RBERNing Questions

Using Social Media and Relatable Resources to Build a Culture of Reading w/Lorraine Radice

• Yasmeen Coaxum • Season 3 • Episode 4

Share episode

Episode Summary:
In this episode, Pre K-12 Director of Literacy, Lorraine Radice, shares her extensive experience and strategies for supporting multilingual learners by enhancing literacy. She highlights methods to promote reading among students, the importance of including contemporary voices in English curriculums, and leveraging social media to foster a love for reading. Additionally, Lorraine addresses the impact of AI and technology in the classroom, stressing the need for critical reading skills and effective use of digital tools. This conversation covers the role of parents in literacy development, curriculum inclusivity, and tips to engage various stakeholder groups in building a strong reading culture.

RBERNing Questions for this Episode:
1- What has inspired you to champion specifically for the upleveling of literacy?

2- Your latest book,  “Leading a Culture of Reading: How to Ignite and Sustain a Love of Literacy in Your School Community,” highlights several ways to promote and celebrate reading. Tell us about 2 of those ways. 

3- Can you touch on the 4 areas to take into account when reviewing an English curriculum to make sure it’s student-centered, and how these areas specifically pertain to ELLs or MLs? 

Full BIO:
Lorraine Radice, Ph.D. is an educator, author, speaker, and professional developer. Lorraine is a preK-12 Director of Literacy in a public school district in New York and an Associate Assistant Professor at Hofstra University. She is a leader in supporting educators in creating literacy cultures in schools and classrooms as well as in designing curriculum and instruction that prioritizes authenticity and choice in literacy learning.

Lorraine is the author of the award-winning book Leading A Culture of Reading: How to Ignite & Sustain a Love of Literacy in Your School Community (Solution Tree, 2023) and is a contributing author to the research volume Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment: Intersecting New Needs and New Approaches. Her work has also been published in ASCD Blog, NCTE Blog, Literacy Today by the International Literacy Association, and Edutopia. 

Resources:
Website:
www.lorrainemradice.com

Instagram & X (Twitter):
@LorraineMRadice

Publications:
Book:  Leading a Culture of Reading: How to Ignite and Sustain a Love of Literacy in Your School Community (The how-to guide for building a celebratory culture of reading)

To find out more about Mid-State RBERN at OCM BOCES' services, listen to season 1 of the show with host Collette Farone-Goodwin, or to receive CTLE credit for listening to episodes, click here: https://midstaterbern.org/


Yasmeen:

Welcome to RBERNing Questions, a professional learning podcast where we answer your most compelling questions about teaching, serving, and supporting multilingual learners. I'm your host, Yasmeen Coaxum, and through our talks, I look forward to bringing the methods, philosophies, and stories behind teaching multilingual learners to light. Let's get into the show. Dr. Lorraine Radice is an educator, author, speaker, and professional developer. She is a Pre-K through 12 Director of Literacy in a public school district in New York and an Associate Assistant Professor at Hofstra University. Dr. Radice is a leader in supporting educators and creating literacy cultures in schools and classrooms, as well as in designing curriculum and instruction that prioritizes authenticity and choice in literacy learning. Lorraine is the author of the award winning book,"Leading a Culture of Reading: How to Ignite and Sustain a Love of Literacy in Your School Community," and is a contributing author to the research volume"Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment: Intersecting, New Needs and New Approaches."

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Welcome back to another episode of the RBERNing Questions Podcast, and on today's show, we have Lorraine Radice and Lorraine is going to talk to us about a lot of important aspects of how to support ELLs and MLs and students in general in terms of literacy. So what I usually do at the beginning of these shows is to mention how I know my guests. And in this case, I got one of your Solution Tree flyers from the NYS TESOL Conference last year, and I really wanted to have you on our podcast. Definitely I would like for you to be able to tell us a little bit more about Solution Tree later in the episode, but first, just tell us about your current role in education at this time.

