Classroom Caffeine
Classroom Caffeine
Special Edition: The Graduate Effect and How Advanced Study Transforms Educators
What happens when educators pursue advanced degrees? For Dr. Jenifer Jasinski Schneider, it sparked a remarkable journey from classroom teacher to interim dean of the College of Education at the University of South Florida.
"When you train your brain in research modes and analyze situations from different perspectives, it fundamentally changes how you think," Dr. Schneider explains. This cognitive shift doesn't just make you a better practitioner—it reshapes your entire approach to education. Graduate education also surrounds you with a community of passionate scholars exploring similar questions through multiple lenses.
For those considering graduate school, Dr. Schneider offers straightforward advice: "There's never a perfect time—you're never going to have enough money or be at the right place at the right time—so just go for it." The investment transforms not just your practice but your entire self. Approach graduate education as an opportunity for deep personal growth, not just assignments to complete.
Applications for a Spring 2026 start in USF graduate programs are due TODAY on Oct. 15. Learn more here: https://hubs.li/Q03J88bv0
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In recent years, we've seen a strong and steady increase in graduate education for teachers and school leaders. Nationally, more than about 40% of practicing educators now hold a graduate degree, and those who do often report expanded career opportunities, higher salaries and deeper professional enjoyment. Even as some other graduate disciplines have declined in enrollment, colleges of education continue to see educators invest in advanced study to strengthen their practice and broaden their impact. Welcome to this special series of Classroom Caffeine where we're talking with friends, old and new, about their journey to and through graduate school. I'm your host, Lindsay Persohn.
Lindsay Persohn:This special series, produced in collaboration with the University of South Florida's Literacy Studies Program in the College of Education and USF's Innovative Education, explores the question what is the value of graduate education for educators? In each episode, we hear from faculty and teacher leaders who share how advanced study and education shape their thinking, their work and their professional lives. Whether you're considering graduate school or guiding others on that path, this series will help give you insight, encouragement and real stories from the field. Dr. Jenifer Jasinski Schneider is a professor and the interim dean in the College of Education at the University of South Florida. Her research focuses on children's composing processes and arts-based approaches to literacy education, in which aspects of process drama and children's literature support students' symbolic development of meaning-making strategies. She also examines the ways in which digital tools affect literate practices. Dr. Schneider, thanks so much for talking with me for a few minutes today about your journey in higher education.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:I'm very glad to be here. Thank you for asking me.
Lindsay Persohn:Yeah, thanks. So could you tell us about your path through higher ed? Where did you study? What led you to pursue graduate work, those kinds of things?
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:Well, I started off with my undergraduate degree in elementary education. I went to the University of South Florida and had that degree in elementary education and I started teaching. Both of my parents were teachers, so I was very familiar with the job. But then doing it for myself and learning about it in a different way, that really helped me to understand teaching. So going to school to become a teacher, you learn about the profession from a very different perspective. And when I was done I finished in the middle of the year, in the middle of the school year, and I started in February. But I didn't have a job. So I left my undergraduate degree and immediately started a master's. So in the spring semester when I started, I had started a master's degree and then got my very first job and just tried my very best to get through the end of that year. But I started the master's because I really love learning and I just felt I wanted to continue and understand what I was studying in a deeper level. And so in the master's degree that's where I really felt everything come together in my teaching, where I really looked at it. I was reading research for the first time and understanding things and studying my own practice in a way that I hadn't done as an undergraduate, and I just I really love that. So as I was coasting along, teaching, then getting my master's at the same time, and then I was done and I, first time in my life not being in school, I thought, well, now, what am I going to do? I really love teaching, I really did so. But I had a friend who's getting a PhD in special education and I was talking to him about it and I just thought I don't know if I could do that. That seems like really out of my league and I don't know why. I thought that because I was always really good at school. So, but you know, it's something foreign and you don't, you don't really know it, and I thought he was encouraging me to do it.