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Blaine Smith Awarded National Fellowship


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    Special to UM News

    Blaine Smith

    Blaine Smith

    Blaine Smith, assistant professor of language and literacy learning in multilingual settings in the School of Education and Human Development, has been chosen as a 2016 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow. She is one of 30 fellows selected from a competitive pool of applicants who were judged on their past research record, career trajectory, and project quality.

    “It is truly an honor to be selected for this award, which supports innovative research in a wide range of educational fields,” said Smith, whose work focuses on the digital literacy practices of culturally and linguistically diverse adolescents.

    “Many youth lead technologically saturated and networked lives,” Smith said. “But traditional print-based reading and writing practices still dominate the classroom, creating a disconnect for students. Integrating digital projects like videos, podcasts, and hypertext that support academic learning can create a more engaging experience for students, particularly for culturally and linguistically diverse young people.”

    The National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship Program supports early-career scholars working in critical areas of education research. Now in its 30th year, the fellowship program has nearly 800 alumni who include many of today’s high-profile education researchers.

    Smith plans to use the $70,000 award to launch a multimodal composition research project this fall in a 10th-grade English class at a Miami-Dade County high school. “This study will examine how students analyze literature through multiple modes, including visuals, sound, text, and movement, and how the analytic skills they develop in their digital projects transfer to their academic writing,” she said.

    For example, students reading a novel, short story, or non-fiction will create hypertexts that analyze important passages through digital links and related media. Multimodal projects like these will require students to comprehend complex texts, and examine themes, structure, and point of view.

    “We will use screen capture and video data, conduct interviews, and analyze their multimodal compositions,” Smith said. “Our goal is to expand the ways students understand and analyze texts, and help teachers effectively integrate digital projects into their classrooms.”

    Smith previously received the Literacy Research Association’s Outstanding Student Research Award and the Emerging Scholars Fellowship by the Reading Hall of Fame.

    Her 2014 dissertation, “Composing Across Modes: Urban Adolescents Processes Responding to and Analyzing Literature,” was also a finalist for the International Literacy Association’s Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award.

    Smith’s work has appeared in the Bilingual Research Journal, Elementary School Journal, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Literacy Research Association Yearbook, and Learning, Media, and Technology. She received her Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University.

    “I am hoping to use this fellowship as a springboard to continue advancing this line of multimodal literacy research,” Smith said. “Digital technologies can help make our schools more relevant and effective for students from many cultures by offering multiple entry points and new ways to develop important literacy skills.”

     

     

     

     

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