Teaching Refugees: The Research We Have & The Research We Need

Posted on April 9, 2023 by TDWolsey

On Saturday, April 15, Literacy Beat and friends go to Chicago and the American Educational Research Association annual meeting.

By Thomas DeVere Wolsey

Next Saturday, Dr. Thomas and colleagues from around the world will meet for a symposium in Chicago. The symposium will consist of the following presentations. Dr. Thomas will serve as chair for this symposium.

Ibrahim M. Karkouti – Social Support for Refugee Students

Jill Hallett, Annmarie Handley, Sussan Oladipo, and Rachel Lackey – Refugee Families and The Literacy Landscape: Schools, Libraries, and Changing Community Needs

Mohamed Elhess – Finding Spaces of Belonging on Campus: A Case Study of Refugee Students in America

Daria Mizza – Finding a Pathway to Unlocking Refugees’ Learning Potential: Current Challenges and Lifelong Technology-Enhanced Learning Solutions

Mehmet Karakus and Anas Hajar – Promoting the Well-being of Asylum-Seeking and Refugee Children0 Within and Beyond the School Gates: Insights from the United Kingdom

Laila Kajee – Teaching Refugee Children in Troubling Times

Thomas DeVere Wolsey – When Trauma as a Refugee Transcends Generations: How Teachers Might Be  Allies to Help Successive Generations Build Success

Abstract

This symposium consists of seven presentations that explore how educators are meeting the demands of  the large and growing population of students who are refugees, and as important, to seek a consensus about what research that informs educational practice is still needed. Three themes include: 1. The built environment (e.g., schools and libraries) and tools (e.g., digital technology), 2. The social support that displaced students and their families need to be successful given the traumas they have encountered and continue to experience, and 3. The means by which educators can foster well-being as students.

Worldwide, large numbers of humans seek asylum or are internally displaced in their own countries (refugees, collectively). Of those, many are students in school or not in school or university.  While there is a great deal of attention given, appropriately, to the experiences of refugees, less attention has been afforded to the application of research to the teaching and school leadership practices teachers and other practitioners need to appropriately understand and serve children who are refugees. 

Refugees fleeing
Source: https://openclipart.org/detail/226376/refugees
  1. Objectives of the session

Given the large percentage of displaced persons around the world, and the institutionalized discrimination many face along with learning new languages, entering the job market if  possible, and many other challenges, this symposium brings together experts to promote dialog about effective instruction for refugee children. In this symposium, consisting of seven presentations, audience and presenters will explore innovative practices. Equally important, audience and presenters will expand the discussion to what research is needed and how best to put extant and new research into practice in schools and similar educational enterprises.

  1. Overview of the presentation

The seven presentations cover three overlapping themes. Each addresses two or more of the three themes including 1. The built environment (e.g., schools and libraries) and tools (e.g., digital technology), 2. Social support that displaced students and their families need to be successful given the traumas they have encountered and continue to experience, and 3. The means by which educators can foster well-being as students adapt to their new situation, whether temporary or permanent.

  1. Scholarly or scientific significance

We argue in these presentations and papers that the significance of research for educators lies primarily in how that research can enrich and improve practice in schools and other educational enterprises.  In the case of what is needed to teach displaced children and adults, research that addresses the diverse cultures and unique circumstances that refugee students face in higher education and PK-12. The symposium brings together what has, so far, been piecemeal approaches to a framework for teaching displaced students.  Given the trauma, the dehumanizing circumstances that led to seeking asylum, and the polarized political environments that exacerbate the extreme conditions faced by refugees, the discussion to promote effective practices through solid research is past due. In this way, we interrogate consequential education research in pursuit of truth and equity for some of the most vulnerable of students.

Social Support for Refugee Students

Ibrahim M. Karkouti

Purpose: The world’s attention has shifted to two new refugee waves that require immediate response to avoid creating new lost generations in Europe and Central Asia. Specifically, Ukrainian and Afghan students need significant support from teachers, administrators, policymakers, humanitarian aid professionals, and social workers to ease their refugee plight and prevent a dire scenario similar to that of their Syrian counterparts. Notwithstanding the importance of addressing the deleterious and traumatic effects of war and conflict on the wellbeing of Ukrainian and Afghan people, this session will unfold the story of Syrian refugee students in Lebanon, the biggest refugee-hosting country per capita in the world (UNRWA, 2020).

Theoretical Framework: Through the lenses of social support (House, 1981) and multicultural education (Ortiz & Rhoads, 2000), this session will examine the current status of Syrian refugee students in Lebanon.

Method & Sources: Secondary data (empirical research and reports of facts).

Findings & Significance: Specifically, it will discuss teachers’ lack of diversity awareness, describe what refugee students experience inside the classroom, and explain the types of support students need to overcome the barriers that obstruct their education.

Refugee Families and the Literacy Landscape: Schools, Libraries, and Changing Community Needs

Jill Hallett, Annmarie Handley, Sussan Oladipo, and Rachel Lackey

Purpose: In this presentation, educators discuss the disparate academic and literacy contexts for serving refugee and newcomer students within the same US city. They share the challenges faced by students, families, educators, administrators, and librarians in their respective contexts and how the pandemic has affected refugee students and families personally and academically. Together, they present strategies and recommendations for addressing educational and social-emotional well-being for refugee students across a variety of contexts in schools and libraries.

Framework: Teachers and students find themselves negotiating a staggering number of linguistic, literacy, and academic histories. As Cushing (2020) writes, “[l]anguage plays a critical role in reproducing imbalances in power and dominance, especially when powerful policy arbiters have the ability to regulate and control the language of others” (p. 432).  The schools and library discussed here are based in exceptionally linguistically and demographically diverse areas of Chicago with refugee community resources. Students’ languages and cultures are often absorbed as they assimilate into the dominant culture(s) of the school community.

Methods & Sources: Teacher, administrator, and librarian knowledge of refugee students as individuals can help prevent the disconnection that can form through the social distancing that predates the pandemic and persists. Here, we advocate for pragmatic, asset-based approaches to refugee literacies as newcomers navigate their new and changing communities. Qualitative ethnographic approaches were used throughout.

