Dr. Elizabeth Langran of Marymount’s School of Education and Sociology professor Dr. Janine Dewitt published their book, Navigating Place-Based Learning: Mapping for a Better World, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when educators experienced a 180-degree turn on teaching circumstances. Their book describes how a critical pedagogy model can be translated into teaching strategies through the use of technology.
Palgrave Macmillan, a publishing company, approached Dr. DeWitt and Dr. Langran after their presentation at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference. The partnership between the two professors started with lunchtime conversations in Marymount’s dining hall that led them to writing up a proposal based upon their common interests in engaging students in learning outside the classroom walls and leveraging geospatial tools for critical thinking.
Within their book is a proposed model of a critical place-based pedagogy (teaching based upon the location where learning is occurring) based off of the integration of literature from several disciplines in which, they address how to design and incorporate strategies for facilitating place-based inquiry. Furthermore, they present tech tools and examples of projects using their critical pedagogy model. They include ideas for mapping with mobile technologies that can be used in areas from housing to health policy to better understand how systems of exclusion operate.
It is their hope that educators who read this book will be able to use the proposed critical pedagogy for purposeful and authentic learning for preparing students to become engaged citizens, leading us toward a better understanding of our communities and the environment in which we live.
Dr. Langran is training current and future teachers at both the graduate and undergraduate level in educational technology, secondary methods, cross-cultural/international curricula and research methods. She will be teaching a course in educational technology and leadership in Marymount’s new Ed.D. program in Educational Leadership and Organizational Innovation.
Posted in Saints On the Go
Edited by Olivia Edwards for The School of Education News
Tagged education, Elizabeth Langran, Janine DeWitt, marymount university, Palgrave Macmillan, Place-based learning, Sociology
