How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Cross-cultural Workshops in Participatory Learning

From my own living room to Mumbai’s World Trade Center, from a conference of international scholars to a series of hands-on workshops with Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) teachers, Summer 2011 tackled the themes of participatory learning and digital youth from multiple angles.

My summer was book-ended with my qualifying examinations (writing from May 13-May 23, defending on August 25). My areas of scholarship examined the theoretical elements and associated practices required for productive educational interventions: participation and play; narrative; empathy; and positive deviance.

Immediately upon finishing my papers, I jetted to Boston for the 61st Annual International Communication Association Annual Conference. Highlights included participating in the intellectually stimulating, networking-rich preconference “Media, child health, and wellbeing: Setting the research agenda,” supporting the elevation of the Children, Adolescents, and the Media Special Interest Group to Division status, and interacting with the diverse attendees — junior and senior scholars, industry professionals, domestic and foreign, from big cities and small towns.

I also had the opportunity to live in Mumbai, India, for a month, co-teaching the hands-on, inquiry-rich Expanding Minds Program. In the morning, five- to seven-year-olds and, in the afternoon, seven- to nine-year-olds engaged with peers and open-ended materials to play, think, and build. Each week’s participants investigated a different theme: ancient art; toy engineering; and the science of flight. We documented students’ learning and engaged in lively discussions about the relative value of process vs. product. Cultural similarities and differences were also a site of discovery and reflection.

For a month, I also worked on Project New Media Literacy’s/Participatory Learning and You!’s Summer Sandbox. Our central goal is identifying and creating educational practices that will prepare teachers and students to become full and active participants in the new digital culture. I co-taught two week-long sessions in participatory learning, introducing LAUSD teachers to: the meaning of participatory culture; the characteristics of participatory learning; means of incorporating tools and toys as inspiration and bridges into lesson-planning and learning experiences; various ways to encounter and master technology; and specific technologies conducive to participatory learning. We gathered data via fieldnotes, participants’ products, and video documentation, and will continue to work with certain teachers during the school year.

Throughout the summer, I also submitted drafts of a book chapter entitled “Our Voice: Public Health and Youths’ Communication for Social Change in Senegal,” which will be published in forthcoming volume African Childhoods: Survival, Education, and Peace-building in the Youngest Continent. This chapter explains the educational intervention/research I conducted last summer in Dakar, Senegal.

I blogged about my experiences at laurelfelt.org/blog. Comments welcome!