Transmedia(ted) Praxis in the City: Evolving Pedagogies of Justice Across Digital and Social Mediascapes

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Living and Learning in the Digital Age: Exploring the Tensions and Possibilities of Transmedia Activity

Abstract

Objectives
This paper presents how digital and social media tools of mobility (Constanza-Chock, 2014; Jenkins, 2016) supported teachers’ mediated praxis (Gutiérrez & Vossoughi, 2010) in the context of collaborative inquiry, enabling the emergence of expansive pedagogical theorizing and practices. We are interested in teachers’ learning and appropriation (Rogoff, 1995) of tools that leverage youths’ socio-political transmedia practices within the context of everyday struggles in the city. This paper highlights the transformation of teachers’ reflective practices and tools into justice-oriented pedagogies that foster the development of expansive meaning-making and mobility in the lives of non-dominant youth.

Theoretical Framework
We draw upon cultural-historical theories of learning (Cole, 1996; Engeström, 1987) which posit that learning occurs in everyday activity, mediated by social interaction and cultural tools. Further, we are informed by theories which describe a new communication ecology in today’s interconnected world, where learning and mobility are mediated by digital technologies and social media (Jenkins, 2016). For this study, participants drew on cultural-historical learning theory and spatial theories (Lefebvre, 1991; Soja, 1996) to examine how non-dominant populations traverse spaces within cities, challenge the neoliberal re-making of the city (Author, 2019), and engage in everyday resistance (Pacheco, 2012).

Methods & Analysis
In this social design-based experiment (Gutiérrez & Vossoughi, 2010), data draw on the learning and development of four teachers over the course of two years, as they were enrolled in a teacher education course and in their first two years of teaching. This study centralizes their systematic reflection as they co-designed learning environments with youth.

Data
Video and audio data of the teacher education classroom and teachers’ own classrooms were collected. Other data included teachers’ field notes, written assignments, and semi-structured interviews. Video and audio sources were logged and interviews were transcribed. All data were inductively coded (Bogdan & Biklen, 1997). Units of analysis included teachers’ collective and individual sensemaking of pedagogical practices that leveraged youths’ socio-spatial practices (Author, 2019).

Results
This study offers insight for how spatial production practices, that are mediated by digital technologies, of non-dominant youth and teachers afforded more expansive (Engeström, 1987; Gutiérrez, 2008) and robust learning ecologies. Of note, teachers made sense of and transformed the object of learning activities by designing for discursive practices, participation structures, tools, and task structures that amplified youths’ everyday transmedia practices. In particular, the development of such practices emerged as teachers jointly-reflected on their pedagogical interactions in the teacher education classroom and in a video club (Sherin & van Es, 2009). Over the course of the two years, teachers learned how to see and design for learning that helped youth navigate the dilemmas they face in their everyday lives.

Significance
This study offers methodological and pedagogical implications for the design of teacher learning environments that foster equitable learning opportunities for non-dominant youth living in cities undergoing cultural and demographic shifts. In addition, this study offers a window into how teacher learning can be designed to account for the role of spatial production, especially as it relates to the everyday transmedia practices of non-dominant youth.

Authors

• Arturo Cortez, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Benjamin Calvert, Making Waves Academy

• LeShawn Holcomb, Bayside Martin Luther King, Jr. Academy

• Sherif Musaji, Berkeley High School

• Rachael Zarate, ARISE High School