Grace Kim and I have a new research brief, Multilingual families and field trips, published in Connected Science Learning. Based on findings from the Expanding Repertoires of Practice project, we propose the intentional inclusion of families in school field trips for young children as a practice with great potential to help science museums connect and engage with bi/multilingual families, provided the field trip is designed to support family learning and language use.
informal science learning
SLRF 2020 colloquium
Members of the Expanding Repertoires research team just presented a great colloquium at the Second Language Research Forum (SLRF) 2020, ‘Scientific language and literacy practices of bilingual families with young children’. Grace Kim organized the colloquium and presented a paper, and Somin Kim and Minseok Choi presented papers. I was the chair and provided an introduction to the Expanding Repertoires project, within in which the reported research was conducted. We had a great turn-out and dynamic discussion. This was my first all-online conference.
¡Aquí se habla español! videos on COSI Connects
Check out the new videos from ¡Aquí se habla español!: Public Outreach at COSI in Spanish on the COSI Connects website. The videos are products of the Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme Community Engagement Grant I have with Anna Babel (Spanish & Portuguese), Kathryn Campbell-Kibler (Linguistics), and Laura Wagner (Psychology). The videos were created by our amazing graduate research associates, Luana Lamberti and Shawntel Barreiro. COSI Connects is COSI’s Digital Doorway for fun at-home science discovery and learning. COSI is providing exciting and engaging science through COSI videos and hands-on science you can try with your family at home.
Buckeye Language Network DIY Citizen Science
The Language Pod is trying out a new kind of citizen science where the public can help us design, run, and analyze a whole language science experiment from start to finish. We’ve adapted some of our demos, along with new ideas, into fun games and things on the site, too. We’d love to have any and all of you participating if you’d be interested! Check it out at BLNDIY Citizen Science https://u.osu.edu/blndiy/
2020 EHE Research Forum
The 2020 EHE Research Forum was held in the Ohio Union on St. Valentine’s Day this year. Minseok Choi, Grace Kim, Somin Kim, and I presented in a panel on the Expanding Repertoires project. I provided an overview of project goals, design, and major findings. Somin, Minseok, and Grace presented 2 papers on the bilingual and multi-modal scientific meaning-making of two families, one Korean-English bilingual, one Spanish-English bilingual. They were fabulous!
New grant for public outreach at COSI in Spanish
Anna Babel (Spanish & Portuguese), Kathryn Campbell-Kibler (Linguistics), Laura Wagner (Psychology) and I have been awarded a Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme Community Engagement Grant ($58,000). We have 3 project goals for ¡Aquí se habla español!: Public Outreach at COSI in Spanish: (1) develop a set of language science activities that both feature the Spanish language as their subject matter and also can be conducted in Spanish, (2) integrate these activities into the public outreach efforts of the Language Sciences Research Lab at COSI, and (3) create the infrastructure to ensure that the activities continue to be used past the end of the project.
SLRF 2017 Proceedings is out!
The Selected Proceedings of the 2017 Second Language Research Forum, edited by Hope Wilson, Nicole King, Eun Jeong Park, and Kirby Childress, has just been published. I have a chapter therein, ‘Engaged Second Language Research: Studying Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Preschool DLLs’ Science and Language Learning’, co-authored with Brian Seilstad, Jackie Ridley, and Somin Kim. We provide an overview of the Expanding Repertoires project, framing it as an example of engaged L2 research. We focus on the exploratory study in Central Ohio, which examined the perspectives and experiences of informal science and ECE educators and the various bi/multilingual families they serve across contexts.
OH TESOL 2019 Conference
The 2019 Ohio TESOL Conference takes place here in Columbus, Ohio on October 11th and 12th. The theme this year is Collaborate! Educate! Initiate! This is an annual meeting of various stakeholders (teachers, researchers, students, community support networks, etc.) who work with English learners and multilingual speakers in Ohio. I am is the featured speaker on Saturday morning. I will talk about the Expanding Repertoires of Practice project and reflect on the power of TESOL professionals and how we amplify our impact and expand our skills and knowledge through our collaboration with non-TESOL partners (students, families, non-TESOL colleagues, community organizations). I am also leading a workshop with COSI colleagues on hands-on and inquiry-based science with English learners.Webinar for Association of Children’s Museums
On Wednesday, April 17, 2:00 – 3:00 PM EDT, Rita Deedrick (Director, COSI Center for Research and Evaluation) and I will lead a webinar for the Association of Children’s Museums, Museums in Service to Young Multilingual Learners: Findings from an Exploratory Project. We will share key findings from our NSF-funded project that sought to lay the groundwork for improving informal science learning experiences for preschool dual language learners (DLLs). ACM members are invited to join us to hear about what was learned from the project and how the findings may inform future practice and research.
Ohio TESOL 2018 poster presentation
Jackie Ridley and Somin Kim will present a poster on the Expanding Repertoires of Practice project at the Ohio TESOL 2018 Conference. The theme this year is Breaking Through Language Barriers: Success Across Content. Our goal is to communicate to practitioners and researchers the power and potential of science education that is hands-on, multimodal, and driven by children’s curiosity, particularly in superdiverse preschool classrooms like those we have studied in Central Ohio.