Tina Matuchniak

Ph.D. Student
Department of Education

Email: tmatuchn@uci.edu

Biography

Born and raised in Bombay [Mumbai], India, Tina Matuchniak began her educational career as a student of Chemistry, earning her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Bombay in 1986. As her professional interests turned toward teaching, she earned her BA in English and MA in literacy studies from CSU Long Beach. She is now an expert in the field of literacy and, since 2000, has taught in the departments of English and Liberal Studies, helping students develop their critical reading and writing skills and preparing English Education majors to become writing teachers. Additionally, she has taught ESL at Coastline Community College, Developmental Reading at Orange Coast College, and an Online Advanced Writing course for prospective elementary school teachers at CSU Monterey Bay. Last year, she served as the Assistant Director of the Writer’s Resource Lab at CSULB. Tina’s most favorite “job,” though, is as a faculty mentor to four first-generation college students at CSULB.

As a first year doctoral student in the Department of Education at UCI, Tina will be specializing in Language, Literacy, and Technology. She is especially interested in looking at the literacies of first-year, under-prepared, under-represented students, with a view to, possibly, using technology to bridge the gap between their literacy experiences and skills and the literacy expectations of the university.

This past year (2007-2008), Tina has worked on several projects as follows:

• The Beach Learning Community Program – A year-long program aimed at providing support services (both instructional as well as socio-affective) to 150 of the most academically needy incoming freshmen at CSULB. Tina served as faculty liaison on this project.
• India-CSU Collaborative – Tina traveled to Lucknow, India with a team from the Education Department at CSULB with a view to setting up an international classroom between the University of Lucknow and CSULB. Her work there was part of larger initiative to set up partnerships between Indian Universities and CSULB.
• Carnegie Academy on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning – Tina serves as the CSULB campus co-leader of the “Student Voices” group of the CASTL project. This group is charged with including student voices in the scholarship of teaching and learning. To that end, Tina invited a group of graduate students from the English department to work with her and another faculty member on the revision and re-design of a senior level English course at CSULB. The group later presented their findings at the “Festival on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning” at Western Washington University, Washington.

Presentations and Awards

• WASC ARC, San Diego, California, April 2008 – She presented her findings on the assessment of the in-class tutoring services provided to students in the Beach Learning Community program at CSULB.
• Festival on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Bellingham, Washington, April 2008 – Tina delivered the collaborative keynote address at the opening session of the conference.

Tina was awarded the prestigious Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award at CSULB in 2007.

Publications

• Matuchniak, T., & Warschauer, M. (2010). Equity in technology access and opportunities. In Eva Baker, Penelope Peterson and Barry McGaw (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Education (3rd ed.), London: Elsevier.