Findings: Language, culture, trauma, and the pandemic have all presented challenges of particular pertinence to refugee students and their teachers. Teachers find themselves working to bridge the communication gap while also helping all students make sense of content. Refugee families also require explicit instruction in the institutional culture of schools and libraries, from the significance of the school bell to the ramifications of absences and missing work, to accessing playgroups in various languages. Especially for students with interrupted formal schooling (SIFE), these values are not intuitive. Teachers and librarians question their own complicity in upholding these arbitrary, inaccurate, and often punitive institutional practices.

Teaching adolescents with trauma presents an additional challenge. Students arrive emotionally and physically fatigued from traumas associated with leaving their home country, adjusting to a new life, and experiencing homelessness, poverty, lack of food and other resources. For many, the pandemic was just the latest in a series of interruptions to their schooling. In-person cues from classmates and teachers are useless in a remote setting where students are expected to connect to the correct class at the correct time using unfamiliar technology, even when it is available.

Significance: Despite the challenges facing refugee students and families, this presentation offers myriad constructive solutions, particularly as they relate to literacy and social development. Recommendations include investigating student and family language and asset-based literacy histories, establishing school-university partnerships, providing access to technology and support, offering trusted adult counsel and peer mentorship opportunities, hosting family literacy activities, and presenting literacy materials and services that reflect the changing language needs of the community.

Finding Spaces of Belonging on Campus: A Case Study of Refugee Students in America

Mohamed ElHess

Context:There is no doubt that with the sociopolitical climate of immigration discourse in the U.S. immigration (building a wall, deportation, visa rejections, Muslim Travel ban) interweaving with the partisan political discourse of immigration sentiments (e.g., taking jobs, rejecting immersion in the culture), refugee students struggle to effectively integrate on campus. Therefore, understanding how these students experience a sense of belonging in their respective higher educational institutions is imperative in creating equitable and socially-just learning spaces in higher education.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore a sample of refugee college students from North Africa and Middle East and the ways in which they experienced a sense of belonging in their respective institutions as well as the affordances and barriers they experienced as refugee students.

Theoretical Framework: The theoretical framework Third Space (Bhabha, 1994) strengthened the orientation of SB in this research. According to Elliot et al, (2016), ‘Third Space’ is the space for allowing “important breathing room” to establish social connections, offsetting loneliness, fostering personal learning, enjoyment, and development. (p.556). As refugee students may experience exclusion, marginalization, subordination, they strive to find a space in which they feel a sense of belonging through opportunities for safety, respect, and motivation to explore and make meaning of their experiences, and to have agency.

Design: In thisqualitative case study, data was collected across interviews throughout three academic years. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze the data. The data analysis started with open coding for each case study followed by a “cross-case analysis” (Hill, 2012).

Findings: The results showed that although the participants yearned to fit in and belong, the intersectional challenges of being a non-native speaker and resourceless shaped these students’ experiences of being left out, unvalued, and lost as outsiders. Results also showed that some participants were able to construct ‘spaces of belonging. Examples of these spaces were the international center and developing relationships with one another and safe faculty. These spaces serve as a prominent militating mechanism of eliminating the participants of feeling as different and thereby extending opportunities to build safe spaces.

Significance: This proposal addresses how belonging supports and negates specific races, cultures, and languages of marginalized individuals such as refugees in finding safe spaces. Thus, understanding contexts where we support and a sense of belonging of refugee students are vital in the 21st century and align with this year’s AERA theme, searching for the truth, by challenging the assumptions made about refugee students and the truths about refugee students experiences held by many in higher education, and those they should be able to trust and rely on for understanding and empathy.  456 words

Finding a Pathway to Unlocking Refugees’ Learning Potential: Current Challenges and Lifelong Technology-Enhanced Learning Solutions

Daria Mizza

Purpose &Framework: This presentation aims at proposing a guiding framework based on Fraser’s (2009, 2019) participatory conditions, for teachers of refugees to create alternative forms of success and establish foundations for lifelong learning.

Techniques: With this aim in mind, during the presentation we will examine UNHCR documents to acknowledge the purpose of lifelong education for refugees as a contemporary priority to unlocking refugee students’ potential and we will identify several key factors leading to its reconceptualization.

This is mainly accomplished by redistributing technology-enhanced resources to create activities that allow refugee students to develop skills for meaningful choice-making at transition points during and after their time in school.

Conclusions & Significance: The presentation concludes by emphasizing how student refugee lifelong learning opportunities are contingent upon the national education system detecting and accommodating the student’s preexisting skills and knowledge from the beginning. Such an improved learning experience can unlock refugee learners’ potential to establish themselves in a new society and serve as global citizens.

Promoting the Well-being of Asylum-Seeking and Refugee Children Within and Beyond the School Gates: Insights from the United Kingdom

Mehmet Karakus and Anas Hajar

Objectives: This presentation provides a narrative synthesis of the research findings on the well-being of asylum-seeking and refugeechildren in the United Kingdom. The relevant research studies on the well-being of asylum-seeking and refugee children in the UK context were retrieved, and their findings were thematically analyzed.

Framework: Racial and ethnic inequalities in child education and wellbeing have been described across population groups and contexts, particularly in developed nations such as the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (Müller et al., 2020; Robertson, 2022). This presentation provides a systematic review of resources that tackled the issue of the well-being of refugee and asylum-seeking children within and beyond the school gates in the UK.

Methods & Sources: The thematic analysis was based on the overarching research questions as the main themes: identifying adversities that negatively impact the well-being of migrant/refugee students, the support mechanisms/interventions used to sustain/improve the well-being of migrant/refugee students, and the challenges to supporting the well-being of migrant/refugee students at school.

The authors identified 36 research articles published in peer-review journals and thematically analyzed them to document these children’s negative experiences that could impact their well-being. The reported studies also explained the support mechanisms and interventions needed to sustain and improve child welfare and the challenges encountered in supporting their well-being.

