Cultural Landscapes Collaboratory
Our Collaboratory is a space that brings together multiprofessional members, from formal/informal/nonformal, school-based and community-based spaces to teach and learn from each other. Our Summer 2009 Inquiry Institute, to be held in St. Louis, MO, will engage the participants to share, learn, develop teaching and research programs. During the year, members use WebDIVER™ and YouLiveNow™ video archiving, analysis and conferring technologies to continue and deepen their shared research programs. During the summer, we analyze our projects and determine our next steps.
Drawing on multi-modal and multi-literacies perspectives, during the Summer Institute we seek to address problems pertaining to learning/teaching by engaging in shared investigations enhanced by the diverse perspectives of our members. The Summer Inquiry Institute is modeled after the National Writing Project's successful professional development approach of teachers being the best teachers of teachers. In doing so, our multiprofessional members convene to write, share and inquire into particular practices they have been developing in their respective practices.
This summer, we will focus on the prospectus for our forthcoming book.
Our multiprofessional collaborative jointly develops research programs, which reflect their particular inquiries that surface in the context of the participants' school settings and work with their students. These projects often take shape of inquiry-based action research projects, however, they not only involve the teachers but also the teachers' respective students. This way, the Collaboratory comprises and brings together multiple inquiring communities. In doing so, rich and powerful learning emerges in the spaces where the borders of these cultural landscapes overlap. CLICK HERE (link to Mandy's map) to see teacher-researchers and their students in action.
Since 2004, our work has involved multiple professional learning communities: The Austin Val Verde Foundation (www.avvf.org), the National Writing Project, the South Coast Writing Project, and the Life As Learning (a Finnish research organization). Today, we expand our community with colleagues from the Piasa Bluffs Writing Project, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Education, the St. Louis City Schools and the St. Louis Art Museum. Together we broaden and deepen our knowledge on teaching and learning, focusing carefully on studying multiliteracies as central to issues of equity of access.