Research Experiences AY 2007-2008

Projects Done Within A Course

He Just Knows To Speak English Here: Social and cognitive tensions on bilingual language development played out through a bilingual three-year-old preschool student

This research project focused on the pragmatic language usage of a three-year-old preschool student in the context of his preschool classroom and his home. I observed him in relation to his teacher, his classmates and friends, and me, and was able to expanded upon an existing framework for categorizing linguistic code switching based on this research.

Participant on Project (not course-based)

Urban Ecology Institute/National Science Foundation-Instructional Materials Design Curriculum Development Project

I am a Graduate Research Assistant on a National Science Foundation (Instructional Materials Design)-funded urban ecology curriculum development project in partnership with the Urban Ecology Institute at Boston College. I am helping to develop activities and lessons within the curriculum, as well as evaluation and research instruments. I am also observing a teacher who is using the curriculum in his ecological sciences class at a pilot school in Boston.

Grant Writing

Embedding Informal Urban Youth Language in Formal Classrooms: Understanding User Tagging Practices of a Media-Rich Urban Ecology Curriculum

MacArthur Digital Media Learning Grant Proposal, October 2007

This proposal was completed in collaboration between Boston College, Northern Illinois University, and Diigo, submitted to the MacAurthur Foundation's Digital Media Learning Competition. The proposal was centered around investigating the use of "tags" by students to allow them to collaboratively organize, categorize, and make meaning from the curriculum in their own words and their own language.