Learning Sciences Lunch and Learn with Marina Feldman, PhD “Cultivating Learning Communities, Critical Práxis, and Asset-Based Thinking through Community-Engaged Learning with Immigrant Communities”
Connect with colleagues during this in-person presentation at the GSE (Room 124). Pizza will be provided! Can’t attend in person? Join us remotely via Zoom!
Universities in the U.S. are increasingly engaging with local communities, yet often rely on deficit-based approaches that emphasize “helping” rather than true collaboration. This presentation argues for a multidimensional, power-cognizant approach to community-engaged learning, outlining methodological consideration for community-engaged learning program design and sustenance. It draws on the experiences of 15 undergraduate students in a community-engaged language learning partnership program, focusing on two case studies.
These students and instructor collaborated over the year to facilitate an English-focused program grounded on conversation, social interaction, and community building. The Conversation Garden has been a successful community-engaged program for over a decade, despite discontinued institutional support. The program facilitates opportunities for 1) immigrant adults to practice English through conversation; and 2) university students to learn with and from those adults’ rich cultural and linguistic repertoires. This program is grounded on the work of a broader collective of scholars-practitioners. It draws from asset-based and power-cognizant praxes and a longstanding partnership between this department and a worker center serving majorly Latin American immigrants, educating and advocating to amplify workers’ voices and fight for social justice across the state.
Through a methodology called dialogic (auto)ethnographic pedagogy, this presentation discusses what students learned through a multi-dimensional awareness of power that manifests in 1) how we interact and relate in this program and 2) the social critiques we build, reflexively drawing upon our experiences and those of our community partners. Together, we learn to identify, understand, and challenge coercive power structures. At the same time, we identify, understand, and co-create collaborative power in our own experiences and those of our community partners.
Suggested Reading:
- Marina Feldman PhD dissertation titled “Welcome to the Conversation Garden! Cultivating Learning Communities, Critical Práxis, and Asset-Based Thinking”
Dr. Marina Feldman is a Postdoc Fellow at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education in New Brunswick, NJ. Marina is interested in community-engaged learning that connects university folks with those outside the boundaries of their campuses. Along with colleagues, mentors, and students, she works to build community and foster mutually beneficial partnerships, and multi-directional, asset-based learning opportunities. She is particularly focused on partnering with and learning from immigrant communities and community-based organizations oriented to social change. She is incredibly humbled by opportunities to engage with, learn from, and collaborate with community organizations in New Brunswick, NJ. Community-based organizers have been her greatest teachers during graduate school, followed closely by her brilliant students.