Papers by Angela K. Salmon
Advances in Linguistics and Communication Studies
The Handbook of Research on Socio-Cultural and Linguistic Perspectives on Language and Literacy D... more The Handbook of Research on Socio-Cultural and Linguistic Perspectives on Language and Literacy Development approaches language and literacy development from a socio-cultural and linguistic perspective. This book offers global perspectives on language and literacy from international experts working with both children and educators. It offers readers a diversity of voices and experiences of professionals in the field that can inform their teaching and research. Covering topics such as critical literacy, emotional engagement, and multilingual resources, this major reference work is an indispensable resource for administrators and educators of both K-12 and higher education, pre-service teachers, teacher educators, biblio-therapists, librarians, researchers, and academicians.
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion, 2018
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) appears to be an integral element of inclusive edu... more Information and Communication Technology (ICT) appears to be an integral element of inclusive education in terms of ensuring that all learners have an equal and personalized opportunity to develop the different set of skills that are in demand in the 21st century. In a collaborative effort to build a culture of inclusion among all learners, the authors of this study invited the teachers of three low-income kindergarten schools of Piraeus to join Harvard's Project Zero's Out of Eden Learn (OOEL) online learning community. The purpose of the study was to investigate the OOEL's potential to serve as a space and resource for overcoming inequalities and enhancing respectful online exchanges among students of diverse socio-economic background. The findings of this study demonstrated OOEL as an online learning community that gives equal opportunities to all students to be heard and thrive in our contemporary society.
Journal of Research in Childhood Education
Handbook of Research on Socio-Cultural and Linguistic Perspectives on Language and Literacy Development
The interplay between language, cognition, and the effects of emotions promote language and liter... more The interplay between language, cognition, and the effects of emotions promote language and literacy development. Children have a natural inclination to build on other children's stories, which is the origin of the collective stories of voice and influence discussion. Stories are empowering venues that give children a voice and simultaneously open windows for them to step inside someone else's shoes, make connections, take perspective, and construct meaning. Stories make us human; children become aware of the world around them by listening and sharing stories. This action research project reports the process of children listening to stories and tailoring the telling of a story to a specific audience. Children were cognitively and emotionally engaged in interpreting stories and transmitting their messages through dialogic thinking and boundary objects. The children made their stories visible using a pedagogy of multiliteracies to tell stories in a natural, playful, safe, and ...
Conscious of the interplay between nature and nurture in determining a child’s individuality and ... more Conscious of the interplay between nature and nurture in determining a child’s individuality and success in life, the author embarked a group of teachers in an action research project towards nurturing a culture of thinking in young children. Considering the positive effects of routines in early learning experiences, the research consisted in implementing thinking routines to engage young children’s minds in thinking activities. The study took place in two Reggio-inspired schools where participating teachers doc-umented children’s work as part of their teaching. The documentation was a key element to make children’s thinking visible as they installed the culture and language of thinking in their classrooms. The study found that thinking routines build up positive attitudes about thinking and learning. By re-visiting their documented work chil-dren developed metacognitive and critical thinking skills which make them more alert to situations that call for thinking.
Educational Leadership, 1998
The teachers at the Colegio Menor San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador are in the process of establi... more The teachers at the Colegio Menor San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador are in the process of establishing a curriculum that supports child-centered learning. The technique the teachers utilize is that of theme cycling where the students themselves direct their learning process. Through this method, students become more interested in learning and motivated to study. The teachers also involve the parents in learning strategies for children. Full Text: By collaborating with one another, teachers at a new school in Ecuador have been able to improve their own teaching and develop a curriculum that supports child-centered learning. At the Colegio Menor San Francisco de Quito, an elementary school in Quito, Ecuador, the biggest challenge facing teachers is the development of a curriculum that supports child-centered learning, a new concept for Ecuador's traditional society. To strengthen their own teaching and educate parents, a group of teachers at the school began by collaborating among themselves. Through their students, they involved the parents. The result has been a dramatic increase in the students' love of learning.