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:And so I started looking around and I wanted to go somewhere else. I had both of my degrees from USF and I wanted to try something different. And so I was looking around and I talked to my professor about a good place to study children's literature. I was really interested in that and my master's was in elementary with a concentration in language arts. So I was looking at the best programs around the country. And this is back in the olden days, before the internet, where you went to the library and they had catalogs from all the universities across the country and you would look through the catalog to see what programs they offered. So I was looking through and then you'd pull out a paper, They'd send it to you, send it off, and then they send you an application packet. And so I found out. I looked at Ohio State, I looked at Penn State, I looked at Notre Dame. I talked to my professors. They said, oh, Ohio State really has one of the best literacy programs in the country.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:And then I applied and got my PhD and through that process that to me was the single best decision of my life. To get my PhD, to go to a place where I was fully immersed in it. Fortunately I was able to save money, go there full time as a student and to do my PhD in that way. So basically, my master's degree. I really felt it helped me become a better practitioner but also exposed me to research. And then the PhD was more of total immersion in research, to understand and kind of change the trajectory of education in a way. So I loved being a teacher. I loved being better at it. Then I found the research side and I never went with that plan.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:But when I was at Ohio State I was a graduate assistant and I started working in teacher education and I thought, okay, I can do this. And then, when I was done there, I applied for the job. I looked, applying for jobs everywhere. There was a job at USF and I got it, which is very rare and hard thing to do. But I came back to where I started and I've been here ever since. So I started here as an assistant professor in literacy studies.
Lindsay Persohn:That's great. One thing I've really enjoyed about these conversations is learning about how everyone's path has unfolded differently, and, of course, there are a lot of common threads too, like this idea that you kind of thought you might know where you're going, but you didn't really know exactly, and that resonates with me too. I was in the exact same boat, as I was working on a master's degree and a PhD. Thought well, I don't know where I'm going, but it seems like it's someplace good.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:Yeah, I just really like learning, and I felt it made me better as a teacher, and everything I did learning more it made me better, and so that's what drove me.
Lindsay Persohn:Yeah, yeah, I can totally echo that.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:I did not have a career outcome on the backside of it I had the learning was the driving force.
Lindsay Persohn:Yes, yeah, same for me, same for me. So, on that note, in what ways has graduate study in general shaped how you think about teaching, learning and leadership?
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:Well, I think when you train your brain in the research modes and you're really looking at and analyzing situations and trying to understand different perspectives, when you're bringing research lenses to what you're doing, it ultimately changes how you think, and that's what happened through graduate study. Is I changed the way I think. I didn't accept things at face value. I didn't just because someone told me or that's the way it's always been. I realized that I needed to understand, I needed to investigate, I needed to know, and when I teach in a class now or talking about research in general, it's a long conversation that's been happening and you're joining that conversation at a point in time. So you have to know what people before you have said, what they have understood, what ways of thinking have they brought to this event, and then what are we going to do now to understand it further.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:That then will direct the future. It really fundamentally shifted the way I think, how I approach everything in my life. It also gave me new friends and experiences that I never would have had before. So just graduate school was really profoundly groundbreaking for me and I say that to students all the time. It's not just for yourself, but your relationships, your friends, the way that you, the people you work with everything can change in really good and productive ways when you have this kind of experience.
Lindsay Persohn:I think that the image that keeps coming to my mind as I'm having these conversations with you all, my wonderful colleagues, is that I feel like the undergraduate experience is maybe something like a 300-piece puzzle and you're just trying to figure out what the big picture is and how it all goes together. But then you start a master's program and you realize that maybe it was actually a thousand-piece puzzle and you start to put those pieces together and then I think if you keep going, you realize that that puzzle is more or less infinite and that all of those pieces they fit together in some sort of way for you personally, in your own journey and in the way that you think about learning and teaching and the world at large. But I think that you know, starting as an undergrad you just don't know what you don't know. And then your right and then your master's degree kind of shows you that there is a lot more to know. But then you take a next step and you realize, oh wait, there's this whole big, wide world out there.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:It's not just more about, there's more to know. Then, when you move into a doctorate, it's how do you know? What are the ways that you can know these things. and that's what gives you a lot of power, is when you start changing the ability to discover knowledge on your own and to really investigate a phenomenon and provide a deeper explanation of it. That's really kind of the amazing stuff.
