This Stroop Effect cookie comes from our after-hours reception in COSI’s Life exhibit to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Ohio State’s Language Sciences Research Lab at the Columbus Center of Science and Industry (COSI). Guests had opportunities to experience what it’s like to be in a research study about language, ask our computer “Avatar” questions about the pod, and chat with our student researchers. Language Pod Director Laura Wagner spoke about the past decade and on what we hope to accomplish in the future!
informal science learning
AAAL 2022
I attended the 2022 Meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, held in person in Pittsburgh, overlapping with March Madness. Grace Kim and I presented a paper, ‘Bilingual, multimodal, and collaborative sense-making in a science museum’, in which we examined the ways Spanish-speaking family groups with bilingual children on a visit to a science museum worked collaboratively and multimodally to find information and construct knowledge. It was wonderful to see friends and former advisees, got me looking forward to AAAL 2023 in Portland!
Grace Kim awarded travel grant
Grace Kim has been awarded the T&L Graduate Student Travel Grant and the ORIC Graduate Student Travel Award for the trip to present our co-authored paper, ‘Bilingual, multimodal, and collaborative sense-making in a science museum” at the American Association for Applied Linguistic Conference in March 2022.
AAA 2021 virtual session: Supporting multilingual ECE
We just held our session ‘Supporting Multilingual Education in Early Childhood: Linguistic Anthropological Approaches’. Organized by Jennifer Reynolds (USC) and Amy Kyratzis (UCSB), the session examines the issue of how early childhood educators can be supported in sustaining and leveraging children’s expertise as a legitimate and generative means to expand linguistic repertoires and associated forms of knowledge production. The Zoom recording and documents will available through June 2022 to conference participants.
NAEYC 2021 session
I am part of a session ‘Bridging the gap: Developing accessible STEM programs and building partnerships to support bilingual children & families’ at the annual conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC 2021). I am joined by Hardin Englehardt (Marbles Kids Museum) and Grace Sanchez (GrowingGreat). We discuss developing bilingual, accessible, culturally-relevant activities and building community partnerships to reach families. If you are registered for the conference, our session is available through November.
ASTC 2021 panel
I am part of a session ‘Multilingualism in early childhood STEM: Developing accessible programming for children learning English’ at ASTC 2021, the annual meeting of the Association of Science and Technology Centers. I am joined by Hardin Englehardt (Marbles Kids Museum), D’nae Hearn (Detroit Zoo), and Grace Sanchez (GrowingGreat). We will share our varied experiences developing STEM programming to engage English language learners and their families and session participants with tools and resources to do so in their own communities.
AILA 2021 panel
I am participating in the 2021 World Congress of Applied Linguistics, hosted by University of Groningen (but, alas, online). I am on the panel ‘International perspectives on educational models for newly immigrated (refugee) children, adolescents, and young adults: Options, challenges & best practices’. My paper ‘Informal science for preschool dual language learners’ focuses on the innovative programs of our museum partners in the Expanding Repertoires project.
AAAL Summer Webinar
This Wednesday, July 28, at 3:30 EDT I will join my fellow authors from the edited volume Extending Applied Linguistics for Social Impact: Cross-Disciplinary Collaborations in Diverse Spaces of Public Inquiry for a AAAL Summer Webinar, ‘Collaborating and communicating with publics: Engagement for social impact’. The webinar will start with super short presentations by the authors, followed by ample time for discussion in break-out groups. AAAL members may register for free.
Language science, pandemic edition
The ¡Aquí se habla español!: Public Outreach at COSI in Spanish team is featured on the Society for Linguistic Anthropology Blog. ‘Language science, pandemic edition‘ tells the story of how we – in particular, graduate research associates Luana Lamberti and Shawntel Barreiro – adapted our science center-based project to conditions created by COVID19.
AAAL 2021 colloquium
I am presently participating in the 2021 American Association for Applied Linguistics virtual conference. With Jackie Ridley (Kent State), I have a paper, ‘Ideologies at the intersection of language learning, science learning, and play’. Our paper is part of the colloquium Jackie organized on Language Learning and Play in Preschool Settings, along with papers by Amy Kyratzis (UCSB), Katie Bernstein and Ryleigh Hait (ASU). It is amazing to be hanging out with so many applied linguists in one “place”, hearing about the work they are engaged in now.