did feature The Tale of Two Houses with Chris Carloney. That was a documentary that he built and we interviewed him a few weeks ago. And you can find out more about that on our web page. If you go over there and in the search bar put it Tale of Two Houses, you’ll pull that up. But that is playing tonight at the screening room at 530. So I might head over there and check that out. And then there is still music and events happening this evening and tomorrow as part of HoCo Fest, I would go over to Hotel Congress’s website if you wanted to find out more information, see what bands are playing and on what stages, because they got so many stages now, you got to
Tom Heath
keep up. But if I were you and wanted to learn more, head over to the Hotel Congress website because that’s what I would do. And as we get here into the fall, make sure you reach out to us about any of these cool events. This is when things really start to pop, and we’ve covered a lot of these events over the last six years. But if there’s something out there that you think we need to shed some light on, let us know. Our guest today is Jeffrey Anthony. He’s been on the show before. He was in an innovative role within the city of Tucson. He has moved on and at the University of Arizona and once again has found himself into a new, I guess, another innovative role because he’s working at the College of Education and as part of his process over there, he was noticing a lot of research being done by the faculty, and that intrigued him. So he does what we all do and we want to learn more. He launched a podcast called The Inquiry Oasis, and I had a chance to talk to him about it a week or so ago
Tom Heath
as he had just launched it and got the inside scoop as to what’s happening over there at the College of Education’s new podcast. We are joined again by Jeffrey Anthony, who was with us not too long ago, working on a project with the city of Tucson and identifying ways to help small businesses and the importance of doing that here locally. And since then, he has moved on to the University of Arizona and now is the Coordinator of Grants Development at the University of Arizona’s College of Education. And I just found out as part of that, he’s doing a podcast and he’s cutting into my time. So I was like, oh, I got to do some research, and I found out this is actually a really cool thing. But Jeffrey, welcome back.
Jeffrey Anthony
Hey, it’s great to be back, Tom. I’m really excited to be back on with your guests here on Life Along the Streetcar.
Tom Heath
All right. Took you a trying to I think you’re undermining me now because you want your podcast to do much better. And I think my mom might be switching, so I’m a little concerned because I think she’s still my only listener. But hey, when did you start at the university?
Jeffrey Anthony
I started about a year ago, and I was brought in to help create a new matching system to connect all the researchers at the University of Arizona College of Education to primarily foundation funding opportunities.
Tom Heath
Yeah, we talked about this not too long after you started. And what I gathered from that. Maybe I’m wrong and this is not necessarily part of the podcast, but definitely kind of my intrigue with your role you had created almost, I want to call it like an artificial intelligence. Some kind of software that was really able to identify opportunities and needs and match these two up so that you are pursuing the right grants and everything was more streamlined. Is that fair?
Jeffrey Anthony
Yeah. This is tied into the podcast, because what I had done was essentially, I used to work for Pandora Radio for about 15 years or so as a musicologist working on the Music Genome Project. And I realized as I was working in this new role, that what I essentially did was recreate the Music Genome Project, but for the researchers at the College of Education. And I created a keyword schema, you could say, where I read one to three papers of every single researcher in the college, and there’s over a hundred. And I synthesized all this into a large database. And then I created a system to match those specific focuses of their research to research funding. What this really did was kind of was save a lot of time and make sure we weren’t putting opportunities in front of researchers that really weren’t meant for them. And this has actually led to more successful funding opportunities, which is great, and that’s what we were originally talking about. But it was through this process that I discovered
Jeffrey Anthony
just a great wealth and depth and variety of research that goes on in the College of Education, because I think a lot of people think of the College of Education as a place where you train teachers to become teachers. But what I learned once I started working there, that actually, there’s a lot going on that I had absolutely no idea. And that’s where I was like, this story needs to be told.
Tom Heath
So you start helping them identify grants for the research, and then the research sort of compels you to say, wait a minute, this is beyond what and again, I think I’m in the same boat as you and many other people. When you think of College of Education, I think of creating teachers. So you see all this research. What kinds of research kind of intrigued you?
Jeffrey Anthony
Well, there’s one of them who’s going to be our, I believe, fourth or fifth guest on the episode.
Tom Heath
Her name or you’re four or five guests ahead. I’m like scraping by week by week. Never mind, never mind. I’ll pick your brain about that later. But anyway, tell us about your guest.