Lindsay Persohn:Yeah, yeah, it totally changes. It's almost like it changes the structure of your brain because you think differently.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:Well, complete. Okay, so back to the olden days reference, when I was going to school, in addition to having to find information in catalogs, the email and the internet were just becoming more widespread, and so we had a lot of very similar to how AI is going to change everything. The conversations about the internet and email were having at that time. How is this going to change communication structures? How are we going to change knowledge? And so, yeah, there's just a lot of really deep understanding and thinking. That happens when you go to grad school and you're surrounding yourself with other people that want to know deeply about the same kinds of things that you want to know. That's the key In your regular life. You can have great people in your regular life, great family, great friends, but they may not be thinking about the things you're thinking about in the ways that you think. So that's another great part of graduate school.
Lindsay Persohn:That's so true and I think that the friendships, the partnerships, the collaborative partnerships that you form through graduate studies, it supports that sort of changing of the structure of your thinking, because everybody is thinking about kind of the same things but in their own ways, and it brings a whole new lens.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:Right, yeah, how do we think we think with Google? Now, you know, we just Google it, we, or chat GPT right there. It's becoming part of what we do and how we think. And and when you change those tools, when the tools change your cognition, that's really powerful experience.
Lindsay Persohn:So what's your current role and how did your experience in grad school influence opportunities and career choices that you've made? You've said a little bit about this, but, yeah, I'd love to hear more.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:Yeah, so my experience in grad school led me to my PhD, led me to taking a faculty position at the university in teacher, education and literacy studies, and I spent the first part of my career doing that kind of work, working with teachers, master's level undergraduate doctoral students. In 2006, I took over the doctoral program and that really significantly changed my work, because then I was more focused on the graduate doctoral program and working with all the amazing students that came through our program and deeply understanding their research and we have a different kind of program versus some areas where you would work in someone's lab and you would do the research they do. In our doctoral program a lot of students come with their own issues. Sometimes we'll study the same things, but many times students will come with their own projects and things that they want to explore and so through that it opens your mind. It's really amazing to be a faculty member working with doctoral students because you just learn so much more and see so many different things than you would Anyway. So I worked as a doctoral program coordinator, been a faculty member and got promoted through to a full professor in literacy studies and as I was moving along, there were many times I took a role in the faculty Senate where that's our governance structure for you know, where faculty interact with the administration and advocate for faculty and through that process I was the vice president of the faculty Senate for four years and then I said I'll take that job as long as I don't have to be the president. And it ended up being four years because we had a weird thing happen where we consolidated campuses. So I was two years for Tampa and then two more years for the consolidated campus, and then the time was up and I was convinced to run for president and then I agreed to do it and became the Senate president.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:And that was a very significant change for me because in being the Senate president I became a member of the board of trustees for the University of South Florida and in that role I had a very high level view of how the university runs, how decisions are made. I understood the motivations of people that I and of roles people in roles that I did not know previously. I cannot say that I knew prior to that. The Senate experience would. Let me see what does the provost do, what does the president do, what do their vice presidents, vice provosts, do, and how does that all work together to shape the university? And then the trustees come and have their shaping through the way they set goals for the president, the way that the board of governors operates. So in seeing that, it really opened my eyes to how the university operates and in that role I was done with that role and came back to faculty.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:And that's when the provost asked me that we had a change in leadership in the college and he asked me if I would take on the role of interim dean of the college of education and I said yes because I felt, with the knowledge I had gained from that experience, that I could help our college move in a direction to align ourselves with USF's strategies and goals and to advance the work here. Because I feel the colleagues that we have at USF are just amazing and the work that we do in the College of Education is profoundly impactful to the people around us, locally and nationally and globally. And so I took that on as a way to advocate for the people I've been working with for a very long time and that's what I'm doing now. So I'm the interim dean of the College of Education at USF, where I was an undergraduate student many years ago and I don't know if people are aware of this, but President Law, Rhea Law was also an undergraduate student.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:Then she served as the chair of the Board of Trustees. She had a career in law and then now as the president, and in graduation she'll tell that story. And I find it so interesting that when I was an undergraduate, sitting in that space, would I have ever dreamed? Number one, I'd be a professor up on that stage. Number two, a dean of the college of education that where I graduated from? Never in my wildest dreams that I think that would happen. So see what education can do.