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Sure. Thank you so much for having me this afternoon. I'm really happy to be here. Currently, I am a Pre K to 12 Director of Literacy in a public school district in New York, and, in addition, I am an Associate Adjunct Professor at Hofstra University on Long Island, where I teach in the Childhood Ed and Literacy Studies department. I am fortunate also to do professional development in schools and I am an author. I published the book, Leading a Culture of Reading: How to Ignite and Sustain a Love of Literacy in Your School Community earlier this year, and we'll be talking a little bit about some of the work in that book during this hour together.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Okay, fantastic, and so what inspired you to become an educator in the first place? I'm always, of course, curious about what leads people into this field because the stories are just really quite varied. So what is your story?

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher. I come from a family that has some educators in it. I was fortunate enough to have some really great teachers along the way, when I was young and in school, and it was always something that I felt inside of me that I wanted to do, I had a passion for it. So I was a classroom teacher for 10 years, a teacher of ELLs, MLs, Gen Ed students, and, one of the most difficult decisions I did make was to make the transition from being a classroom teacher. to a school leader, but I've been fortunate enough to partner with teachers in ways that I still get to work closely with students and with teachers talking about students that has connected me to the classroom.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Okay, so I'm definitely gonna have to ask now why you decided to make that transition into school leadership?

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

I've, I'm very passionate about literacy. I'll share more later in the hour about the work that I did with my students in the classroom around the importance of reading, building a culture of reading in my classroom, fostering a love and appreciation for authentic reading experiences with my students. And when an opportunity presented itself in the school district that I was a teacher to work across buildings first at the elementary level and then, Pre K to 12 to do some of the similar work that I was doing with the students in my own classroom, that was exciting for me, to work with other educators, to build a vision together, stemming from some of the ideas that I implemented in my own classroom, and then, of course, those ideas grew and changed right to encompass the vision of others. And that was exciting work for me to do within the school district that was a home for me.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Okay, and I would like to also ask you what inspired you to champion specifically for the up leveling of literacy? Well, um that's actually

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

what started my journey as a school leader. At the time when, a position became available, the superintendent asked me on my interview, what are some ways in which you would build a culture of reading in our school district? Because that was part of her vision as a superintendent, was to really foster authentic reading experiences, increase the volume in which kids were reading. Of course, there's ties to achievement, but in addition to achievement, really the love and personal appreciation for reading and I was able, like I said, to recall some of the ways that I did that within my own classroom and then grow new ways as I started to work with larger teams and that, that question was really the impetus for all of the work because I was charged with doing just that in the school district to develop a vision. And a culture around an appreciation for reading in both adults and students.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

I just, I love that you said in adults as well. Um,

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

The adults are just as important.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Yes, because I think that is just as needed actually, and not a lot of people talk about that, but that is definitely very important as well because then who is passing the baton in the first place? The adults have to, you know, have to foster that love and that excitement for what's on the written page. And then, we are the ones that go ahead and pass that on to our students, to the children. so I'm really glad that you said that. All right, so let's dive into your book. So just to repeat for our audience, your latest book is titled"Leading a Culture of Reading: How to Ignite and Sustain a Love of Literacy in Your School Community." So it highlights several ways to promote and to celebrate reading, and I'm just going to read a little bit of the Amazon description for the audience as well. It says grounded in current research, this book provides resources and strategies to help educators improve literacy culture in their schools and inspire a love of reading in their students. Author Lorraine M. Radice demonstrates how educators can promote literacy through social media, and shares ways in which all stakeholders can contribute to students' reading engagement. So a little bit later, maybe I will go into some of what the book is slated to be able to do for those who read it, but first, I would like you to tell us about two of the ways that educators can promote and celebrate reading.