Authentic Teaching and Learning for PreK–Fifth Grade
espanolEl ensenar y aprender es un proceso reciproco en el que el maestro y los ninos aprenden el... more espanolEl ensenar y aprender es un proceso reciproco en el que el maestro y los ninos aprenden el uno del otro. Las investigaciones y teorias de desarrollo infantil sugieren que un curriculo rico y motivador con interacciones de calidad entre el adulto y el nino promueven el desarrollo cognitivo y del lenguaje. Cuando el pensamiento es la base del aprendizaje de los estudiantes y se lo hace visible, los ninos tienen la habilidad de desarrollar habitos de la mente, aprender a aprender y auto-regular sus emociones y conductas. Consecuentemente, ellos desarrollan funciones ejecutivas que tomaran control de su aprendizaje y su vida. Las interacciones entre el adulto y el nino son vitales para el desarrollo cognitivo, linguistico, y social emocional del nino. El discurso del maestro en el aula responde a la imagen que el tiene del nino, incluyendo sus expectativas sobre el pensamiento. Cuando el maestro valora el pensamiento de los ninos, el los envuelve en pensamiento de alto nivel y le...
Through action research, the researchers engaged a group of third grade children in a project tha... more Through action research, the researchers engaged a group of third grade children in a project that offered a variety of learning activities to develop the children's perspective-taking ability. As a result the teachers found a significant increase in the emotional connection of the students to the characters in the literature. I know what it means to feel what someone else is feeling. I just pop out my heart and pop in theirs. This is empathy and it connects me to the people in my life and to the characters in the stories I read. Robert, Age 8 Preparing our students to participate fully in today and tomorrow's world demands that we develop their global competence. In order to do this, we must cultivate within our students a disposition of understanding and compassion and nurture their ability to recognize multiple perspectives. Educating for global competence presents educators with important challenges, most importantly, helping students to break through their own cultural ...
Young Children, 2010
uring a neighborhood walk, preschool children from Ms. Silvia’s class took pictures of buildings,... more uring a neighborhood walk, preschool children from Ms. Silvia’s class took pictures of buildings, businesses, and people. Back in the classroom, Ms. Silvia displayed their pictures on a large screen and used the See/Think/Wonder thinking routine to help the children think and talk about their experiences on the walk. Thinking routines are short, goal-oriented, easy-to-learn, and child-centered classroom strategies that extend and deepen children’s thinking. They can become part of the structure of everyday classroom life. In the See/Think/Wonder thinking routine, Ms. Silvia first asked, “What do you see?” The children talked about the businesses and restaurants they recognized in the photos. One preschooler, Mark, expressed his interest in the tall buildings he saw. Being from Miami, Florida, he had many times overheard adults discussing ways to survive a hurricane. His curiosity about how tall buildings stay up in strong winds inspired him to start creating buildings in the blocks ...
Este articulo se refiere al desarrollo de la lectoescritura en ninos pequenos, en particular, nin... more Este articulo se refiere al desarrollo de la lectoescritura en ninos pequenos, en particular, ninos bilingues, bajo la luz de teorias cognitivas que resaltan la conexion entre el pensamiento y el lenguaje. Al estimular la mente por medio del uso de rutinas de pensamiento, se crean culturas de pensamiento que provocan en el nino el deseo intrinsico de expresarse por medio del dibujo y la escritura. A su vez, permiten que el maestro conozca lo que saben y piensan sus estudiantes con el fin de ayudarles a construir significados mientras ellos expanden su vocabulario y comprenden los textos que leen o que les son leidos.
Este articulo aclara conceptos relacionados con la adquisicion o el aprendizaje de una segunda le... more Este articulo aclara conceptos relacionados con la adquisicion o el aprendizaje de una segunda lengua y sus implicaciones en programas de parvulos. Se hace una revision de teorias actuales que explican la adquisicion natural del lenguaje de un nino y las implicaciones en una segunda lengua. A partir del analisis de teorias e investigaciones recientes en el campo de la educacion bilingue y la lectoescritura, la autora resalta la importancia de crear contextos que favorezcan la adquisicion del lenguaje, la lectura y escritura. Para esto, es importante conocer los fondos de conocimiento del nino o conocimientos relacionados con la vida diaria y su familia, con el fin de valorar los antecedentes socio-culturales y linguisticos del nino como base fundamental para crear un aula centrada en el estudiante. Como citar este articulo: Salmon, Angela K., “Consideraciones teoricas para fundamentar practicas adecuadas para el aprendizaje de la lectoescritura en ninos preescolares bilingues”, Revi...