Findings: The research findings suggest that asylum-seeking and refugee children have diverse socioemotional and behavioral challenges, needs, expectations, psychological resources, and coping mechanisms that require schools to develop socioemotionally, culturally, or/and religiously sensitive responses for a more inclusive school environment. Teachers and other school staff need more training opportunities and educational resources, and schools need more financial, staff, and infrastructure support to provide the required academic and socio-emotional support.

Significance: This study gives insights to policymakers and practitioners to develop more inclusive policies and practices to improve and sustain the well-being of refugee/migrant students. 

Teaching Refugee Children in Troubling Times

Leila Kajee

Context: Refugees, unlike immigrants who voluntarily move, confront a range of challenges that are unique to their situations. These include the need to teach children who have experienced the sustained trauma of being forced from their homes, possible loss of family members, loss of other forms of social support in the home country, health problems, and cultural and language challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the need for teachers, educational leaders, and policymakers who are prepared to serve refugees and the children of refugees. While for many students, school can be a safe place, for refugee students, it can either be a source of certainty or a source of more pain. Nearly 50 million children worldwide are refugees, and almost half of them do not attend school.

Purpose: Given this context, teachers face uphill challenges in coping with the diversity introduced by the introduction of refugee children. In this presentation I provide some of the key challenges encountered by teachers in the country, and submit for consideration a framework of key questions we could ask ourselves, as teachers, in our teaching.

Framework: In this presentation I propose a humanizing pedagogy, love as a critical act of resistance, hope and resilience to address challenges conceptually, and consider what this might imply for teaching refugee children.

Conclusions and significance: To address refugee needs in the classroom through a humanizing lens, and as an act of love, it becomes necessary to identify dilemmas and self-examine our feelings of fear, anger, guilt, or bias. As teachers we need to explore new roles and relationships with students, and to try on these new roles. To do so, we need to formulate a course of action and acquire the knowledge and skills to implement our new plans (Mezirow, 2003).

When Trauma as a Refugee Transcends Generations: How Teachers Might Be  Allies to Help Successive Generations Build Success

Thomas DeVere Wolsey

Purpose: This presentation explores how trauma, such as forced displacement, is manifested in the children and grandchildren of refugees. After a brief discussion of what generational trauma is, the presentation focuses on what teachers and school leaders can do when they are working with students whose families have been displaced.

Framework: According to Yosso (2015), there are at least six types of capital the refugee families might maintain while simultaneously remaining off the scope of schooling systems founded on preserving the prevailing and often majority culture. Kwan (2019) is also consulted. A framework for helping teachers discover their positionality in relation to displaced students is identified.

Mode of Inquiry & Sources: A review of the literature that demonstrates how teachers and teacher educators can recognize funds of knowledge (Moll, date). Narratives of the lives of second-generation and subsequent offspring also add depth teachers might draw on to support students beyond the everyday tasks of schooling.

Findings & Significance: Traumas passed on from one generation to the next do not necessarily fix or set the outcomes from one generation to another.  In this paper, we examine both the undesired outcomes and the possible achievements that might be built on what might have been tragic. ·       Transgenerational trauma often manifests itself in maladaptive behaviors. Understanding the nature of transgenerational trauma can change the way educators work with students who may be experiencing this type of trauma.       A key for teachers working with children who have experienced trauma is empathy. However, empathizing is difficult work, and it requires that teachers take care of themselves.  This chapter suggests that helping students find their sense of purpose can foster resilience.  Educators with a purpose can help students to find their purpose, sometimes lost for a time due to trauma, in society, family, and in themselves, thus building resilience.

References

Bhabha, H. (1994). The location of culture. Routledge.

Cushing, I. (2020). The policy and policing of language in schools. Language in Society 49, 425–450.

Elliot, D. L., Baumfield, V., & Reid, K. (2016). Searching for ‘a third space’: a creative pathway towards international PhD students’ academic acculturation. Higher Education Research & Development, 35(6), 1180-1195.

Fraser, N. (2009). Scales of justice. Columbia University Press.

Fraser, N. (2019). The old is dying and the new cannot be born. Verso.

House, J. S. (1981). Work stress and social support. Addison-Wesley.

Hill, C. E. (2012). Consensual qualitative research: A practical resource for investigating social science phenomena. American Psychological Association.

Katsos, N. (2020). Bilingualism in the family and child well-being: A scoping review. International Journal of Bilingualism, 24(5-6), 1049-1070. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1367006920920939

Kwan, Y. Y. (2019). Providing asset‐based support for Asian American refugees: Interrogating transgenerational trauma, resistance, and affective capital. New Directions for Higher Education, 2019(186), 37–47.  https://doi.org/10.1002/he.20322

Ortiz, A. M., & Rhoads, R. A. (2000). Deconstructing Whiteness as part of a multicultural education framework: From theory to practice. Journal of College Student Development, 41(1), 81-93.

Robertson, A. S. (2022). Scottish children’s panels: Where volunteers are essential for fostering child well-being. Journal of Public Child Welfare, 16(1), 7-27. https://doi.org/10.1080/15548732.2020.1792389

UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) (2012). Education strategy 2012–2016. Geneva: UNHCR. Retrieved 1 December 2021 from http://www.unhcr.org/protection/operations/5149ba349/unhcr-education-strategy-2012-2016.html.

UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) (2016a). Global report 2016. Geneva: UNHCR. Retrieved January 4 2022 from https://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/gr2016/pdf/Book_GR_2016_ENGLISH_complete.pdf.

UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) (2016b). Missing out: Refugee education in crisis. Geneva: UNHCR. Retrieved March 2 2022 from https://inee.org/system/files/ resources/UNHCR_2016.pdf.

UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) (2019). Refugee education 2030: A strategy for refugee inclusion. Geneva: UNHCR. Retrieved 1 December 2021 from https://www.unhcr.org/5d651da88d7.pdf.

UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) (2020). Protracted refugee situation explained. Washington, DC: UNHCR. Retrieved 4 March 2022 from https://www.unrefugees.org/news/protracted-refugee-situations-explained/#What%20is%20a%20protracted%20refugee%20situation?