Lindsay Persohn:That's right. That's right. You know and I think that that's certainly a common thread in the conversations I've had for this special series of the podcast is that you just never really know where those opportunities will lead you and when you, when you keep saying yes, even if it's reluctantly at first, you know, as with Senate positions and things like that, you never know what it's going to lead to, and I think that that's you know. To me, that's one of the coolest things about life is just how the journey unfolds a little bit differently for all of us. But, yeah, just keep saying yes and you never know what doors open.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:Being ready for that opportunity and again back to my old ways. I mean, I was in my 20s at the time. I just love learning and every time you go into these roles, that's really what you're doing You're learning something new, trying something else out, You're trying to make a difference. I mean, that's what educators do, just inherently. We're part of that. So that's my path and that's kind of how I got here. The nutshell version.
Lindsay Persohn:Right right, Not the 20 plus year version, the 20 minute version. So what should educators considering when and if graduate study is the right path for them? What advice would you give?
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:Well, two things. When there's never a perfect time, it's you're never going to have enough money, you're never going to be at the right place at the right time, so just go for it. That's, that's my answer, for when I think right now is a very exciting time in education with regard to new tools like AI, there are a lot of challenges. Alongside of that, there are issues to consider with regard to ethics, with regard to environmental impact, but also how it's going to change education is a question that I hear everywhere I go. Alongside that, there are big issues to explore with how students learn, how are we teaching, what are we doing in our schools and how can we support the next generation being successful in learning themselves? So understanding all of these issues. Alongside the social impact that happened with education, things that are happening, trends in schools, not just in public, private, charter homeschool the educational landscape has shifted dramatically, so there is a lot that we need to know and understand, so I just find that to be very exciting and very powerful. Opportunities are available for people that are interested in learning and also in shaping that knowledge. That's the key too.
Lindsay Persohn:Right. So maybe now is the time I guess now, now is always the time right To just get started, Just go for it.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:Yeah, it's never the perfect time. Your, your family's never going to be ready. Your friends are never going to be ready. Your life is never going to be ready because it is a game shifter. It does really change your life.
Lindsay Persohn:Yep. So one last question for you what do you wish you had known before starting graduate school?
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:Oh, wow. So let me go in my two different phases in my master's and my undergrad. In my master's degree, I wish I had approached it with the understanding that I needed to go deep and not to treat it like assignments to do, versus that I was changing myself. I don't think I understood. I knew I was becoming a better teacher, but I don't think I viewed it as I was learning more and becoming a better person. I wasn't changing myself as much as I was changing my practice. Right, but in the meantime I was changing myself and if I had known that I would have approached it differently.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:Everything you read is for your betterment. Everything you know is you know, coming in it really helps you. So that's the one thing for there. In my doctoral program I wish I had taken more time in the same kind of way, but I think I knew about the investment in myself, but I was also just very eager to get going, and sometimes the deliberation is important. You know, sometimes sitting with something and really thinking about it is important, and so I think those are two things it is an investment in yourself and give yourself the time to learn in the ways that you need. So be patient.
Lindsay Persohn:Great, great advice. Well, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with me today sharing your ideas with the Classroom Caffeine audience.
Jenifer Jasinski Schneider:Thank you, it's great, I love Classroom Caffeine. And thank you for all the work that you're doing. Really, it's really powerful.
Lindsay Persohn:Thank you so much. Thanks for joining us for this special episode in the special series of Classroom Caffeine, in collaboration with Literacy Studies Program at the University of South Florida's College of Education and USF's Innovative Education. If today's conversation sparked your curiosity about graduate education programs, you can learn more about USF's Reading Masters and Literacy Studies programs, by visiting . If you haven't already subscribe to the Classroom Caffeine podcast for more energizing conversations with inspiring educators and education researchers, until next time, stay curious and keep learning.