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Sure. the book is designed to be a how to guide for educators, and each chapter is dedicated to a stakeholder group and how that stakeholder group could support students in developing, a love for reading and an authenticity in reading. So for example, the first chapter is about creating the vision together as a team within an organization or school. Then a chapter is dedicated to adults. A chapter is dedicated toward, the school community and how do you make reading visible. Then there's students as a stakeholder group, how to support families as a stakeholder group, and then how to sustain your culture of reading when there are other initiatives that come into play because there always are in education. So two that I want to share with you today, One, what we started to talk about briefly is the importance of the adults. And when you embark on your journey to build a culture of reading in your school community, it's really important to start with the adults, because as you shared, the adults are the ones who are working with the students and really classroom teachers who are directly impacting students, and it's important to support them and their vision about what a culture of reading could be, what they want it to be. and you design culture in ways that people can connect to it and grab onto pieces of it and really make it their own. so some ways that you can support adults in the school community to build a culture of reading, is to connect with them about their reading lives and just like students, among adults, there are people who love reading. There are people who really like reading, but maybe they don't have a lot of time, right? Adulthood is busy. And then there are some people who. As adults, they don't connect with reading. That's not really what they're into, and that's okay. There are people who are digital readers who like to scroll apps and sportscasts and, you know, all different types of readers as adults. And you want to tap into that and really honor where people are in their reading lives as adults and use that, to their advantage when talking with students about reading. It's okay to share with students, oh, I have three books on my nightstand that I wish I could read and, but I just don't have a lot of time. And then that becomes an authentic conversation about how reading does take time. There are a lot of things that pull at us in life. Even young people are pulled in a lot of different directions. And that can be a conversation about how do you make reading plans. If you love to read, the NFL app on Mondays, right after Sunday football, and that's what, you define as being a reader, you can connect with a student about that, let's read about weekend football and then talk about it the next day. And there's all different ways, and ways that you can engage in adults and reading together after you talk about their reading lives is you can do book clubs, reading for pleasure, professional reading. you can start meetings with quick, a quick book talk, two minutes, or I write about something in the book called the 10 word book talk, which is almost like a puzzle to summarize in a book in just 10 words. So making adults, engage with reading and reflect on their own reading lives is a way to ignite the culture building and then the other way I'll share today is to make reading visible in the school community, What students see what they hear. in their classrooms, in the hallways of their schools, signals what is important within the community, and again, adults help to perpetuate that, and of course, we want to invite students into perpetuating what's important. And the more they see things related to reading, the more they hear things related to reading, that is ingrained in what it's like to be in that classroom and to be in that school, and implicitly and explicitly reading is important, and kids know that. So ways that you can do that is to have currently reading signs, inside classrooms or in the hallways, all teachers and adults in the building, including nurses, secretaries, custodians, cafeteria workers, they can share what they're reading and put the sign up, next to their office space or wherever they work in the building. Another way in my school district that we make reading visible is we dedicate a month of the year to reading. and we do that in February. We play off of Valentine's Day and the theme of the month is fall in love, book love. And that is a month long celebration, sometimes filled with book fairs or author visits or reading reflections. That is a month celebration of what we really celebrate all year, but we just put a little exclamation point, on the culture building during that time. So those are some practical ways in which you could, start to build your culture. I love those,

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

particularly, I was excited about, what you're reading now. Right? Currently reading, whatever it is, right? Because, again, it reinforces this idea that, yes, people are taking some time to flip between some pages and, have their imaginations expanded in this way. Uh, so I really like that. And I definitely love, this, this Valentine's Day, play on reading and having author visits. Again, it brings more of a sense of 3D situation to what is normally a 2D situation, right? Instead of just like, okay, we're looking at the, something on the page, and, the students may or may not be resonating with whatever that is, whatever they have to read. But then when you add the el the human element to it, it really. It brings it more into focus and I feel like, creates some more inspiration around it. so I really like this idea of, of inviting authors as well. So that's great. I would like to share it says that this book will help K through 12 educators and instructional coaches. Now, I'm not going to read the whole bulleted list of what it does, but just a few of them that really kind of sparked my attention here. One is, understand how access to devices has dampened reading interest among K-12 students and consequently affected literacy. another one is, to help, educators and instructional coaches become familiar with the research behind the role of social media in students lives and discover how to use the social media to support reading engagement. And then just two more that sparked my interest. Know the role of parents and caregivers in establishing and maintaining reading habits. I think we already maybe touched a little bit on that with talking about adults, but perhaps you can expand on that in a moment. And then the final one that was interesting to me is incorporate student leadership into literacy programs and have access to a toolkit for implementing leadership into reading campaigns. So, uh, the first one that I want to talk about is about the devices, dampening, reading interest. So there's been a lot said about some of the detrimental effects of social media, particularly for the youth. However, this is not one that you, I mean, that's really spoken about so often. So can you dive into this one a little bit?