Müller, L. M., Howard, K., Wilson, E., Gibson, J., & UNRWA. (2020). Protection brief Palestine refugees living in Lebanon. Retrieved from https://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/20-09-28_lfo_context_protection_brief_2020_final83.pdf

Yosso, T. J.  (2005) Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006  

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Alternative Presentation Resources

Posted on April 5, 2020 by TDWolsey

By Thomas DeVere Wolsey

School buildings closed for the rest of the year and universities shuttered their doors, but education must and does go on. In my formerly face-to-face classes, presentations we scheduled for live audiences are now going to be online. Alternatives to live presentations are many, and I will share some of them in this post.

First things first, though: How do you choose an online presentation tool?

  1. Determine what aspects of the presentation you will assess and how that will be done. What gets assessed depends on your tolerance for new technologies (or willingness to try them) and that of your students. Remember that many of them will be trying out tools they have never used before.
  2. Are you able to support your students as they try out new digital tools? If not, are they able to find the support they need? Check out this post on the lazy classroom for a few ideas about how much to challenge your students to try new tech tools.

Onward to some curated resources that you may find helpful. Add your own in the comments, and you might enjoy this post by our colleague, Renee Hobbs where she shares examples of some digital tools she uses.

People working

There are a variety of free digital, web-based resources available for instructors, educators, and learners to create useful and meaningful multimedia presentations. Keep reading.

MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATION TOOLS

Tool Options

Glogster: Tool for creating interactive, innovative multimedia posters, glogs, and more. Read more here.

Prezi: Tool for creating visual presentations that allows you or the viewer to zoom in “to the details” or out to show the “big picture.”

VoiceThread: VoiceThread is an interactive tool that permits creators to add video, still images, audio, and text using a variety of tools.  Creators can enable comment features that permit viewers to add their own thoughts to the presentation.

Flipgrid allows users to post short videos to which others can reply asynchronously.

Narrated PowerPoint® posted to SlideShare, AuthorStream, Vimeo, or YouTube. PowerPoint includes a narration/dictate option and can be uploaded or converted for online presentation using one of the tools linked above.

PowToon is a popular and powerful video tool that is user-friendly.

You can also read the following reviews of some of these tools and a discussion of other tools here:

8 Great Free Digital Presentation Tools for Teachers to Try This Summer http://www.emergingedtech.com/2011/07/8-great-free-digital-presentation-tools-for-teachers-to-try-this-summer/ *

Teacher’s Recommendation for Academic Uses of 5 Fun Free Presentation Tools http://www.emergingedtech.com/2012/01/teachers-recommendations-for-academic-uses-of-5-fun-free-presentation-tools/

Links You Might Have Missed—Presentation Tools http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/03/links-you-might-have-missed.html

*  Note that Vuvox no longer exists.

Remember when designing your multimedia presentation:

  1. Simplicity adds value.
  2. Aim for a few words or phrases on a slide (the nugget of information).
  3. Aim for one powerful image on a slide. That image could be accompanied by minimal text, a symbol, or no text at all.
  4. Be creative in capturing and maintaining attention.
  5. Eliminate distraction: use animations, flash, or sound effects sparingly and only when necessary to get the point across.
  6. Avoid slide transitions.
  7. Design artfully:
    1. What does your audience already know?
    2. What do you want your viewers to learn?
    3. Check PresentationZen for more ideas on artful presentation design.

Learn more about Multimedia and Fair Use

Working with multimedia, almost invariably, means incorporating the works of others into a presentation (cf. Huffman, 2010). Teachers and students do have some latitude, called Fair Use. However, it is always an effective practice to make sure that the intellectual property of others are attributed or cited in any presentation. While there can be substantial penalties for infringing on the works created by others, the most important point, arguably, is that attributing the works of others is simply good citizenship. Creators want credit for their work, and any user is a potential creator, as well. In digital environments, creators, authors, and users, take care of one another by properly attributing the sources they use. Though teachers, professors, and students are very familiar with citation of text-based sources (e.g. APA, MLA, Chicago), these style guides often do not provide sufficient guidance when a student, for example, wants to incorporate images, audio, or video created by others in a multimedia presentation.  

An excellent place to begin learning about digital citizenship and fair use is the MediaLab at the University of Rhode Island. Teacher and student resources can be found on the MediaLab website.

Though not exhaustive, these websites provide a place to begin looking for music and image sources that students and teachers might use in their own multimedia presentations while considering the rights of others who have contributed their works. 

#SocialDistance #onlineteaching #COVID-19 #RemoteTeaching

Reference

Huffman, S. (2010, May/June). The missing link: The lack of citations and copyright notices in multimedia presentations. TechTrends, 54(3), pp. 38-44.

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My Life as a Reader and Author

Posted on October 5, 2019 by TDWolsey

By Thomas DeVere Wolsey

One of my goals as a teacher and professor is to guide my students to think of themselves as readers, authors, and creators. To help students realize just how much reading and writing have played a part in their lives, I use an assignment I call My Life as a Reader and Author.  The assignment involves the creation of a mandala with symbols representing different aspects of literacy in the students’ lives.  The directions, paired with examples in the PowerPoint are fairly simple:

The texts we read and the texts we compose can have a powerful influence on our identities.  In this assignment, you will create a visual representation of your life as a reader and author using the mandala to organize and capture your ideas. Briefly explain each symbol.

Zahraa created this mandala, below, using digital tools.

Mandala

Zahraa’s Mandala

She then described the significance of the images.

I divided my mandala into four sections:

  • Reading Section

 I added a photo of my laptop as usually I use it to read online and also to download softcopies of the books that I want to read. I like to read on my laptop as I have different folders to save whatever I want to read and highlight on it.

I added the photo of the book the power of thinking without thinking. It is the most recent book that I have read. I found this book so interesting and I learnt a lot from it. In addition, I recommended this book to my friends who do not like to read very much as I found the author’s way of delivering information is so good.

I added google logo as it is my close friend when I need to know or read about anything.

  • Junior development section

In this section I added a photo of my weekly visit to children orphanages. I am a part of Volunteers In Action (VIA) club at AUC. Every week end we visit an orphanage and we give sessions to children about different things like peace, cleanness, attitude and manners. I added this photo because these children motivate me to read more about the topic before delivering it to them in order to teach them in a correct good way.

