Thursday, March 21, 12:15 - 1:30, Bulger Communication Center North
Situating Community Relevant Learning: Towards the Development of a Pedagogy of Urban Promise
Aligned with the campus theme: "Year of the City," this presentation shares a few of the triumphs and struggles gained from designing course activities that utilize technology to bring various community voices and artifacts in concert with the evolving pedagogical practices and/ or learning stances of prospective, pre-service, and present P-12 classroom teachers attending Buffalo State. Part illustrative, part conversational, part technologically creative, this presentation pushes on the notion of "best practices" as decontextualized, sometimes intentionally neglectful, routines disconnected from the lived experiences of urban education community stakeholders and their encompassing and inherited history. Instead, this presentation argues for the importance of identifying and incorporating community assets as part of the emerging instructional practices and beliefs about learning of future and current classroom teachers through the use of technology, while also reflecting the instantiation of a research agenda that seeks to develop more critically conscious classroom teachers and educators.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Jevon D. Hunter has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Elementary Education and Reading at Buffalo State since 2010. He received his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis on literacy from the Urban Schooling division at UCLA. Jevon has taught a wide range of students and spent over a decade working in urban communities with non-dominant youth, their teachers and families in the service of helping to increase academic opportunities, experiences, and outcomes.
Jevon draws upon his diverse teaching experiences, professional background and expertise, and academic training to craft a schol<ar>tist identity and engages in an active research agenda that explores learning and literacies education as they impact non-dominant students in formal, informal, and hybrid urban school settings. Grounded in sociocultural theories of human development and informed by social justice-oriented perspectives of education, Jevon focuses on understanding the ways culture, history, language, and technology intersect with learning and literacies and the implications of this work for urban education. He pays special attention to the ways in which official and unofficial curricula, instructional policies, and teacher practices influence learning environments and dis/mis/empower students, teachers, and families. Jevon’s scholarship has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, and he has presented regularly at national and regional conferences. Equally significant, he has been a frequently invited guest to exchange ideas with schools and organizations within the Buffalo and Rochester areas.
