In recent years, controversies about the "science of reading" have been featured prominently in major media outlets and in state-level policy shifts for K-12 education and teacher education. This year, the Ithaca College Department of Education is pleased to sponsor the 2024 Spring Educational Freedom Lecture and Community Read, featuring Dr. Maren Aukerman, Werklund Research Professor at the University of Calgary. She will present this year's lecture via webinar: "Toward Comprehensive, Research-Informed Literacy Instruction: Thinking With, Against, and Beyond the Science of Reading."
The webinar (register here) will be presented at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 22nd. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Dr. Aukerman specializes in classroom discourse and reading comprehension research and formerly served on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University. Her extensive body of research continues to move the field of literacy toward more evidence-based, theoretically-sound, democratic, and humanizing frameworks for classroom teaching and learning. In recent years, her public scholarship has highlighted the role of bias and the misrepresentation of evidence in education-focused journalism related to the "science of reading." Dr. Aukerman's guidance can help us to become more careful, informed consumers of information about "literacy research" as presented in media reports.
The Spring Educational Freedom Lecture and Community Read tradition has been designed as a service to our community, and we welcome everyone with an interest in young people, education, and equity. Related texts for the Community Read, including Dr. Aukerman's public posts on bias in the media and associated scholarship, are linked and freely available on the Department of Education's 2024 Spring Lecture website.
Individuals requiring accommodations are asked to contact Kim Wojtanik in the Department of Education (607-274-5106 or kwojtanik@ithaca.edu). We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.