Research

As a researcher, I explore what and how people learn through creative production in both formal and informal learning settings. In particular, I investigate how cultural contexts (ranging from informal music communities to math classrooms) both produce and restrict different types of curricula, pedagogies, and knowledge. While extant research shows that creative production holds the potential to empower individuals, the unexamined cultural forces within formal and informal curricula often reproduce systemic forms of oppression.

Through my research practice, I have found that investigating the historical and cultural contexts surrounding creative production demands a critical and interdisciplinary approach. In response, my work draws equally from curriculum studies, the learning sciences, cultural studies, art education research, and visual cultures. I approach this work through a number of philosophical lenses including poststructuralism, posthumanism, critical race theory, and feminist theory and draw from a variety of methodological standpoints including ethnography, design-based research, text analysis, object studies, and arts-based research. Findings from this work reveal unexplored, unique, and culturally situated ways of knowing and learning embedded within networks of interconnected and agentic actors (ranging from teachers and students to technologies, environments, and historical forces).

Repository

A repository of my work can be found here, featuring open access versions of most of my articles.

Recent Refereed Journal Articles

Woods, P. J., & Ortega, Y. (2024). Scenes of entanglement: Towards a posthuman understanding of the transglobal noise music scene. DIY, Alternative Cultures & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/27538702241305690

Woods, P. J. (2024). Bearing Witness to Violence Through Noise: A Critical Exploration of Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck’s Affective Curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 39(1b), 65-75. https://journal.jctonline.org/index.php/jct/article/view/1231

Woods, P. J., Matuk, C., DesPortes, K., Vacca, R., Tes, M., Vasudevan, V., & Amato, A. (2024). Reclaiming the right to look: Making the case for critical visual literacy and data science education. Critical Studies in Education, 65(5), 441–459. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2023.2298198

Woods, P. J., & Copur-Gencturk, Y. (2024). Examining the role of student-centered versus teacher-centered pedagogical approaches to self-directed learning through teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 138, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2023.104415

Woods, P. J. (2024). Conceptualizing Anti-Racist Pedagogies Within Experimental Music’s Community of Practice. Adult Education Quarterly, 74(1), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/07417136231198218

Woods, P. J. (2023). The abject pleasures of militarised noise. Culture, Theory and Critique, 64(1–2), 196–211. https://doi.org/10.1080/14735784.2023.2265085

Woods, P. J. (2023). Shitposting as public pedagogy. Curriculum Inquiry, 53(4), 359–380. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2023.2272988

Recent Refereed Conference Papers

Woods, P. J. (2024). Mapping a School-based Ecology of Learning In and Through Music. Proceedings of the 2024 Annual Meeting of the International Society of the Learning Sciences, 1275–1278. https://repository.isls.org//handle/1/10676

Vacca, R., Matuk, C., Woods, P.J., DesPortes, K., Amato, A., & Silander, M. (2024). Scoping the Terrain of Data Stories in the Social Media Wild. In Proceedings of the 2024 Annual Meeting of the International Society of the Learning Sciences. (p. 1786-1789). https://doi.org/10.22318/icls2024.877432

Woods, P. J. (2023). Musical Agency in Experimental Music Education. In Proceedings of the 2023 Annual Meeting of the International Society of the Learning Sciences. (p. 826-829). https://2023.isls.org/proceedings/

Woods, P. J., & Elliott, C. E. (2023). Deadline Extensions as Public Pedagogy: Envisioning the Ethics of Care in Academic Conferences. In Proceedings of the 2023 Annual Meeting of the International Society of the Learning Sciences. (p. 1985-1986) https://2023.isls.org/proceedings/

Woods, P. J., Farid, A. M., Lin, G. C., & Anderson, E. (2023). Embodied Math Learning Through Design Friction: An Argument in Favor of Flawed Tools. In Proceedings of the 2023 Annual Meeting of the International Society of the Learning Sciences. (p. 1786-1787) https://2023.isls.org/proceedings/