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Why Lori chose Rider

Lori grew up with Rider as a big part of her life, as a “native Trentonian,” her grandparents would have cookouts on the Rider fields, and her father achieved his master’s from Rider. Having always had fond positive memories of Rider, and knowing about Rider's academic reputation, it was a no brainer for Lori when she learned about the Ed.D. program from one of her former professors.

Lori's time at Rider

After getting accepted to the second cohort of the Ed.D program, she found it all new and scary. Luckily for Lori, she had the opportunity to meet, connect and build relationships with “phenomenal” professors and fellow educators. 

Lori’s dissertation was titled “Development of and intervention to increase pre-service teacher’s knowledge of critical thinking through writing and enable transfer of that knowledge into their teaching practice.”

The dissertation had three goals, to provide critical thinking instruction to pre-service teachers, increase pre-service teacher’s ability to teach and assess critical thinking, and using writing as a vehicle to assess critical thinking. Lori is always looking for ways to improve as an educator, and ways to get kids excited about learning as well as preparing them for the 21st century. 

She is focused on innovators for the future, and breeding success. She wanted to develop a test for intervention for pre-service teachers focused on critical thinking, because right now everything is centered around it. “Dogmatism” is at its peak right now, with everyone questioning what is real and what is fake, that’s where critical thinking comes in. This will result in innovation, creativity and problem solving being prevalent in our future generations, “tapping into students' natural inquisitiveness,” she said about her work.

Lori's advice for future Ed.D. students

Due to it being a very rigorous program, Lori says “Be committed to the work.” Some things have to go on the backburner in life. It is a short term sacrifice, for a long term reward. Take advantage of networking, and “be open to change, and working outside of the box.” 

“I would highly recommend Rider’s program to educators looking forward to impacting our students in a new positive way.”