Patrick Hales

Associate Professor/Assistant Director-K-12 Education

Email 605-688-5039

Biography

Patrick Hales is an associate professor in the teacher education program within the School of Education, Counseling and Human Development at South Dakota State University. He was a public school teacher of high school English and K-12 English as a second language. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in teacher education in 2016. His primary research interests are teacher professional development and teacher action research, generative artificial intelligence in education and educational technology, language supports in education, and authentic assessment. His research into teacher professional development coalesces all veins of his research including language, technology and assessment. The majority of his research involves working directly with in-service or pre-service teachers to explore their practice around developing strategies to improve student learning.

Education

B.S. in English education | East Carolina University | 2008
M.Ed. in curriculum and instruction with a specialization in teaching English to speakers of other languages | University of North Carolina-Greensboro | 2012
Ph.D. in teacher education and higher education | University of North Carolina-Greensboro | 2016

Academic and Professional Experience

Academic Interests

Language of learning
Generative artificial intelligence in education
The science of learning
Language acquisition
Scholarship of teaching

Academic Responsibilities

Assistant director of teacher education
Educational assessment
Educational psychology
Teaching English as a second language
Teaching and learning I, III
Current issues in education

Committees and Professional Memberships

American Educational Research Association
Association of Teacher Educators
National Council of Teachers of English
Literacy Research Association

Work Experience

High school English teacher
K-12 English as a second language specialist
Adult English as a second language instructor
Graduate teaching and research assistant
Bus driver
Construction worker

Expertise

Research and Scholarly Work

Areas of Research

Teacher professional development and learning communities
Teacher action research
Education technology and generative artificial intelligence
Discourse analysis
Scholarship of teaching and learning

Awards and Honors

Three-time district Teacher of the Year
Edward Patrick Hogan Award for Teaching Excellence

Publications

Selected Recent Publications:

Hales, P., Elfarargy, H. and Durr, T. (2025). Exploring rural school principals’ perceptions of artificial intelligence’s considerations for implementation and challenges in PK-12 Schools. Journal of Educational Leadership in Action. doi:10.62608/2164-1102.1171

Durr, T., Hales, P. and Graves, N. (2024). Family matters: Teachers' perceptions of community and school culture after seven years of personalized learning reform. Middle Grades Review, 10(1).

Hales, P. (2022). Gamification in education. EBSCO Pathways to Research in Education, 1(1).

Hales, P., Hasselquist, L. and Durr, A. (2021). Using book clubs to support inquiry in teacher education. Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 21(2). doi:10.14434/josotl.v21i2.28684

Durr, T., Hales, P., Kampmann, J. and Browning, L. (2020). Lessons learned from online PLCs of rural STEM teachers. The Rural Educator, 41(2), 20-26. doi:10.35608/ruraled.v41i1.555

Hales, P., Kampmann, J. and Stremmel, A. (2018). Secondary teacher education program redesign as a community of practice. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, 46(4). doi:10.1111/fcsr.12265

Hales, P. (2017). Shifts in teacher talk in a participatory action research professional learning community. Studia Paedagogica, 22(4). doi:10.5817/SP2017-4-3

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