I added photos of cleanness and right & wrong photo to highlight some of the things I teach them during the sessions

  • Experience

While reading I experience new things and know a lot of new information. This photo describes things that one can achieve while reading like how to manage your time, select your goals and how to learn from others mistakes, especially if you are reading about someone’s bibliography.

  • Writing

In the writing section I added a photo to describe my favorite time of writing which is in the early morning with a cup of coffee.

Malika chose to combine shapes from the Internet and then draw her symbols.

Malika's Mandala

Malika’s Mandala

Resources

Mandala Generators Online:

Staedtler:

MandalaCreator:

MandalaMaker:

ColorMandala:

DrawMandala:

Mandala Creator:

Mandala Creation Software:

MandalaMakerTM :

Mandala Maker from Tucows:

Adobe products and plugins (e.g., Illustrator, Photoshop) that can be used to create mandalas).

Illustrator:

MirrorMe plugin for Illustrator:

PhotoShop:

Inspiration:

Mandala Project:

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Meet the Influencer: Peggy Semingson

Posted on January 1, 2017 by TDWolsey

Influencers Banner

Influencers

Literacy Beat bloggers have long taken inspiration from Peggy Semingson’s dedication to using technology to advance learning. We wondered what she is currently working on professionally for our Influencer series. Her answers follow. 

I was asked to write for Literacy Beat about some of the latest projects and ideas I have been working on as they relate to the intersection of literacy and technology. A few of those ideas are shared here. Comments are most welcome!

Peggy Semingson

Peggy Semingson

What trends do you see having a significant impact in the coming 5 years in the space where technology and literacy meet?

There are two ideas I will briefly share: Open educational resources and self-directed teacher professional development via social media (e.g., Twitter).

Lately, I’ve been hanging out with librarians and attending library-focused presentations and events. Librarians are truly on the cutting-edge of the future and are in tune with trends like the changing nature of information and literacy access. One of the main topics of focus among librarians and those in the broader education community has been the concept of open educational resources, or OER.

Generally, OERs are text-based and multimodal resources freely available on the Internet. They are intentionally made and created to broadly share knowledge and information with the goal that others can remix and/or reuse the content to meet their needs. MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses that are offered free of charge), such as those offered by edX, are steadily used by educators and others to participate in open learning and connected with others online. Teachers are providing MOOCs in more grassroots ways, for instance, through Canvas.

OERs, including free courses such as MOOCs, are increasing access to learning and are of importance in underserved areas like third world countries and for those who just need or want to learn a skill or acquire knowledge outside of formal schooling.

What is exciting is these open and freely available resources are gradually replacing expensive textbooks. I’m a firm believer that learning materials should be mostly current and with digital and open resources, they can be more readily updated. I have personally contributed to the OER space also in terms of my YouTube channel which has almost a million minutes of viewings! The most popular video is on the topic of phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics. I think this topic is confusing to a lot of people, globally, so I’m glad I can help add some clarity there! I also share micro-podcasts on literacy topics in my podcast channel on SoundCloud.

One of my goals is to revamp my professional website, Virtual Gadfly, to focus more on sharing concrete tools for K-12 teachers. Future plans include expanding my YouTube channel to include videos on other complex ideas in literacy, such as dyslexia and other high-interest topics.

Also of interest are creating more of what I call dialogue videos, where I am informally talking with another educator about a specific topic in an unscripted way. I have done some dialogue videos with my colleague Dr. Jodi Tommerdahl and she brings her background in neuroscience and linguistics into our conversations on literacy topics of mutual interest. These videos are then also incorporated into my literacy teacher education courses and they are freely available online.

Beginning Reading: Dialogue with Dr. Peggy Semingson and Dr. Jodi Tommerdahl

Another idea I am seeing is the whole idea of teacher professional development as incretamixes_twitterasingly decentralized away from formal training led by schools, districts, or outside vendors. Increasingly teachers are taking learning into their own hands via social media (e.g., Twitter), digital platforms, and mobile learning (m-learning).

We are all seeing and participating in self-directed learning, or what I call “DIY PD” (do-it-yourself PD) such as scheduled Twitter chats, hashtag learning and awareness (e.g., #weneeddiversebooks), crowdsourced resources, and direct teacher-to-teacher supports. This is part of a broader trend of decentralized learning across multiple social media platforms. I appreciate the grassroots nature of these types of digital learning activities that teachers can participate in. The dialogue taking place on Literacy Beat is another example of educators engaged in “DIY PD” and learning. I would like to do empirical research in this area of self-directed teacher professional development soon. Recently, I wrote a column about the use of Twitter in learning about young adult authors recently in The ALAN Review.

What significant event in your life changed the focus of your work?

Teaching online, starting in 2008, made a huge impact on the focus of my practice and research. At first, I was a complete “deer-in-the-headlights” about teaching online and really didn’t know what to do or what my role was as an instructor. Most people need an overarching framework to guide their thinking about teaching online.

Related to digital teaching and learning, I learned about the Community of Inquiry (COI) framework from a former professor I still keep in touch with, Dave Caverly at Texas State University, San Marcos (in Texas). Learning about the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007) changed my whole approach to digital teaching and learning as a teacher educator!

The focus of COI is three-fold (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). First, there is the teacher presence and role in the course. Second, there is an intentional fostering a sense of trust and social presence in the course. Third, the teacher actively facilitates a cognitive presence, or an inquiry and problem-solving approach in the course.

It has worked quite well as a foundation and framework for my own teaching. I also create a lot of my own materials, mostly multi-modal. I have been well supported in my ongoing learning in digital teaching and learning by the Center for Distance Education at The University of Texas at Arlington.

What research are you currently working on related to literacy and technology?

I’m working with a small team of colleagues to analyze how a major literacy organization exchanges ideas in networked ways through Twitter. We are incorporating data analytics (“big data” approaches to research) as well social network analysis (SNA) of the publicly posted Tweets from a major conference. We are using mostly computational tools to look at the data.

