The TALLL lab team made two presentations during the AERA 2024 Annual Meeting at the Pennsylvania Convention Center from April 11 to 14, 2024. Dr. Jia Li and her colleagues presented their findings in two separate roundtable sessions. Her first presentation, Teaching debate skills using video modelling: Supporting urban adolescents’ academic language development, discussed findings from a 5-week intervention study conducted in the US. that integrated video modeling of debate with the whole classroom discussion to support adolescents’ learning of academic language skills.
Dr. Jia Li and Matthew McGravey at 2024 AERA Annual Meeting
In another session Dr. Li and TALLL Lab Research Associate Matthew McGravey, made a presentation, entitled Principals’ stories from a Canadian northern Indigenous community: Challenges and opportunities through the COVID-19 pandemic. We reported a case study that examined the experiences of four principals during the Covid-19 pandemic; specifically, the study looked at systemic barriers to educational delivery and attainment, the pandemic specific challenges, as well as suggestions for the improvement of education in this Northern, remote Indigenous community. Our presentation sparked dynamic and engaging conversations regarding the role of school leaders in Indigenous educational contexts. We are appreciative having opportunities leaning about peer presenters’ research, and their perspectives and pertinent issues regarding school leadership from the US., Chile and Hong Kong.
Given our team’s keen interest in the growing field of Artificial Intelligence in education, Matthew attended the symposium, Student interactions with AI that was highly informative regarding future directions of education using AI. Of particular interest were sessions examining topics such as learning literary skills with AI integration and young learners’ perspectives on AI in learning activities. Furthermore, this symposium also featured speakers detailing their findings regarding other topics such as coding methods in computer science and student attitudes regarding their readiness for virtual reality adoption in post-secondary education.
We also attended a symposium co-chaired by Professor Catherine E. Snow from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This session focused on scientific methods of teaching reading. Topics included teaching reading to young elementary school students with reading disabilities, as well as interventions aimed at improving the quality of instruction for these learners in reading and writing. This symposium was of particular interest to our team, given our lab’s extensive focus on language and literacy attainment through innovative pedagogical innovations.
Matthew McGravey at 2024 AERA Annual Meeting
