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Wesley Shumar, Ph.D.

Department Head; Professor of Anthropology

Wesley Shumar

Office: PSA 117
Phone: (215) 895-2060
Email: shumarw@drexel.edu

Website(s): shumarw.com

Education

  • Ph.D., Cultural Anthropology, Temple University, 1991

Research and Teaching Interests

  • New Media
  • Social Space
  • Ethnography and Education
  • Semiotic of Consumer Culture

Research Projects

  • 2005-Present Co-principal Investigator - Leadership Development for Technology Integration: Developing an Effective NSDL Teacher Workshop Model.
  • 2003-Present Co-principal Investigator - Virtual Math Teams.
  • 2002-2005 Principal Investigator - Online Mentoring Project.
  • 2004-2006 Ethnographer - The Concord Model Project.

Biography

Wesley Shumar is a cultural anthropologist.

Since 1997 Dr. Shumar worked as an ethnographer at the Math Forum, a virtual math education community and resource center. Currently he is Principal Investigator on The Math Forum's Virtual Fieldwork Sequence: a three-year NSF project at the Math Forum that is investigating the potential of this online educational community to affect the culture of math education for preservice teachers. He was also a co-Principal Investigator on Leadership Development for Technology Integration: Developing an Effective NSDL Teacher Workshop Model. This project is a three-year NSF project to develop and refine a hybrid workshop model that supports teachers to integrate National Science Digital Library (NSDL) resources and technologies into their classrooms with an immediate goal to directly engage over 1,000 teachers, grades 5-9.

Selected Publications

  • Porpora, D. & Shumar, W. Self Talk and Self Reflection: A View from the U.S., in Margaret S. Archer (Ed.) Conversations about Reflexivity. London, New York: Routledge, 2010.
  • Shumar, W. Interaction, Imagination and Community Building at the Math Forum. In D. Akoumianakis (Ed.), Virtual Community Practices and  Social Interactive Media. Hershey, PA: IGI Global Inc, 2009.
  • Joyce Canaan and Wesley Shumar (Eds.) Structure and Agency in the Neoliberal University. New York: Routledge, 2008.
  • K. Ann Renninger and Wesley Shumar (Eds.). Building Virtual Communities: Learning and Change in Cyberspace. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
  • College for Sale: A Critique of the Commodification of Higher Education. London: Falmer Press, 1997.