It’s really fascinating! This ties to my earlier point about teachers seeking to enhance their own learning spaces and backchannels outside of more traditionally sanctioned (e.g., school district or formal schooling) contexts. I’m really interested in how teacher knowledge production about literacy works in self-directed professional development digital spaces like Twitter, blogs, and other online forums. I believe that literacy organizations and publishers will play a big part in helping to facilitate such “backchannel dialogue” related to professional learning about literacy. Stay tuned for more on this soon!

I am affiliated with a small group of colleagues (“Obnoxious Academic Consortium”) in literacy. We want to advance thinking in our field about multimodality in literacy and academia. We want to also advance the idea that there are other venues besides traditional print journals to network and exchange ideas. The blog for this group is here.

Reference

Garrison, D. R., & Arbaugh, J. B. (2007). Researching the community of inquiry framework: Review, issues, and future directions. Internet & Higher Education, 10(3), 157-172.

Meet Peggy:

Dr. Peggy Semingson is an associate professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at Arlington where she teaches online courses in Literacy Studies. Dr. Semingson has experience as a classroom teacher and reading specialist in both Southern California and Texas. Her research interests include social contexts of literacy learning, digital pedagogies, and online literacy teacher education. She has published in Teachers College Record, Language Arts, and Research in the Teaching of English. She was awarded the Jeanne S. Chall Research Grant from Harvard University in 2009–2010. She is on Twitter: @PeggySemingson. Her blog is: http://virtualgadfly.com

Contact Peggy at peggys@uta.edu

Peggy and Dexter

Peggy and Dexter

Filed under: electronic texts, multimodal, teacher education | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

Connecting Multicultural Education and Multiliteracies

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Bridget Dalton

by Thomas DeVere Wolsey

During the last year, Dr. Diane Lapp and I had the opportunity to work with several prominent thought-leaders to explore how multiple literacies and multicultural education intersect and promote greater learning and understanding amongst our students. The result, under the guidance of Dana Grisham, was a themed issue of Reading and Writing Quarterly that was just released online. In the introduction, Diane and I wrote, “Digital technology, whose users comprise ever-changing communities, permits previously disconnected worlds to find commonalities and explore differences. Technology has the potential to connect students and educators across cultures, and, at the same time, make it possible for students to participate more fully in their own cultures” (Wolsey & Lapp, 2015, p. 97).

cover of Reading & Writing Quarterly journal

The six articles in the current special issue of Reading and Writing Quarterly each address topics that demonstrate how technology can facilitate learning, build students’ understanding of their culture, and construct bridges across and to other cultures. The table of contents may be found below. Please take a few minutes to visit the special issue on the Taylor and Francis website (preview and abstracts) or through your university electronic library resources.
• Imagining Writing Futures: Photography, Writing, and Technology by Cheryl A. McLean & Jennifer Rowsell

• Fostering Students’ Science Inquiry Through App Affordances of Multimodality, Collaboration, Interactivity, and Connectivity by Richard Beach & David O’Brien

• iPad Deployment in a Diverse Urban High School: A Formative Experiment by Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher & Diane Lapp

• The Council of Youth Research: Critical Literacy and Civic Agency in the Digital Age by Antero Garcia, Nicole Mirra, Ernest Morrell, Antonio Martinez & D’Artagnan Scorza

• Multicultural Education and Multiliteracies: Exploration and Exposure of Literacy Practices With Preservice Teachers by W. Ian O’Byrne & Shane A. Smith

• A Digital Tool Grows (and Keeps Growing) From the Work of a Community of Writers by Nancy L. Roser, Melissa Mosley Wetzel, Ramón Antonio Martínez & Detra Price-Dennis

Reference:
Wolsey, T.D. & Lapp, D. (2015). Introduction to teachers and students as creators in blended learning environments. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 31(2), 97-101. doi: 10.1080/10573569.2014.963906

Filed under: multimodal, new literacies, technology integration | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

Literacy Instruction in a Brave New World: A themed issue from Kappan

Posted on November 6, 2014 by Bridget Dalton

Phi Delta Kappan has just published a themed issue on “Literacy Instruction in a Brave New World” (November, 2014, volume 96, No. 3). For a short time period, you may view and download all of the articles online, for free.

http://pdk.sagepub.com/content/current

magazine cover shows child reading on a tablet

Literacy Instruction in a Brave New World

As literacy and technology expert Mike McKenna states in the opening to his article,

“Technology integration into language arts instruction has been slow and tentative, even as information technologies have evolved with frightening speed. Today’s teachers need to be aware of several extant and unchanging realities: Technology is now indispensable to literacy development; reading with technology requires new skills and strategies; technology can support struggling students; technology can transform writing; technology offers a means of motivating students; and waiting for research is a losing strategy.”

We have a lot to learn, a lot to accomplish, and we need to pick up the pace! I found this issue both practically valuable and thought provoking.

Please go to the Kappan website http://pdk.sagepub.com/ and search for the current November 2014 issue, or click on  http://pdk.sagepub.com/content/current to go directly to the table of contents. I’ve listed the table of contents below (note that Jill has a piece on online inquiry and I have a piece on eText and eBooks). Enjoy!

Literacy Instruction in a Brave New World – Table of Contents

Michael C. McKenna, Literacy instruction in the brave new world of technology

Joan Richardson, Maryanne Wolf: Balance technology and deep reading to create biliterate children

Christopher Harris, Fact or fiction? Libraries can thrive in the Digital Age

Samina Hadi-Tabassum, Can computers make the grade in writing exams?

Melody Zoch, Brooke Langston-DeMott, and Melissa Adams-Budde, Creating digital authors

Bridget Dalton, E-text and e-books are changing literacy landscape

Diane Carver Sekeres, Julie Coiro, Jill Castek, and Lizabeth A. Guzniczak. Wondering + online inquiry = learning

Gail Lynn Goldberg, One thousand words, plus a few more, is just right

Kristin Conradi, Tapping technology’s potential to motivate readers

Filed under: Dalton, digital reading, digital tools, electronic texts, multimodal, new literacies, technology integration, Uncategorized, universal design for learning, writing | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Using Technology to Improve Reading and Learning

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Bridget Dalton

Book cover of Using Technology to Improve Reading and Learning

When friends write a book, of course, you’re excited for them and can’t wait to read it.  What’s even more wonderful is when you read the book and it’s terrific – one that you know you will use in your own teaching. Using Technology to Improve Reading and Learning by Colin Harrison and fellow Literacy Beat bloggers Bernadette Dwyer and Jill Castek is just such a book.

