Katie Headrick Taylor
· Associate ProfessorVerifiedUniversity of Washington · Education
Active 1985–2025
About
Katie Headrick Taylor is an Associate Professor in the College of Education at the University of Washington, specializing in the Learning Sciences & Human Development. Her research re-imagines the possibilities of public education by creating and studying digitally mediated, intergenerational learning opportunities. She centers collaboration and reciprocity with children, parents, retirees, and educators in schools and community-serving organizations. Her work aims to contribute new theoretical perspectives on learning with technology that foreground race, class, culture, gender, and place, while also fostering social transformations within local communities. Her research, teaching, and service reflect these commitments and have made contributions to the field of learning sciences and education research more broadly. She has been involved in initiatives such as Mobile City Science and Unite:Ed, and teaches courses including Critical Digital Literacies, Design-based Research Methods, and Digital Ethnography. Her scholarly work includes publications on topics such as connected STEM, mobility and learning, place-making, and the role of public education in community and place remaking.
Research topics
- Sociology
- Computer Science
- Social Science
- Political Science
- Pedagogy
- Epistemology
- Visual arts
- Medicine
- Pediatrics
- Internal medicine
- Emergency medicine
Selected publications
2025-01-01
article1st authorCorresponding2025-01-01
article1st authorCorresponding2025-01-01
article1st authorCorrespondingClimate Education for Justice: Navigating Geographies, Data, and Agency
Proceedings. · 2025-06-10
articleOpen accessThis symposium brings together diverse research exploring the intersections of climate change education, social justice, and community empowerment.As climate change increasingly impacts vulnerable populations, the importance of integrating justice-oriented approaches in K-12 education becomes urgent.Studies featured in this symposium investigate how climate education can leverage community strengths, foster empathy through quantitative reasoning, and critique the racialized nature of data to promote environmental justice.Presentations will examine innovative uses of data in teaching, highlighting its role in addressing inequities and engaging students in climate justice advocacy.Key themes include fostering climate agency through cross-disciplinary approaches, rethinking the "natural disaster" narrative to highlight systemic inequalities, and designing professional learning programs to equip educators with tools to navigate climate-related injustices.Together, these studies underscore the need for inclusive, justice-focused climate education that empowers students to engage meaningfully with the climate crisis and advocate for systemic change.
The Journal of Child Life Psychosocial Theory and Practice · 2025-12-08
articleOpen accessObjective Certified Child Life Specialists (CCLSs) are at risk for increased stress, compassion fatigue, and burnout. The Association of Child Life Professionals (ACLP) recommends that CCLSs receive ongoing, regular clinical supervision. Despite this recommendation, there is a lack of information regarding clinical supervision as currently provided to CCLSs and its impact on professional quality of life. Thus, the goal of this study is to explore professional quality of life, including compassion satisfaction, perceived social support, burnout, secondary trauma, and moral distress, in CCLSs who participated in a virtual clinical supervision program. Method This is an exploratory mixed methods study. In this exploratory study, a total of 22 CCLS who participated in a virtual clinical supervision program completed pre- and post-test surveys using the Professional Quality of Life Scale Health (ProQOL Health) to better understand the impacts of clinical supervision on their professional quality of life. This measure includes subscales for compassion satisfaction, perceived support, burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and moral distress. Results The results of performed t-tests indicated that ProQOL Health scores did not significantly change after participating in the virtual clinical supervision program. Conclusion The findings of this study highlight the importance of exploring the efficacy of clinical supervision and how virtual programs meet the diverse and individualized needs of child life specialists. These results suggest that future supervision programs should explore how work factors impact clinical supervision program efficacy to provide more targeted support to CCLS in various roles and environments.
