I organize coursework in ways that encourage students to develop and share with classmates and colleagues new research-based understandings and the bearing of those understandings on their work. My goal is to make students feel they are participants in a dynamic field of inquiry that generates significant theoretical and practical knowledge. I also design my courses to provide students with multiple opportunities to develop and discuss core professional skills. For example, in my Language Socialization seminar we engage with a how-to manual for graduate students as learners and as language socialization scholars.
To the right you see students in the Language Pod Course learning about language science demos they will be sharing with visitors to COSI, Columbus’ science and technology center. Below you see some of my students participating in a mini-conference in which they presented in poster format their research on topics of particular interest to them. 
To promote students’ on-going engagement with research and its application in practice, I teach them to find, use, and even create high-quality web resources. For the course wiki Linguistic Diversity in Early Childhood Education, students created multimedia reports that combined research synthesis with graphics, video, and links to relevant websites, creating a resource they and their colleagues may use for their own teaching.
Somali History, Language, & Culture is a 
teacher workshop that I developed in collaboration with Laura Joseph (Center for African Studies); Somali Studies scholars; public educators with extensive experience with Somalis; and Somali community leaders, activists, educators, and artists. The workshop was sponsored by OSU, the U.S. Department of Education and a Major Grant for K-12 Education from the Ohio Humanities Council/National Endowment for the Humanities. We digitally documented the course in multiple formats: Somali History, Language, & Culture: A Workshop (a 12-DVD archive), a 2-hour selected clips DVD, and the Somali Studies for Educators website, which includes thematically organized video clips, a growing list of web resources, and recommended readings and viewings.
In collaboration with COSI colleagues, I have developed and delivered professional workshops for early childhood educators in Central Ohio, in which we brought together hands-on, inquiry-based science learning with strategies to support dual language learners and engage their parents in their science learning.
At OSU I have taught
- Language Socialization (PhD)
- Ethnography of Literacy (PhD)
- Ethnography of Communication (PhD)
- Linguistics for Literacy Education (MA)
- Second Language Acquisition (MA, PhD)
- Sociolinguistics & Language Education (PhD)
- Seminar in Foreign Language Education (PhD)
- Linguistic Diversity in Education (BSEd, MA, online)
- Issues in Foreign/Second Language Education (PhD)
- Linguistic Diversity in Early Childhood Education (MEd)
- Advanced Field Placement (FSMLE MA, TESOL Endorsement)
- Language Arts and English as a Second/Foreign Language (BSEd, MA, TESOL Endorsement)
- Somali History, Language, & Culture (workshop)
- Informal Science Education (workshop)
- Training in Informal Science Outreach aka the COSI Course or the Language Pod Course (cross-listed with Linguistics & Psychology)