I found this book to be exceptionally useful for many reasons, but I will highlight just two of those reasons here.

First, Colin, Bernadette, and Jill are not only experts in technology and new media; they are first and foremost experts in literacy instruction. They have taught children how to become engaged and successful readers and writers, and they have taught and collaborated with teachers on effective literacy instruction and technology over many years. Their deep knowledge and on-the-ground experiences with children and teachers is demonstrated in every chapter. They speak directly to teachers, acknowledging the realities of today’s schools and the pressure to achieve high academic standards with all students, while offering a vision and concrete classroom examples to inspire us to embrace the challenge.

Second, this book provides a comprehensive blueprint for integrating technology so that children are more successful with print-based reading and writing AND are developing the new literacies of reading, learning, and communicating with eBooks and on the Internet. Bernadette, Jill and Colin complement a chapter on reading eBooks and digital text with two chapters on Internet inquiry – one focusing on the search process and the other focusing on how to compose and communicate through multimodal products. These are areas where we need to make tremendous progress if we are going to prepare our students for a future world that will be more multimodal, more networked, and more dependent on individuals who are creative, strategic, and collaborative.

I’ve copied the table of contents below. You will see that this book offers teachers multiple pathways for moving forward on their own journeys of technology and literacy integration. Enjoy (I know I will)!

Table of Contents

  1. Using technology to make the teaching of literacy more exciting
  2. Strategies for capitalizing on what students already know
  3. Strategies for using digital tools to support literacy development
  4. Strategies for using eReaders and digital books to expand the reading experience
  5. Strategies for teaching the information-seeking cycle: The process stage of searching for information on the Internet
  6. Strategies for teaching the information-seeking cycle: The product stage of searching for information on the Internet
  7. Strategies for encouraging peer collaboration and cooperative learning
  8. Strategies for building communities of writers
  9. Strategies for building teachers’ capacity to make the most of new technologies

Filed under: collaboration, Common Core, Dalton, digital reading, digital tools, Dwyer, electronic texts, multimodal, new literacies, technology integration, writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Talking Drawings

Posted on July 8, 2014 by TDWolsey

by Rebekah Lonon with Karen Wood and Thomas DeVere Wolsey

This is the third in a three-part series exploring conversation and collaboration opportunities using digital tools. Rebekah Lonon describes how she uses “talking drawings” to promote academic discussions in her classes and explains how she uses the Educreations digital tool with her students.

My second-grade students enjoy using the talking drawings strategy regularly in all content areas. I always begin by having the class close their eyes and imagine a mental image of a word or concept. Once they open their eyes, they immediately draw the image they made in their minds. This gives me great insight into their prior knowledge of the topic, and it helps me tailor my instruction for the coming unit. I recently used this strategy to introduce a unit about properties of matter, and I learned that my students associated the word “matter” with something being wrong (“What’s the matter?”). I knew then how my unit needed to be planned.

When it is available for our use, I like to incorporate a digital tool. In this case, I used www.educreations.com because it provides an online venue for creating related drawings. Educreations is also available as an app for mobile devices. After their initial drawings, students independently read a passage, entitled “Why Does Matter Matter?” by Kelly Hashway (n.d.) from the website http://www.superteacherworksheets.com about the states of matter and then they discussed their drawings and thoughts with a partner. Next, they returned to Educreations to create a new drawing, based on their new knowledge. If technology is scarce, students can create their drawings in pairs or small groups, using paper with Crayons or markers. To reflect on what they learn and, as a means of integrating writing with the reading and drawing process, I always ask them to compare their original  and after reading drawing. In this instance, one partner group exclaimed aloud, “Matter DOES matter!” as they drew examples of each state of matter. Another partner group continued their reflection process as they wrote in their journals.  Seeing their developing knowledge when using this strategy is an effective assessment tool for me.

View the video to hear Rebekah explain talking drawings using Educreations.

Bibliography: 

Hashway, K. (n.d.). Why does matter matter? [PDF]. Retrieved from http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/matter/matter-article_WMTBN.pdf

McConnell, S. (1992/3). Talking drawings: A strategy for assisting learners. Journal of Reading, 36(4), 260-269.

Wolsey, T.D., Wood, K., & Lapp, D. (in press). Conversation, collaboration, and the Common Core: Strategies for learning together. IRA e-ssentials series: What’s New?Newark, DE :International Reading Association.

Wood, K. D., & Taylor, D. B. (2006). Literacy strategies across the subject areas. (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

About the contributors:

Rebekah Lonon teaches 2nd-grade for Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, North Carolina

Karen Wood is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

 

Filed under: collaboration, discussion, multimodal, visual literacy | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Apps a Plenty, Apps Galore! Starting on an iPad App Adventure

Posted on March 10, 2014 by Bridget Dalton

I’m on the literacy faculty at the University of Colorado-Boulder.  Although I try to integrate technology into my teaching in thoughtful and creative ways, I don’t always succeed.  Typically, it’s due to lack of time, or the right hardware or software access, or the right know-how!  This month, the School of Education received a generous gift of 30 iPads to use in our Literacy Classroom.  My immediate reaction:  What a fabulous opportunity to explore how the undergraduate reading methods class and I will use this gift over the remainder of the semester.  So, in that spirit, my next few posts will focus on how it’s going, what I’m learning, and what I wish I never had to learn!

A General Web Resource on Teaching with iPads

Way back when (yes, all the way back to the 1990’s), I used to consult Kathy Schrock’s website when I had a technology question.  I was delighted to find that she has a special website dedicated to all things iPad related!  Whether you’re a beginner or novice user of iPads, there are things to learn from Kathy and the many educators who contribute resources and teaching strategies to this site.

http://www.ipads4teaching.net/

screenshot of Kathy Schrock's website on teaching with iPads

iPad Posts from Dana Grisham

And, for those of you working with young children, visit the recent posts from Dana Grisham about developing emergent literacy with iPad apps.