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Sure. when I talk with, especially secondary teachers about student engagement and reading, it's almost a guarantee that technology will come up, that phones and devices and social media is almost a distraction away from the traditional reading of print or even reading on an ebook. Students seem to be more interested in looking through social media than reading a text and there is profound research that supports this, that among, young people from ages 9 to 17, their engagement in reading has declined in recent years, and the research that parallels that is that usage of social media has inclined over the past several years, especially since 2019, and that is a reality. Social media is part of our lives as young people as adults, and it's not to be ignored. Sometimes I think it could be frustrating as a teacher, as a school leader because it is a distraction, it is everywhere, but if we reframe away from it being a distraction and maybe more of a tool as an, as engagement, uh, for engagement, excuse me, then it could be your friend as a teacher in the classroom. So one example of this is to, connect with, and this would be for older readers, maybe in high school, is to connect with social media platforms like Instagram that have book, Bookstagram, TikTok, has, Book Tok and there are communities of readers, even X, right? There are communities of readers that share book recommendations and book reviews, and, they post about what they're reading and things that they love about what they're reading and, even bookstores like, brick and mortar stores like Barnes and Noble have capitalized on the BookTok, Bookstagram movement and have displays in their stores that say, popular on BookTok, because we are now morphing into online communities of readers that may be reading print, but talking about it in digital space. So that, that could be a gateway, into, engaging students in reading, making them want to participate in a community, similar to media. There are streaming platforms that have taken popular books, like The Summer I Turned Pretty, Friday Nights at Freddy's, and they've made them into series on Netflix and Amazon Prime, and, particularly when The Summer I Turned Pretty had come out, two summers ago, for the past two years, it's been hard for me to walk into a middle school or high school classroom during independent reading time without seeing at least two or three students reading one of those books from the trilogy. And, sometimes there's the perspective with movies as well, that we want to read the book first, and then, and then we can watch the show or the movie. But you know, the reality is kids have a lot of access to streaming platforms. If they watch the show or the series or the movie first that, we have to capitalize on whatever we can right to, to get kids to engage in reading because of all the other benefits besides a love of reading that reading brings to us as we grow and mature. So I think using that to our advantage to, if you get hooked on something that's been made through media and you want to read, maybe that could be the gateway into other things that maybe aren't shows or movies before they turned into from books. So I think, framing our perspective as literacy teachers around social media and technology to be a friend, to be a partner, to be a tool, could be beneficial because it's what kids connect to. And we have to find ways to connect to what kids are interested in.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

As you were talking, I was thinking about just the internet, right? Like even the internet before social media even hit the scene and how a lot of educators were not so open to even bringing that into the classroom. Like bringing resources from the internet into the class. So I think this is just a kind of, I guess we can say a rite of passage. That's something that always happens when we have, innovations and, just as trying to figure out how to work with and deal with and be friends with those innovations

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

And it's not easy, because it's hard to change as rapidly as technology changes. And. and as, as rapidly as kids change because their interests waver with what becomes popular and what becomes new and like you said, new innovations and it's not easy to keep up with that and to think about creative ways to bring that into the classroom. So it's, for people who have a big question mark, maybe over their head in that area I think that's okay. I think it takes time to think through how to make this relevant in the classroom. And the other big piece about social media within the book is about the reading campaign that was developed to perpetuate the culture building. So the reading campaign was called, is called, Hashtag LB Reads, and that was to, again, capitalize on really adults' use of social media, teachers, parents, and to spread the word about the commitment to reading within the school district. And when the LB Reads campaign was launched, we did use social media sites, schools use their own accounts to spread the word about LB Reads. But that became the centerpiece of what people were orbiting around, if that makes sense. So if LB Reads is, the hashtag and, what people can connect to both in print and also in digital space, that's what unifies people, that we're all supporting this movement that we're calling LB Reads. And it appeared on bulletin boards, we created a logo that was all on our parent communications and those currently reading signs that I mentioned. so branding is important and part of what I write about in the book is, some information about how corporate companies use branding and, how branding helps to share a unified message about your products. And in this case, the product per se is reading and we want to brand that so that people believe in it and they want to contribute toward it. and it's something for six buildings, right? And in my school district in particular to all work toward together.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

I just want for the audience, L. B. stands for Long Beach, I'm assuming, okay. Yes, stands for Long Beach, everybody. And, also that I think you're referring to chapter one, Hashtag Brand Reading: How to Leverage a Campaign in Your School Community and Attract Followers, okay. Alright, that was, one of the chapters that I highlighted, cause, cause I was kinda like. I would like her to talk a little bit about that, and you already did it, so fantastic, and I like that you again brought up parents because, if you could just specify what you think the role of parents and caregivers is in establishing and maintaining reading habits.