BJPsych Open · 2024-06-01
articleOpen accessAims In light of increasing referral rates, the RQIP aimed to review all referrals made to PLT by the ED during April 2023. The purpose was to identify ways to improve working practices to benefit patients, the ED team and the PLT. Methods All ED referrals in April 2023 were identified and the following was gathered from each record. Patient information: 1. Record number, sex, age Circumstances of attendance: 2. Date/time 3. Who directed patient to ED and arrival method 4. Attendance reason 5. Presence/absence of physical health condition requiring ED 6. Intoxication on arrival and if assessment required after sobriety 7. Outcome Patient involvement with other services: 8. Number of previous PLT referrals in past 90 days 9. Currently under care of another team, if yes, were they contacted before ED attendance 10. Contact with crisis team in previous 72hours Results During April 2023 there were 356 referrals from ED to PLT. 284 represented single attendances and 72 represented repeat attendances by 44 patients. 34% (n = 123) self-presented to ED. Emergency services directed 21% (n = 75) to ED. 71% (n = 253) had physical health reasons to attend whilst the rest presented with mental health crisis alone (n = 103). 25% of patients attending ED and referred to PLT were intoxicated and a third of these did not require assessment following sobriety. 41% (n = 145) patients were open to another mental health team within the trust who could potentially have provided crisis input. Of all referrals 27% (n = 97) were signposted to other services, 26% (n = 93) left before they were seen. PLT referred 11% (n = 40) to crisis teams and 3% (n = 11) to Mental Health Act assessment. Conclusion Findings indicate that a large proportion of patients attending ED could have had their mental health needs met elsewhere in the absence of a medical reason for attending, thus potentially avoiding long waits in ED. Patients that are referred but leave before assessment, those without acute medical need to be in ED, those that do not require assessment after sobriety or those open to other planned care mental health teams may have their needs best met outside of the acute ED environment. It is hoped that community transformation work will enable community services to become more responsive to such needs. The team propose working collaboratively with the acute trust and trialling embedding a PLT clinician in the ED triage process in order to redirect patients to the most appropriate care in a timely way.
Cultural Studies of Science Education · 2024-09-18 · 2 citations
article1st authorCorrespondingPerspectives on early childhood psychology and education /Perspectives on early childhood psychology and education · 2023-02-07 · 9 citations
articleOpen access1st authorCorrespondingThe following article is a literature review of the guiding principles for universal design for learning (UDL) specifically for early childhood education with implications for children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH). In recent years, early childhood education has become more inclusive for all children with and without disabilities. Given that educators need to plan lessons and design their classrooms with every child in mind prior to meeting them, guidance on the UDL framework is warranted. DHH children present unique barriers in the classroom. This article walks through the three guiding principles, engagement, representation, and expression along with integration of assistive technology for DHH children and their educators. Three future directions for integrating the UDL framework into the classroom are included. They are (a) educator preparation programs, (b) school district’s professional development, and (c) select available technology web-based resources.
Lifespans of Civic Engagement: Imagining and Enacting Justice-Centered Civic Learning Trajectories
Proceedings. · 2023-10-03
articleOpen accessThis symposium widens the lens on "what counts" as civic engagement to include social movements, acts of dissent, and counter-narratives that center the voices and rights of BIPOC youth and elders, people without homes, and immigrants.The authors all share a commitment to learning that moves beyond the walls of a classroom, from immigrants members of decision-making bodies across the state of Oregon; to the streets and sidewalks of Seattle neighborhoods, to libraries and community walks in the Southeastern US; to the online political engagement of BIPOC undergraduate students during the 2021-2022 school year; and finally to an out of school design-build program for Black and Brown high-school-age girls of color.By bringing together these myriad learning environments in one symposium, we emphasize how civic learning trajectories are best supported by a diversity of settings which mutually reinforce individuals' and collective agencies, interests, and civic opportunities.
Live Zoom Room: Understanding How Young People Build Joy and Connection Online
Proceedings. · 2023-10-03
articleOpen accessSenior authorIn online learning through Zoom, focusing on joy has been a useful strategy to resist deficit narratives about youth of color during the Covid-19 pandemic.To better understand designing and facilitating joyful STEM learning, we explore unique interactional phenomena in "Live Zoom Room," an online, out-of-school cooking program, World through Food.We performed interaction analysis on video data to identify semiotic resources and themes that contributed to joyful moments.Findings revealed that participants drew from common sets of tools and resources to cook and communicate through Zoom and improvised while doing so.These resources allowed participants to be themselves online, and to build on each other's actions, forming a foundation of joyful STEM learning experience.
Recent grants
EAGER: Mobile City Science: Youth Mapping Community Learning Opportunities
NSF · $300k · 2016–2019
Frequent coauthors
- 56 shared
Leslie Rupert Herrenkohl
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
- 54 shared
Nichole Pinkard
- 53 shared
Steven Cederquist
University of Colorado Boulder
- 53 shared
Lo Lee
- 53 shared
Denise Jones
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
- 53 shared
Barry Fishman
University of California, Irvine
- 53 shared
Xingjian Gu
University of Washington
- 53 shared
A.G. Samuelson
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
Education
Ph.D.
Vanderbilt University
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