  • Recommended pre-school apps for literacy learning

https://literacybeat.com/2014/02/27/recommended-preschool-apps-for-literacy-learning/

  •  Goodnight, iPad!

https://literacybeat.com/2013/09/18/goodnight-ipad/

Essential Apps for our CU- Boulder Literacy Classroom

As soon as we got word that we were going to be receiving the iPads, I immediately began to think about “essential apps”.  Our budget was limited, so I knew I needed to be strategic in what we purchased (in a later post I’ll focus on free apps).

#1:  A Drawing App

To begin, I knew I wanted a drawing program to support multimodal composition. I knew that we would be able to use it for responding to literature with color, drawing, photos, and images remixes, as well as creating illustrations for the students’ original picture books and trying out the  ‘sketch to stretch’ reading comprehension strategy. I also wanted the drawing program to be one that could be used in elementary schools, since my goal was that the CU future teachers would first compose with the drawing tool themselves, and then apply it to teaching children.  After reviewing multiple programs and getting advice from teachers in our masters’ program, I selected Drawing Pad ($1.99).   It’s simple and intuitive, yet allows you to create some pretty amazing images fairly quickly!

Drawing Pad ($1.99)

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/drawing-pad/id358207332?mt=8

Drawing Pad App logo

screenshot of Drawing Pad tools

#2:  A Book Creator App

My  second priority was to purchase Book Creator, another composing App that packs a lot of communication potential into a simple, yet powerful tool.   I knew my good friend and colleague, Debby Rowe from Vanderbilt University, was successfully using Book Creator with pre-school and kindergarten children.  Further, some Colorado elementary school teachers in our masters program tried it out in their classrooms last semester and gave it a favorable rating.  Based on these positive reviews and my own experimentation with a free version, I decided that Book Creator would be a good match for our needs.   It was more expensive — $4.99 – but it seemed worth it not to experience glitches that sometimes occur with a free version.

Book Creator ($4.99)

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/book-creator-for-ipad/id442378070?mt=8

Book Creator logo

screen shot of Book Creator composing tool

Taking That First Step

So, with 30 iPads and two essential Apps, I am ready to begin the adventure of Ipad and App integration into my reading methods course.  I’ll let you know how it’s going next month.  I should warn you that I am a PC person.  I love my Apple smart phone, but am not nearly as fluent working on a MAC or an IPad as I am on a PC.  So, the learning curve will be steep and I’m feeling some anxiety about the process.  Ready, set, go!

If you have advice, suggested Apps, please post a response.  I thank you in advance,  Bridget.

Filed under: Apps, Dalton, digital tools, iPads, multimodal, technology integration, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Literacy Research Association Conference 2013

Posted on December 9, 2013 by danagrisham

All five authors of this blog on literacy attended the Literacy Research Association’s 63rd Annual Conference in Dallas, Texas this past week. All of us are long time members of LRA, with my attendance dating back to 1992. This year’s conference theme was Transformative Literacy: Theory, Research, and Reform, a theme to which the five of us can really relate.

In our posts over the past three years, we have discussed many of these issues and contributed what we can to the discussion. The conference offered a broad spectrum of literacy research–from more traditional elements to the latest thinking in technology applications for literacy. The conference was amazing–the Omni Hotel is new, clean, elegant, and most important–FRIENDLY. There were numerous instances of kindness and care from the staff of the hotel that touched us–particularly as we all became somewhat “housebound” by the freezing weather front that swept down from the arctic.

When most of us arrived on Tuesday, December 3, the weather was a balmy 79 degrees Fahrenheit, but by Thursday, the temperature never rose higher than 27 degrees and by Friday, the high was 23 degrees with winds that exacerbated the cold. It was ironic to look out at the heaters on the outside patios and see icicles!  Contrast these two views  a view from the hotel. The first is Wednesday and a similar view on Thursday. Brrrr!

photo(1)

photo(2)

Inside, it was another story. This conference was put together with wonderful sessions–thanks to all the Area Chairs and Reviewers who selected the sessions and to all the presenters for their literacy research!

A highlight of the conference included a Presidential speech by Rick Beach of the University of Minnesota on the possibilities and affordances of online literacies. In addition, the speech was broadcast live to YouTube and links were provided during the speech so the audience could follow along. http://tinyurl.com/pgnbp2u Log in an take a look at a very valuable resource for online and multimodal composing! If you want to try Google Hangouts, go to Ian O’Byrne’s test flight at https://plus.google.com/u/0/111576401886299659895/posts/aKsxDawviHA?cfem=1 

The President’s Reception was held on Wednesday evening and the Literacy Beat bloggers were there. In addition, many of the people who work hard to make the conference a success, such as Board members and committee chairs were in attendance. Ian O’Byrne and Greg McVery, both essential to the new technologies for communication at LRA and Andrea Boling (Chair of the Technology Committee and e-Editor at LRA) at the President’s Reception on Wednesday evening.

kThree Tech

The next picture is of the five of us–Literacy Beat authors:  from the right, is Bernadette Dwyers, Bridget Dalton, Jill Castek, DeVere Wolsey, and yours truly. We always treasure the opportunities to interact in the same space and time (as we mostly always communicate from afar) and this conference was no exception. It should be noted that Bernadette is on the Board of the International Reading Association and that DeVere is the incoming LRA Publications Committee Chair. photo(4)

We all made presentations at the conference, caught up with our colleagues, and participated in various interests group throughout the conference.

Because of the freezing conditions, getting out of Dallas was somewhat challenging. One group of colleagues from Vanderbilt University, their flights cancelled, rented a car and drove home–a trip of 12 hours! Almost everyone experienced a delay, a cancellation, or a complete disaster. One colleague went to the airport in the middle of the night, put herself on the standby list and waiting almost 12 hours, eventually making it home.

For those of our readers who attend conferences, we’d like to encourage you to attend next year, if possible–on Marco Island in Florida, December 3-6, 2014. Hope we won’t have snow and hope to see you there!

Filed under: digital reading, digital tools, electronic texts, Grisham, media literacy, multimodal, new literacies, Reading conference | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

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