Where do social action, art, music, technology, media, pop culture, and most importantly, student needs intersect?
At a NSTWP Professional Development Advanced Institute I was co-facilitating, there was much discussion on student culture and identity and using an asset model to best serve our students. My thoughts are this. If each individual being a part of a wider system, and many systems at once, is not aware of his or her identity, this causes potential problems within any network that he or she is a member. If a person's identity is not recognized, affirmed, and responded to, this, too, can cause hiccups in that particular...
I have been sitting in front of the computer for weeks and weeks now trying to get my thoughts down. How do I introduce my work on transformation? How do I communicate my motivation to change education for the better... to a more equitable system that gets quality work accomplished? And I realized it's difficult to begin talking about my work or any transformation efforts without understanding underlying root causes of problems or even of successes. Then, I happened upon this video from the wonderful folks at RSA...
It's common sense. We have to meet our students where they are. We have to know our students and the cultural wealth they bring to our schools. Using what they already know as a method of mediating new learning is just good teaching. So why not meet our students in a mileu that they already know? Using digital tools, thus, capitalizing upon a student's digital literacy, will facilitate literacy instruction. How do we do this? How can we make this a campus-wide practice? How do we sustain it?
I am most intrigued by James Paul Gee's notion of gamers having an arsenal of identities to choose from when playing video games. Isn't that the case for most of us in this participatory culture of ours? We all have various identities that we carry with us. Be it mother, student, teacher, consultant, blogger, wife, daughter, etc. These are the many hats we wear, and like it or not, we cannot or should not try to be all of these identities at once. There is a time and a place, a context specific for each identity...
via hsdinstitute.org Understanding the complex ecology composed of diverse systems and individuals is integral to helping "students read and write powerfully and independently" (Patterson, CMWI, August 4, 2010). Mediating while searching for and examining patterns in an unpredictable network of systems partners with inquiry to investigate the dynamics in the socio-cultural practice that is literacy. That's what Culturally Mediated Writing Instruction (CMWI) means to me.