The role of "interpretative communities" in remembering and learning

Students’ memories and learning strategies are situated in their social relationships, political orientations, cultural meanings, worldviews, and historical experiences. This study uses qualitative research methods to investigate how Canadian students remember and learn about the War on Terror. It deals with the narratives of ninety-nine students studying in an urban university of Ontario. I find that apart from textual resources, remembering and learning involve a collectivity of significant ‘others’ or what I call interpretative communities. These communities play an influential role in the consumption and negotiation of knowledge inside and outside the classrooms thus an understanding of their role may help teachers to enhance their instructional strategies.Key words: Canada; remembering; interpretative communities; narratives; learning.Author’s Note An earlier version of this paper was presented at the CSSE Annual Conference at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec. 1 June 2010.Les souvenirs des étudiants et leurs stratégies d'apprentissage se situent dans leurs relations sociales, leurs orientations politiques, leurs significations culturelles, leur vision du monde, et leurs expériences antérieures. Cette étude utilise des méthodes de recherche qualitatives pour étudier comment les élèves canadiens se souviennent et apprennent à propos de la guerre contre le terrorisme. Elle traite les récits de 99 étudiants qui étudient dans une université urbaine de l'Ontario. Je trouve qu'en dehors des ressources textuelles, se souvenir et apprendre impliquent un ensemble d'«autres» significatifs, ou ce que j'appelle des communautés interprétatives. Ces communautés jouent un rôle influent dans l'utilisation et la négociation des connaissances à l'intérieur et l'extérieur de la salle de classe ; ainsi, une compréhension de leur rôle peut aider les enseignants à améliorer leurs stratégies d'enseignement.Mots clés : Canada, se souvenir, communautés interprétatives, récits, apprentissage

Cultivating Presence and Relatedness: The Role of Grounding in Dance/Movement Therapy

This thesis examines the role of grounding in the evolution of individual presence and group relatedness often experienced in dance/movement therapy sessions. The physical and psychological concepts of grounding are discussed, investigating the relationship between the body and gravity as a foundational piece for one’s sense of being in the world. The felt experience of the body in communication with gravity, awareness of these sensations, and the resources within the body associated with grounding are examined as they apply to presence and interconnectivity. These concepts, as well as the potential for self-discovery via grounding, are portrayed through case examples

Multiliteracies, Pedagogy and Identities:Teacher and Student Voices from a Toronto Elementary School

In this article, I draw on an ethnographic case study of one Toronto elementary school, as part of a Canada‐wide action research project: Multiliteracy Project (www.multiliteracies.ca). I have explored how Perminder, a grade‐4 teacher, devel‐ oped a multiliteracies pedagogy, drawing on her own and her students’ identities and linguistic and cultural forms of capital to create learning opportunities for all students to access the English mainstream curriculum. Alternative pedagogical choices in‐ cluded students’ creation of multimodal dual language “identity texts” (Cummins, Bismilla, Cohen, Giampapa, & Leoni, 2005a), and identity work, expanding literacy practices valued within Canadian classrooms. Key words: critical pedagogies, critical literacies, ESL/EAL, identities, Multilit‐ eracy Project, urban schools Dans cet article, l’auteure part d’une étude de cas ethnographique portant sur une école primaire de Toronto, étude réalisée dans le cadre d’un projet de recherche‐ action pancanadien, The Multiliteracy Project (www.multiliteracies.ca). Elle analyse comment Perminder, une enseignante de 4e année, a mis au point une pédagogie en matière de multilitératies. Puisant dans sa propre identité et dans celles de ses élèves ainsi que dans diverses formes de capital linguistiques et culturelles, elle offre à tous ses élèves la possibilité d’apprendre et ainsi d’avoir accès au curriculum standard en anglais. Parmi les choix pédagogiques novateurs figuraient la création par les élèves de « textes identitaires » (Cummins et coll. 2005a) multimodaux en deux langues et des travaux portant sur l’identité, élargissant ainsi les pratiques en matière de littéra‐ tie jugées utiles dans les classes canadiennes. Mots clés : pédagogies critiques, littératies critiques, ESL/EAL, identités, The Multiliteracy Project, écoles urbaines.

SELF-INITIATED CREATIVITY IN THE ELEMENTARY CLASSROOM

In this study, the researcher used an action research methodology to investigate the self-initiated creative processes and artifacts of his fourth and fifth grade students over the course of one school year in an attempt to shed light on the pedagogical effects of an elementary classroom that allows its students significant creative agency. The majority of the literature on the self-initiated creativity of children examines the work of primary grade students in an art room setting, revealing a gap in the literature and the need for a study regarding self-initiated creative processes and products made by children in an intermediate general classroom setting. The research site was a democratically based, child-centered classroom in a private day school where students were encouraged to share in the development of the conceptual, curricular, and physical aspects of the learning environment. The self-initiated creative activities of the children provided a unique lens through which the researcher was able to view and understand his students’ learning styles, gain insight into their metacognitive processes, and observe the ways they navigated their classroom space. Empowering students to become critical agents through choice and autonomy led to arts-based approaches of inquiry and spontaneous creative learning experiences. An analysis of the data contributed to an understanding of six essential principles for facilitating self-initiated creativity within the everyday constraints of a traditional schooling environment, as well as cautionary revelations about how I could have been more effective at co-constructing an enduring culture that supported self-initiated creative learning in collaboration with my colleagues at the research site

Toolkit Volume I: A Case for Dental/Academic Community Partnerships for Leadership and Diversity

The ADEA/W.K. Kellogg Foundation Minority Dental Faculty and Inclusion (MDFDI) grant (2015–2017) built on lessons learned and best practices from dental and allied dental pilots in the previous WKKF grants as the focus continued to be leadership, academic/community partnerships and increased diversity in the dental workforce. The resulting toolkit, available in two volumes, focuses on developing dental and allied dental teams and strengthening the pool of underrepresented minority dental health professionals. The toolkit builds on institutional models, the convenings, lessons learned and best practices that have helped change institutional climates

Use of visual representations and drawings in writing for arabic high school english language learners

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Integrative Health Studies Newsletter

This is the Fall 2013 issue of the Integrative Health Studies Newsletter at CIIS.https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/integrative-healthnewsletter/1023/thumbnail.jp

Integrative Health Studies Newsletter

This is the Fall 2013 issue of the Integrative Health Studies Newsletter at CIIS.https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/integrative-healthnewsletter/1007/thumbnail.jp

Invisible Minds: Marginalizing Minority Women in the American Academy of Higher Education

The year 2018 witnessed the evolution of the #MeToo movement, which spurred more women to run for U.S. political office than ever before and women to ascend to the position of CEO in male-dominated fields. The representation of female voices has grown with the times, but there is one institution that continues to silence women: the American Academy of Higher Education. The world of academia remains a male-dominated field which marginalizes women and people of color, and thus leaves little to no room for women of color. Unfortunately, the problem is deep-seated within the academy, and is continuously perpetuated by racist, classist, and sexist societal ideologies. For women of color working in academia, the use of narrativization to vocalize these issues is a critical tool in forming a community with other women who endure similar hardships and for their own self-healing. Through the utilization of the text Unlikely Allies in the Academy: Women of Color and White Women in Conversation, I prove the necessity of narrativization in order to elicit change – structurally and psychologically – through its beneficial effects of scriptotherapy and subsequent generated dialogue. --provied by author