Case study 3: Towards inclusive digital pedagogy: collaborative processes of sharing STEM curricula resources with multilingual communities

• In Event: Digital technology and curriculum mapping: towards more inclusive teaching and learning of STEM

Proposal

Previous work in the analysis of Afghanistan’s curricula only included K-12 textbooks of social studies, history, and Islamic education, making visible an important gap in the analysis of Afghanistan’s STEM curricula (Amiry et al., 2024). From our STEM curricula analysis and comparison between different education systems, it is evident that many pedagogical possibilities and multilingual learning strategies can help support Afghan newcomer students’ learning and reimagining STEM education in Canada and beyond. In order to equitably disseminate and share the various curricula resources that the team has developed together over the past several years, my dad, who is fluent in Pashto, and I collaborated to develop multilingual resource booklets for Afghan families in Ontario. This included developing booklet guides for Pashto-speaking families, Dari-speaking families, and an English version for Afghans who are less fluent in Dari or Pashto. In consideration for our audience of Afghan families with varying levels of digital literacy, including those who are less familiar with this digital tool, we ensured not to include QR codes and provided additional resources that can support them in better understanding the STEM learning material that their children were bringing home with them, from school. The booklets also provoke meaningful reflection and dialogue in Afghan families and parents, in allowing them to consider the ways in which they play an active role in their children’s STEM education at school and at home. While supporting their children in their first language, they are also simultaneously strengthening these language skills in their children. I draw upon practical examples of how this may manifest in the context of math and science education, as well as how it can be done, based on first-hand experiences and discussions I have had with other Afghan newcomer families in Toronto. For example, I present the example of using kidney beans to count and practice number sense as an equally legitimate way of doing mathematics. These resource booklets help validate and legitimize the significance of students, parents, families, and communities’ diverse funds of knowledge that they bring with them when they arrive to Canada and enter the new education system here, as newcomer students are not “blank slates” (Cummins, 2000; Moll et al., 1992). Rather, their language skills are important resources to their STEM learning (Le Pichon et al., 2023c). Therefore, in many ways, the resource booklets importantly serve to bridge together diverse pedagogical strategies, in the context of STEM education, where multiple, culturally relevant pedagogical strategies exist, dismantling a common hierarchy of epistemologies.

Author

• Mehdia Hassan, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto