Kristen Chorba, Ph.D.

Office of Digital Learning 
Main Library, Fifth Floor
The University of Arizona 
Tucson, AZ 85721

Phone: (520) 226-4769
Email: Kchorba@email.arizona.edu

Kristen Chorba is an instructional designer for the Office of Digital Learning at The University of Arizona. Previously, Kristen worked as an instructional designer for the College of Communication and Information at Kent State University (Ohio), where she also completed her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and a master’s degree in Higher Education Administration. As an instructional designer, Kristen works with faculty to develop and enhance online and hybrid courses.

For the past several years, Kristen has collaborated with (Taos Associate) Anne Morrison, researching a peer mentoring and relational learning project which involves primarily undergraduate teacher education majors, and is led by Anne. Kristen’s dissertation (2013) focused on this mentoring project and incorporated reflecting processes, photo elicitation, and phenomenological interviewing to describe the experiences of these mentors and continue the conversation regarding what it is to be a mentor. Kristen has also developed a workshop on mentoring based, in part, on this research. The workshop, Mentoring Basics: Using Peer Engagement in Learning, is taught fully online, through Kent State University.

Kristen and Anne have presented locally and nationally about relational learning and peer mentoring, focusing specifically on the outcomes and insights gathered through their research on this mentoring project. Kristen’s research interests include teacher education, mentoring, relational learning, and online education.

Most recently, Kristen and Anne co-authored a chapter on Relational Learning in Education, which appears in the Taos Institute’s WorldShare book, Education as Social Construction: Contributions to Theory, Research and Practice (2015, Dragonas, Gergen, McNamee, & Tseliou, Eds.). The book can be accessed free of charge at: http://www.taosinstitute.net/education-as-social-construction

Kristen has also worked with the Taos Institute to highlight projects and/or research by Associates who engage in relational practices in education. Stories have been featured about projects that include co-creating schools through Appreciative Inquiry; peer mentoring; wellness education in schools; and youth-led positive dialogue for change. These stories can be found under the Taos website’s Resources Tab, with the heading Relational Learning in Education, or by following this link: www.taosinstitute.net/relational-learning-in-education