Jeffrey Anthony
Yeah, so her name is Sung Ung Chung, and she does research on early childhood robotics. And so she works with TUSD students, actually to do research, which is funded by the way, through foundation funding. And she works with them on how do you program a robot, and how does a robot interact with a young child. But through this, the researchers are discovered. She discovers that children are able to develop an idea of, like a Stem identity, which is, like an identity that’s informed by technology and engineering and math that is much more rich and durable than the current methods, which where they teach students through, like, an iPad or a computer screen, and that using robots enable children to see different ways of how a program physically moves a robot. And I’m like, wow, well, that’s amazing. And in our discussion, she’s the one with the PhD. She explains it much better than I can, but that was really fascinating. And then there’s a socioeconomic studies around workforce development,
Jeffrey Anthony
which is what I used to do for the city of Tucson. So there’s several researchers at the College of Education that look at education and how that directly affects an environment’s economy through workforce development. And also the kind of the hurdles that first generation students face, and how finding ways to bridge those hurdles can have dramatic impacts not only on the individuals and not only on the families of the students. Who then? Progress through college successfully, but then on the local communities and how you’re creating new leaders and all these systems that are set up around that. I just never knew that was happening. And I also never knew how important that was to the economic development story, which, as you know, is a big thing for me as well. That’s just two examples that I can think of off the top of my head.
Tom Heath
And I like both of those examples for a couple of reasons. One is they are extremely fascinating, but it seems, at least the way I understood it, that the research was going down for a specific was headed in a certain direction. And then as it was uncovering more data, realized that there are additional threads, like with the robotics, there might have been an initial focus, but realized in that that this whole sort of additional world of research opened up in front of her.
Jeffrey Anthony
That’s correct. And then this person just got refunded again. That’s what we had talked about as well, because the funder saw the untapped potential that she had found in the initial round of research, which is really exciting to me to see this happen when you think ten years down the road, these are going to have transformative effects. Not for the researcher. I mean, of course it was going to help the researcher. It’s going to have transformative effects for all of us and all of our children, but also our communities and then also the economy as we go forward into this new era of AI and robotics and Stem focused.
Tom Heath
And it seems like the two stories that you shared with the robotics and early childhood development and then the workforce development, those seem to sort of dovetail different generations, but sort of that same timeline, like the same students. That are being evaluated now or the children being evaluated now are going to be part of that workforce development study in a few years.
Jeffrey Anthony
That’s right. That’s correct.
Tom Heath
Look at me. I’m getting things right. This is awesome. I love this. Talk to me about the title of your podcast. I find it very intriguing, the name of your podcast and how you got there.
Jeffrey Anthony
Okay, so, yeah, the inquiry oasis. So that was me. I came up with that. I came up with this idea to do a podcast. But then I was thinking, how can I weave in the themes of education and then also the themes of a lifelong learner? I’m hoping that this podcast, the goal, the end user, I’m hoping who want to listen are not just people in the field of education. My goal is for people who want to be like, lifelong learners. So that’s like the inquiry oasis. This is an oasis of knowledge that you can tap into and hopefully open a whole portal of further and deeper understandings of not just education, but just of our lived experiences. And a lot of this research that I read of our researchers is really focused. I think it has to do with the topic of education. But education is such an important role in our lives for the cultural effects and affects and also just the development of education and knowledge. So I kind of played around with I had about 15 titles, and then I spent a half a day and
Jeffrey Anthony
came up with the Inquiry Oasis. And when you listen to the podcast, the introduction will have a little theme music, which I wrote, and I played guitar and did a little hand clapping.
Tom Heath
Now you are just showing off because I can’t do my own theme music. I don’t have guests lined up. This is just embarrassing. I’m not even sure I’m going to air this one. Well, we did air it, and we’re suffering through our embarrassment as we talked to Jeffrey Anthony about his far superior podcast that is rolling out called The Inquiry Oasis. And we’ll finish up that interview in just a moment. First, I want to remind you that you’re listening to Life Along the Streetcar on Downtown Radio 99.1 FM, and we are streaming on downtownradio.org.
Tom Heath
Welcome back. We’re going to finish up that interview with Jeffrey Anthony. We’ve been talking about his podcast and his time over at the College of Education. Start to get into a little bit more depth into that podcast, what it’s covering and what it also means for the community. It’s not just information. I think there’s some impact that we’re going to see come out of this. And that’s kind of where we launch into the second part of our interview here with Jeffrey Anthony. So you’re talking a lot about this research, and ultimately, though, the College of Education still does prep teachers for the world, right? I mean, that’s what they’re doing. So this research is filtering into their techniques or their philosophy or how does this sort of interact with someone that might be graduating in the next two or three years and heading into a classroom.
