Open SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador 2018 – Buffalo: Ryan Rish

Ryan Rish, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Learning and Instruction at the University at Buffalo’s Graduate School of Education. Ryan’s research interests involve the literacy practices of adolescents, especially in regard to how those practices relate to the institutions, social spaces, and geographic places in which they are enacted. This research includes investigations within and across classrooms, online spaces, and communities guided by concerns for learning with participants how to make learning opportunities more equitable for marginalized youth and how to engage students with critical considerations of their social worlds and local communities. Recent projects focus on supporting student inquiry with digital tools that allow for the collection and dissemination of locative data and media.

I view online teaching primarily as a means for providing learning opportunities to people who otherwise could not take advantage of on-campus classes due to limitations of access and mobility.