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Of course, parents and caregivers are extremely essential in this work, in all work relative to education, schools and families partner together to do what's most important and that is to support children. and in this case, in particular, to invite families into this reading campaign and this, vision is really important because we want, ultimately we want to try to make home and school or in school and out of school experiences like a revolving door for students. We want them to be able to connect personally, socially, intellectually, and build little personal bridges so that they find relevance in their learning. And, bringing parents into the LB Reads, reading culture mission, Is a way to foster that culture at home. And one of the ways in which we did that is we've developed parent academy events where we invite parents into the school space, and we run workshops, we do coaching sessions. We also have done them virtually sometimes access to a virtual event is easier for families who, may have work or other commitments. They can sign on from wherever they are. so access to these type of events is extremely important in part of the vision. So other ways in which we attend to access is to provide transportation to our in-person events. Child care. parents or caregivers who have young children that don't have child care at home. we, ask older high school students who need community service hours or through like an honor society if they would help work the event and we set up coloring stations right near, in the same building as the event and high school students will work with younger students while parents are attending the workshops. and then also, sharing communication in multiple languages, whatever languages are spoken within the school district so that all families have access to the information. So that's a huge component of working with families is access and then also inclusivity, to make sure that different types of lifestyles and family styles are honored when we are coaching and talking with parents about the importance of reading. For example, one of the things that I share with parents in these larger events, and then just when I speak with parents individually, is we don't expect you to do what we do in school. That's why we're teachers, we don't expect parents to have that weight on their shoulder. Making time for some reading at home, reading to, reading with children talking to kids about reading, going to a public library, if you're on your way to an appointment or, if a older child has to babysit a younger child, maybe something they could do together is to read together. So just finding creative ways that are unique to different families', lifestyles, is so helpful, to the culture building that's done in school. So that's a really important piece is that we invite families to share about who they are, what their family is like and, ways in which the culture could be relevant in their lives.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

I'm glad that you brought up, a couple of things because this, leads into some other information that I would like to bring up, about a blog that you wrote. Personal bridges, right? You mentioned personal bridges and relevance in their reading, which is very important. So, uh, the blog I'm referring to, for the listeners is Creating ELA Curriculum That's Meaningful to Students, and this was a blog that you wrote for the National Council for Teachers of English, correct?

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Yes.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

I believe so. Okay. So, and in it

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Actually, originally, sorry, originally I wrote it for Edutopia and then NCTE, with a citation to Edutopia published it as well.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Oh, fantastic. Okay. so it got, two, two kind of shout outs there. So and one of the quotes from this blog is there is debate on whether classic canonical texts should still be the main event of English classes in 2022 and beyond. If classrooms house only class sets of books written before this century, what realities do students learn about? So I thought that was really a fantastic and important question because obviously it's important to have some knowledge of what are considered classics, but, why is it just now that people are coming to this realization that contemporary voices also hold an important place in our K through 12 classroom literature scene? So I really like, that you brought that up, and then, you also say in this blog,"Secondary English curriculum is designed around themes that are universal to the human experience." And that's, uh, in quotes, which, the experience is noted here as love, good versus evil, revenge, perseverance, coming of age, identity, justice, power, and corruption. But people experience these in life differently, which is very important. Then you go on to say that the human experience is not so universal when you dig deep into the lives of individuals. And then you say themes transcend, experiences may not. So I really, really loved looking at, all of these things that you said in this blog because I felt like it's very relevant to the push for enhancing literacy, right? Because, if there's no connective material, then why are we bothering? I mean, why would a student want to bother, right? Now, in that same blog, you talked about four areas to take into account when reviewing an English curriculum to make it more student centered, and the four areas were language, the students, reflection, and feedback. So, can you touch on each of these for our listeners?

