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.
informal science learning
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.
Graduation Cake at Language Pod
In the Language Pod we have a tradition of celebrating our students who are graduating and moving on to exciting new endeavors. Cake is central to that tradition. Congratulations to Hannah and Taylor, 2 of my fabulous 5700 students from Spring 2017 who went to to work as Research Assistants in the Pod and who head next to graduate work in Speech and Hearing Sciences!
AAA 2017
At AAA 2017 in Washington, DC I presented a paper ‘Investigating language practices and ideologies with and within museums and preschools’ as part of a double panel on The Anthropology of Education Matters’ in Informal Learning Contexts. As always, the AAAs were an opportunity to reconnect with far-flung friends. This photo shows me with Dr. Marilyn Merritt, a linguistic anthropologist at George Washington University whose work has inspired me since my graduate student days.
AISLab at SLRF 2017
OSU is hosting the 2017 Second Language Research Forum! AISLab will present on Friday at 4 pm in Hagerty Hall 062. Our paper ‘Engaged second language research: Supporting dual language learners science and language learning’ describes the Expanding Repertoires project and presents some preliminary findings from the Exploratory Study. Sunday morning I will serve as moderator for the panel discussion by the plenary speakers Patricia Duff, Brian MacWhinney, Kara Morgan-Short, and Lourdes Ortega. SLRF attendees are then invited to visit COSI and the Language Pod from 11 to 2 pm. Photo: Minseok Choi, Brian Seilstad, Leslie, Jackie Ridley, Somin Kim (current AISLab minus undergrad research assistants Andrea and Anisa).
AISLab at Symposium on Children
The AISLab will present a poster on the Expanding Repertoires project at the 2017 Symposium on Children. The Symposium theme this year is ‘Closing the Opportunity and Achievement Gap in Early Childhood Education’.
Brian Seilstad featured in Inspire Magazine
My doctoral advisee and graduate research assistant Brian Seilstad is featured in the new issue of EHE’s Inspire Magazine. Check out ‘Supporting English Language Learners‘.
NAEYC 2017 Professional Learning Institute
I presented on the Expanding Repertoires project at the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Professional Learning Institute with my colleague Marie Quisumbing (Manager of Early Childhood Initiative at COSI until recently, now with Columbus City Schools, one of our partners on the NSF AISL grant). The PLI was an amazing mix of early childhood educators – university faculty, center directors, state officials, consultants, etc.
‘Talking Black in America’ screening at COSI
The new documentary ‘Talking Black in America‘ is coming to Columbus on Tuesday, June 6th. The screening will be at COSI in the Galaxy Theater. Executive producer Walt Wolfram will do a Q&A, in conversation with OSU professors, Dr. Elaine Richardson and Dr. Monique Mills. This event is sponsored by the Buckeye Language Network, the Department of Linguistics, the Department of Psychology, and COSI. Check out the trailer.
AAAL panel on transdisciplinary approaches in applied linguistics
At the 2017 meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, I will be presenting on the Expanding Repertoires project as part of the Language and Ideology Colloquium, ‘Transdisciplinary Approaches in Applied Linguistics: Exploring Language Practices and Tracing Ideological Effects to Address Real-world Issues’, organized by Liz Miller and Doris Warriner. Our colloquium is on Sunday, March 19. ADDENDUM: Before the panel we had a great lunch of tamales, joined by Kathy Howard (photo by Liz Miller).