Dr. Shannon H. Doak has over 23 years of experience in international schools and abroad, as both an educator and a leader. He has taught various grade levels at every division. He is an expert in blended learning, eLearning, and making professional development more effective. He holds an Ed.D. and a Masters in Educational Technology, a degree certificate in school technology coordination, and a Bachelor of Education in Elementary Education. He has been at the forefront of changing the digital and educational landscape of the schools he has worked for. He is continually looking for ways technology can improve teaching and learning.
His doctoral dissertation: Social Media as a Personal Learning Network for Professional Development: Teachers in International Schools Use and Perspectives was a mixed-methods study with a three-fold purpose: (a) to discover if international school educators are using social media for professional learning and if so, what tools they are choosing to use, (b) to discover if a relationship exists between the use of social media tools for informal professional learning and change in the pedagogical practices used by the teachers in international schools; and finally, (c) to describe how the use of social media may lead to a change in pedagogical practice. Revealed in the findings was that international school teachers use various social media tools that meet specific needs, to build a PLN. Through intentional action, international school educators supplemented professional development and changed their teaching practice creating an expanded and more authentic, constructivist learning environment. The PLNs in this study were able to reduce or remove the major concerns regarding professional development in international schools such as cost, contextual relevance, unvaried approaches and limited time. A copy of my dissertation can be attained here.
In October of 2014, he was awarded a certificate of excellence for demonstrating a repeatable high level of performance in the practice-ware training in leadership, collaboration, active listening, situational awareness and effective use of interpersonal skills from SimuLearn Inc.
He comes from Hawaii. In 1997 after completing his first degree, he moved to China to teach Kindergarten level ESL. He fell in love with the rich culture and the people and
ended up living in Guangzhou for four and a half years and then after a four-year stint back in the U.S. 11 years at the American International School of Guangzhou. He has spent 5 years from 2016-2021 as the Educational Technologist at Hawaii Preparatory Academy. His family has recently moved back to China. He is currently the Director of Technology at Nanjing International School.
He is IB PYP trained and has 11 years of experience teaching in an inquiry-based curriculum. He has also supported classroom projects as well as capstone projects in both elementary and middle school.
His wife is a Chinese teacher who has taught Mandarin in grades K-12. She is IB PYP and AP trained. She holds a Masters of Education with a focus on English as a Second Language and Chinese as a Second Language (CSL). She is certified to teach CSL and ELL. She is currently an ELL teacher at Nanjing International School.