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Sure. When you do any sort of curriculum review, there are certain things that you can do with your team to make sure that there are shared understandings to get into the work. It's important for all people who are working on curriculum to have a shared vision, a shared action plan, and a shared language for the direction in which the work is going to go. And language that really captures anything that's important to that team, right? Every, every context, every school is different. People prioritize different things, of course, when designing curriculum. So the first one is the language. So depending upon what the goal is of the curriculum review, you want to make sure that everybody on the curriculum team has a shared understanding of the discourse that, may emerge, while you're working. So for example, when I was working with a team to do some curriculum review, we defined the word change. Change can be difficult for people, understandably, and what we agreed on is that change doesn't have to mean that anything is wrong. That is the last thing that I want teachers, educators, leaders to feel that if you decide to change something, it doesn't mean that you've been doing everything wrong for the past 10 years. it just means that, we want to move forward maybe with a different vision again, depending upon the community and the school. So, that was important for that team to agree on, it's not that what we've been doing is bad necessarily, but we're going to move forward in a new direction. Another word that I've worked with teams to define is diversity. So if we want to diversify the experiences that kids have, what does that mean? Right? So we want to maybe diversify what, topics, kids are reading about. We want to make sure that there's nonfiction. We want to make sure that there's all different genres of fiction, historical fiction, comedy, horror, so that, to diversify the genres was important to a team that I was working with. So those are, those are words that I've worked with teams to define because they were important to what we were doing at the time. The second is the students, and of course, what you were reading from, the article before was really a nod to the importance of the individual and to really honor who kids are individually when you are planning curricular experiences and literacy experiences. One way that you could do that is through choice. Again, to have shared reading experience is valuable. There's value in that. We want to think about if we can balance some of our shared reading with some choice reading that kids can engage in, either through book clubs or independent reading. Again, it's about creating that balance so that kids have a lot of different things that they could connect to in, in the English curriculum. And the way that we really honor the individuals in our classrooms is to find out the identities of our students, who they are, what they like, what's their family culture, what's their background, what's their interest, their hobbies, if they speak multiple languages. Those are all really important things for teachers to know. And you can do that through identity webs or, conferences in the beginning of the year. All different ways to collect information about kids and then to really consider that when you design your curriculum and the learning experiences. And then the reflection and the feedback is to constantly be thinking about did my students connect to what we're doing? Was it relevant for them? What did they learn? Is it connected to future readiness? So are kids able to apply the skills and the thinking maybe to other contexts? Especially in post secondary experiences, if we're thinking about high school students and when we think about feedback and reflection, we think about both teachers and students. So teachers think about the connectivity of their students, and then we ask kids those questions, What did you learn? Where did you really find a personal connection to what we studied within the unit? Is this relevant to you? If I were to plan this again, what advice would you give me for my class next year? Those are questions that you can ask. and it's interesting to look at student feedback and then teacher reflection, bring that to a curriculum team or a grade level team and then decide if you want to make some revisions to the work moving forward, considering the feedback that you get from students.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

All right. So it sounds like a very comprehensive plan to me. Um, not plan, but a comprehensive way to really review your curriculum and make sure that you are creating one that's going to be reflective of the students themselves and what the students actually need. So now I would like to uh shift gears just a little bit and talk about, the Solution Tree. So just tell us about that.

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Sure, Solution Tree is the publisher of Leading a Culture of Reading. It's been a pleasure to work with them, and I'm currently working on my second book called Revolving Literacy and Solution Tree will publish that as well.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Okay. So, you also wrote a blog for Solution Tree. Yes. This one, and I think this is particularly relevant, now, is Bringing AI to the Classroom: Urgent Questions for Educators. And so, AI, the emergence of AI, onto the scene, has definitely also had an effect on how we have discussions around literacy, around writing, around all types of things. You posed nine new questions about artificial intelligence and education. I'm just going to read four of these questions and then, perhaps you can just, talk about maybe two of them that, that really struck me. So one of the questions was,"What language skills are imperative to students literacy development when considering using AI in the classroom?" What kind of thinking are we asking kids to do? What kind of writing are we asking kids to do? What instruction do we have in place that addresses critical reading, fact checking and analysis of reliable and valid sources of information? And what might curriculum or instruction need to change to address these skills in the world of AI? These are very dynamic questions, that were posed, and two of them, the first one and then the last one really, uh, struck me, so if you could kind of address those a bit, that would be great. So once again, those were What language skills are imperative to, students' literacy development when considering using AI in the classroom? And then what instruction do we have in place to address, critical reading, fact checking, et cetera?. Okay.