Jeffrey Anthony
As I told you, we finished a recording for the first half of the first season. So through the first semester and then starting I’m going to start recording the second half of the season in the next couple of months here. And we’re going to add a question to every researcher and faculty member because they are faculty members. The question of how does this research impact your work in the classroom when you’re teaching students? Because I really do think that’s a very important question. And when I’ve been editing these podcasts, I’ve been listening to them and I’m like, the question you asked is perfect. And I don’t have a great answer for you right now because I haven’t been asking that exact question. But I think the idea that you brought this up and it’s also been on my mind. So that’s something that will be addressed because I find that obviously the research they’re doing is directly impacting how they teach in the school. And also grad students when they come to the College of Education,
Jeffrey Anthony
a lot of them are part of these research projects. They’re written into the grants so they can be employed through these grants and be written in. So as a grad student studying at the College of Education, you could be part of one of these projects. So that’s another audience that I’m hoping to reach with this podcast are future students who may be graduate students, PhD students who may be shopping colleges. They may come across this podcast and see how the faculty here at the University of Arizona are doing really cutting edge research and that will draw them.
Tom Heath
Here as the University of Arizona. Are we leading the pack in this or other universities addressing some of these same questions or different questions, or are we kind of taking unique approach?
Jeffrey Anthony
I wish I had the insight to say yes or no on that. I think that’s a great question. I don’t know if we’re leading the pack. I would definitely say from my own personal experience working and reading this research is that here’s one I can tell you about. So there’s the idea of this. I’ve done eight interviews, and in half of them there’s a technique called Funds of Knowledge. And funds of knowledge was created this is a research technique was created at the University of Arizona 25 years ago. And this is a technique that incorporates what can a family and the local community bring to a student’s experience in learning and also to the teacher as well. So it’s like a funds of knowledge through culture and community. And this Funds of knowledge lens is applied to a lot of the research that is done. And so that’s a direct result output of this college that was designed here. And there’s also something called YPAR, and I always mispronounce it, but it’s the youth led participatory action research.
Jeffrey Anthony
This is another sort of social justice term that’s used for community based research and that was not necessarily built here at the University of Arizona, but one of the leading researchers in the world that uses wide par, teaches at the university. And this lens is used in a lot of the different types of research. And this stuff is fascinating. So it’s definitely cutting edge. It’s definitely on the cutting edge of research for the College for Educational Research. I just say for me, because you know me a little bit outside of the podcast here. I’m a lifelong learner and being able to, as part of my job to read this research and to dive into the nuances of it, it’s been incredibly enriching for myself and that’s kind of I’m hoping I can share some of that through the podcast. This excitement of this knowledge being generated, but also the transformative effects that this research will have on our community and beyond.
Tom Heath
I find it very exciting for me as a host of a podcast, to sort of represent the audience and ask the questions of the individuals that as a listener, I would want to know. I mean, ultimately, I don’t care what people like. I just do a show for me and then if they like it, that’s fantastic. But I’m really just sort of putting myself in their shoes as far as what do they want to know. And I think you’re going to be great at sort of parsing out some of these conversations and translating academics to life, because I think that’s a missing piece. A lot of these things that you’re talking about are so high up on the theoretical and the intellectual chain that people may not fully grasp what’s happening, but you’re able then to sort of translate that. And I don’t want to say dumb it down, but bring it into a language that we might understand differently.
Jeffrey Anthony
That is the ultimate goal. And I have to say that the main reason this is happening is that I brought this to my boss, who’s the dean of research in the college, Sara Shabaria, and she went to the dean. Who is Dean Barry? His name is Robert Q. Barry. He’s a new dean. He started a year ago. He started two weeks before me. But I went with them with my vision, which I said, I want to take this kind of high, this theoretical knowledge and weave in some narratives. And really it’s the why. Why is this research important not only for the person conducting the research, but also why is it important for our community? And they fully got behind me with this and they just said, you know, Jeff, we believe in you and you just do what you and I really think this is why it came out to be as it is. And the episodes are really coming together. They really focus on the narrative and it’s not so much focused on the theory, but it’s the theory that’s making it so exciting. But it really comes through the
Jeffrey Anthony
narrative. And I appreciate that. The College of Education has supported this and allowed me to kind of find my way to getting to the point where we’ve now released the first one, which is with the dean of the college, which Robert Q. Berry. And then the second episode, which will be coming out on September 6, will be Regina Deal Amend. Dr. Regina Deal Amend. And she deals with transfer students from community college into four year colleges, specifically on Stem fields. And that one’s fascinating, and that also is very important to the economy and stuff. But this is all me. Getting a little bit of a tangent here, but the College of Education has been very supportive of this and I’m really happy that I’ve been able to produce these. And I think the community is really going to enjoy listening to these episodes.