Advances in Religious and Cultural Studies
Preparing students to face migration depends on how schools are responding to the needs of the ch... more Preparing students to face migration depends on how schools are responding to the needs of the children and their families. The authors introduce Stories for Influence to help teachers scaffold children's understanding of migration so they can gain perspective, create, and share their own stories. Research shows how stories make us humans by exposing the humanity in both our own and others' migration stories. The authors use Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory, neuroscience, and socio-emotional aspects of storytelling to support the effectiveness of Stories for Influence. They also provide venues, such as the Out of Eden Learn framework, children's literature, and thinking routines and global thinking routines strategies to cognitively and emotionally engage children in constructing meaning and making sense of human events as igniters of their stories. Migration is approached from the Reimagining Migration (RM) educational framework that sees the presence of migrant-o...
Thinking Skills and Creativity
Abstract Questioning is an important cognitive activity that enhances teaching and learning. The ... more Abstract Questioning is an important cognitive activity that enhances teaching and learning. The quality of the questions that teachers ask plays an important role in promoting or hindering students’ curiosity, thinking, and, consequently, their learning. Asking good questions is an art that requires the teacher’s creative intervention to facilitate learning. Questions create zones of proximal development when teachers are able to grasp their students’ prior knowledge, thinking, and inquiries to scaffold them to the next level. Moreover, effective questioning in teaching marks the difference between being a facilitator of learning opportunities or a consumer of someone else’s ideas. This study reports on a participatory action research project of a learning community of practice in a Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool where the teacher and research team found a way to implement an intentional teaching through questioning. By using documentation to reflect on the questions that the teacher formulated, the teacher became more thoughtful about her questions and learned how to formulate better questions. Furthermore, Harvard Project Zero’s Teaching for Understanding and Visible Thinking frameworks helped the teacher develop a better understanding of fostering an emergent curriculum within the Reggio Emilia philosophy. The experience helped the school build a strong identity and empower teachers to master their teaching with high-quality questions.
Early Childhood Education [Working Title]
This chapter aims to raise awareness on the influence that small changes in adult-child interacti... more This chapter aims to raise awareness on the influence that small changes in adult-child interactions can have on children's cognitive and learning progress. The authors address learning opportunities found through the odds of conventional teaching in an early childhood setting. In an effort to promote good thinking that develops language and cognition in young bilingual children, the authors participated in an action research experience that taught them the benefits of empowering teachers when making curriculum and pedagogical decisions. Teacher preparation and high-quality coaching that emphasized the idea of teaching for understanding Blythe et al. while making thinking and learning visible are vital components for an ever-changing environment. The use of documentation, and asking good questions were important aspects to engage disengaged children and teachers.
Authentic Teaching and Learning for PreK–Fifth Grade
Early Childhood Education Journal
Globally competent people are aware of world issues, take perspective, are engaged and know how t... more Globally competent people are aware of world issues, take perspective, are engaged and know how to communicate to different people. This article portraits a story of two kindergarten classrooms, one in the United States and the other in Greece, both working with culturally diverse children and, in the case of the American classroom, English Language learners. The teachers shared philosophical foundations reflected in their practice and discourse in the classroom as they took a learning journey through Harvard Project Zero’s Out of Eden Learn project. Out of Eden Learn serves as a platform to engage children from both settings in exploring their own neighborhoods, investigating contemporary global issues, and reflecting on how they as individuals fit into a broader geographical and historical context. Through meaningful hands-on experiences, the children in these two classrooms gained deep understandings of themselves and their surroundings, made personal connections and developed empathy as they heard stories of children around the world. In their learning journey, the two teachers used thinking routines to help the children slow down and observe the world around them. The experience not only helped the teachers comply with curriculum standards, but also allowed them to keep alive the children’s capacity to be curious and promote parental involvement. The children developed a sense of self-understanding and self-identity as a point of reference to develop perspective and understanding of other cultures.
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Papers by Angela K. Salmon