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Sure, those are questions that emerged, when working with various stakeholders, really last summer, earlier this school year, CHAT GPT really became popularized, uh, November of of last school year, had some really great conversations with secondary English teachers as we were all learning it together, and then going into this current school year, I did some teacher workshops, both in elementary, middle school, high school. Also at the college level. Also, did one of the parent academy events that I mentioned before the focus was on artificial intelligence. So the questions that framed that article really came from a lot of conversations that I had with different stakeholder groups across a series of months in doing workshops about AI relative to literacy. So that first question about language skills is really about the power of questioning and prompting and being able to articulate clearly what kind of support one needs from an artificial intelligence tool. If you know what you're doing, why you're doing it, and what kind of support you need, that shows a level of thinking and reflectiveness about whatever task you are working on, which is a series of lessons to teach young people in itself. It's not just a tool to get the answer, per se. You have to be thoughtful about how you are using a tool to be able to support you in generating an idea, producing a piece of writing. That's what, what I referred to in, in the article about, language skills. And then the second part about instruction to address critical reading, fact checking source material, that was important prior to AI. We talked about the the rise of the Internet earlier and social media, and now AI is another, another piece to the puzzle about, thinking critically about source material that you come across and being able to synthesize ideas across source material when doing research for a personal reason, an academic reason, and, when we use AI and there's a, an answer or response in the output, we activate those skills about reading whatever is outputted to us. And being able to decipher if it's accurate, if it's true, if it helps to target whatever task we're working on. so again, those skills are not necessarily new. They've been important for some time because of the increased access that kids have to information that adults have to information via the internet and news and now, navigating that through our, within artificial intelligence is another layer of that type of instruction.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Right, I mean, I definitely agree that it has been important for decades, at this point, but that it's become even more important, with the advent of AI. so definitely, something important to, to think about. Um. I, it's about time to, to try and wrap up the episode. So before we do that, I would like to know where people can find more information about your work. You already mentioned an upcoming project, so that's great. Any other publications, or speaking engagements, anything that you have coming up that you would like to make the audience aware of?

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Just the revolving literacy book that will be out next winter. I've been really focused on that lately. Still in the process, but, that's an exciting, project that captures a lot of the ideas about authenticity that we spoke about.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Okay. any, let's see, can we find you on social media? Where can people follow you if they want to follow you?

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Find out more, on my website, which is, um, lorrainemradice. com. I also have an Amazon author page through my book and you can follow me on X and connect with me on Instagram. It's at Lorraine M. Radice for both.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

All right. And so, uh, we've arrived at the time for me to ask the final question that I ask all of the guests here on the RBERNing Questions podcast, which is what burning question should today's educators consider in order to improve their service to the ELL and ML community.

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

I think educators should always be asking about student connection for ELLs and MLs Are students able to find themselves in the work that they're doing in school? Are they given opportunities to learn about others? Is the work relevant and are there supports in place to help students access whatever curriculum or learning experiences that they are exposed to? That's my advice.

yasmeen_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Fantastic, well, it's been a pleasure talking to you today here on RBERNing questions. Thank you so much for your time and for your work um, and it's been a pleasure.

dr--lorraine-radice_1_06-27-2024_160627:

Thank you. You too. Have a great day.

Yasmeen:

Thank you for tuning in to RBERNing Questions, produced by Mid-State RBERN at OCM BOCES. If you would like to learn more about today's guest or any of the resources we discussed, please visit Mid-State RBERN's webpage at ocmboces. org. That's o c m b o c e s dot org. Join us next time where we hope to answer more of your burning questions.