Tom Heath
How long typically do one of your episodes last?
Jeffrey Anthony
Yeah, they are between 16 to 22 minutes long. With the first one with the dean? Yeah, the first one with the dean is about 30 minutes because we get into some longer stories there. But yeah, the average length, I would say, is 18 minutes. And it’s a nice, like you’re driving to work. That’s perfect.
Tom Heath
Yeah. That’s fantastic. And where do people find the inquiry oasis or inquiry oasis?
Jeffrey Anthony
Yeah, it’s the inquiry oasis. They can find it on all of the podcast platforms. And also, if you go to the College of Education website, we have a tab there that says Podcasts. And you can see some of the other podcasts that are available at the College of Education along with the Inquiry Oasis.
Tom Heath
You got this thing dialed in. I’m excited to see how this rolls out, and I know with your ability to sort of plan and craft a good ending, I’m looking forward to the trajectory of this podcast. Thank you for your time. Thank you for what you do in our community, making Tucson great, doing great things for us, and I appreciate you.
Jeffrey Anthony
Well, thank you, Tom. And thank you for producing this podcast, Life on the Streetcar, because it’s really important that these stories are being told.
Tom Heath
That was Jeffrey Anthony telling you how important my role is in the community, and we appreciate him for that. This is Life Along the Streetcar, and we’re playing on Downtown Radio 99.1 FM and streaming on downtownradio.org.
Tom Heath
So I get this question a lot. Is it a podcast or a radio show. What exactly do you do? Well, lifelong streetcar is a show. It’s a radio show on downtown radio. And that’s what you’re listening to Sunday mornings at 11:00 a.m.. And then we make a few edits to it and we put it out there in the virtual world where it can be downloaded and listened to on different platforms. Or you can just hang on to it on your computer and save it for a day when you’ve got nothing to do but learn about downtown and the urban core. But that’s what makes it a podcast, is that second component. So we are fortunate to be housed on downtown radio and have been for almost six years now as a radio show and a very small part of a tremendously powerful lineup. And we are grateful for that spot. And then the rebroadcast of it with, again, a few edits to remove some of the radio specific information. Then it gets out there in the world. So some people will say it’s a podcast, some will say it’s a show. For me, I’m just
Tom Heath
happy that people are listening and paying attention and recommending stories for us to share. If you know of something that’s out there, as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, it’s fall. This is when things really start to pop. For the next several months here in Tucson, we’ve got a good grasp on things that are the major events. But what about those hidden gems, things that kind of fall under the radar that would be fun for us to share? I encourage you to go to Facebook and Instagram and tag us in one of those. Next week we’re going to have the team, Stuart and Kelner from Juniper. It’s a new gin bar that just opened and we’re going to kind of talk with them next week about why gin bar and what exactly that means here in downtown. But it’s in the Iron John’s Tap room space that was on Congress. It’s now called Juniper and they just launched over the weekend. And maybe I’ll check that out tonight on my way to see A Tale of Two Houses. And I’ll just make it a life along the Streetcar
Tom Heath
evening. How beautiful would that be? And this coming Friday, I also want to make you aware july, july. I wish it was still the middle of summer when it was 120 degrees. September eigth at the Tucson Gallery, Lori Kay, she’s a local artist, very popular in many circles. She’s doing an event called Meet the Artist. And she’s unveiling a new piece. And I have gotten a sneak peek at it. And it’s based upon the Sonoran hot dog, but it takes it to a whole new level. So that’s going to be at the Tucson Gallery, 300 East Congress. That’ll be from roughly six to eight. No cost to get in. There will be some alcoholic beverages and non alcoholic beverages for purchase and I believe there might be hot dogs brought in. I’m not 100% sure on that, but the art will definitely be there. And stay tuned. Just a few minutes, we got Ted Prozelski coming up with words and work as he interviews people in Tucson that are members of the labor or labor movement or their writers. Always an interesting topic with
Tom Heath
him there. And, yeah, lots of stuff going on as we leave you today. We thought since our feature guest talked about the inquiry oasis, we’d leave you with a thirst for knowledge. As always, I want to thank Ryan Hood for the music that opens us up. And we’re going to leave with Ben Watt from a 1983 album, north Marine Drive. Hope you have a great week and tune in next Sunday for more life along the streetcar.
