Research and Scholarship

My portfolio reflects my performance in the higher education professoriate. It includes a well developed research agenda focusing on global education, educational media and technology; scholarly and research presentations at local, national and international conferences.

Please see below the sections of research and scholarship:

Statement of research interests

My research aims to listen to and amplify voices of underrepresented and global communities. Through qualitative methodologies (e.g. participatory action research) and active teaching and learning with such communities, I learn from participants’ assertions, understandings, struggles and questions in the field of global education. The intention of my work is to foreground participants’ knowledge and voices while recognizing the unavoidable influence of my presence and participation as a researcher.

My recent work has focused on the health eating habits in urban education, the role of global education in teacher preparation, and the intersection of media education and multiculturalism in teacher education. I have published and lectured on global education and critical media pedagogy based in public schools and re-thinking assessment and curriculum.

In Spring 2012, I started working on Global Kitchen Project. My undergraduate students and I received the Students Partnering with Faculty Summer Research (SpF). Project titled: Investigating Global Education Projects for Promoting Healthy Eating Behaviors Among Elementary School Children: Engaging Pre- and In-Service teachers in Developing Project Based Activities. My undergraduate students were teacher candidates in the College of Education. Altagracia Petela, Brianne Mahoney, and I co-published a book chapter and co-presented national and international conferences. In March 2014, my students and I presented our Global Kitchen in a gallery walk format at Teachers College, Columbia University. Our presentation took place in Milbank Memorial Chapel.

Image 1: 6th Annual Health Disparities Conference, March 7, 2014, Teachers College, Columbia University, NY. Melda N. Yildiz, Altagracia Petela, Brianne Mahoney.

Image 2: 6th Annual Health Disparities Conference, March 7, 2014, Teachers College, Columbia University

Melda N. Yildiz, Altagracia Petela, Brianne Mahoney.

We also presented a couple of online conferences such as Learning 2.0. Recording is available at http://www.classroom20.com/page/2012-learning-2-0-recordings. Based on this SpF research, we wrote an article Classroom 2.0 5th Anniversary Book Project that is published online. The title is “Global Kitchen Project: Developing 21st Century Skills and Global Competency in Teacher Education.” The project is edited by C. Dawson and S. Hargadon. The article is at http://www.scribd.com/doc/100899663/Melda-Yildiz-Global-Kitchen-Project

Again based on this research, I would like to submit enduring questions grant to NEH.

Here is the list of selected publications and presentations based on this SpF research.

Kean 2013- Research day posters:

Brianne Mahoney, Altagracia Petela. (2013, April 24). Promoting Healthy Eating Among Children & Engaging Educators in Developing Project Based Learning Activities. Faculty Advisor: Melda Yildiz.

Altagracia Petela, Brianne Mahoney. (April 2013). Global Kitchen Project: Developing 21st Century Skills and Global Competency in Teacher Education. Faculty Advisor: Melda Yildiz.

Publications:

Yildiz, M.N., Petela, A., & Mahoney, B. (January 2014). Global Kitchen Project: Promoting Healthy Eating Habits And Developing 21st Century Skills Among Children Through Flipped Classroom Model. In S. Keengwe, G. Onchwari,& J. Oigara, (Eds.). Promoting Active Learning through the Flipped Classroom Model, Hershey, PA, IGI Global.

Yildiz, M.N. Petela, A. & Mahoney, B. (2013, May). Global Kitchen Project; Developing Interdisciplinary Universal Design For Learning (UDL) Model for the 21st Century Classroom. In L. Chen-Hafteck & M. Yildiz (Eds.), Proceedings of International Educating the Creative Mind Conference 2013 (pp. 70-74). Union, NY: Kean University.

Yildiz, M. N. (2012). Global Kitchen Project: Developing 21st Century Skills and Global Competency in Teacher Education: Classroom 2.0- 5th Anniversary Book Project Eds Dawson, C, Hargadon, S.: http://www.scribd.com/doc/100899663/Melda-Yildiz-Global-Kitchen-Project

Presentations

Yildiz, M. N., Scharaldi, K., Petela, A., Mahoney, B., McKenzie, S. & Lepore, B. (2014, March 7-8). Global Kitchen Project: Promoting Healthy Eating Among Children through Innovative and Transdisciplinary Projects. Peer reviewed panel presented at 6th Annual Health Disparities Conference. Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY.

Yildiz, M. N., Petela, A., & Mahoney, B (2013, April 19). Global Kitchen Project: Promoting Healthy Eating Habits and Developing 21st Century Skills Among Children By Using Mobile Devices. Invited session presented at 11th Northeast Media Literacy Conference, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.

Yildiz, M.N. Petela, A., & Mahoney, B. (2013, March). Global Kitchen Project: Developing 21st Century Skills and Global Competency in Teacher Education. Refereed full paper will be presented at Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE), New Orleans, LA.

Yildiz, M. N. Petela, A., & Mahoney, B. (2013, February 13). Global Kitchen Project: Promoting Healthy Eating Among Children & Engaging Teachers in Developing Project Based Learning Activities. Peer reviewed paper will be presented at 93rd The Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) Conference. Atlanta, GA. (Funded by Kean University).

Yildiz, M. N. (2012, December 14). Global Kitchen Project. Invited Key Note presentation at to present at Phi Kappa Phi December Initiation Luncheon, Kean University.

Yildiz, M. N., Petela, A., & Mahoney, B. (2012, November 12). Global Kitchen Project: Promoting Healthy Eating Among Children & Engaging Educators in Developing Project Based Learning Activities. Invited to present at Global Education Conference. http://www.globaleducationconference.com/forum/topics/global-kitchen-project-learning-nutrition-education-from-the

Yildiz, M., Petela, A., & Mahoney, B. (2012, August 22). Global Kitchen Project: Promoting Healthy Eating Among Children & Engaging Educators in Developing Project Based Learning Activities. Learning 2.0. Online Conference. http://www.classroom20.com/page/2012-learning-2-0-virtual-conference Recording is at http://www.classroom20.com/page/2012-learning-2-0-recordings

Yildiz, M. N. (2012, November 28-Dec 1). Global Kitchen Project- Developing 21st Century Skills and Global Competency in Teacher Education. Refereed concurrent session, National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) Conference 2012, Philadelphia, PA.

Current projects:

1) Transforming Teacher Education through Transdisciplinary Innovative Pedagogy: Participatory Action Research. This is a manuscript proposed for publication to Palgrave MacMillan.

This participatory action research aims to advance Transformative Critical Pedagogy as a means to promote heutagogy through the lens of innovative technologies in global education context while developing a “transformative educator model.” Participants engaged in self-study while reflecting on innovative transdisciplinary curricula, assessment tools, and strategies for 21st Century teaching and documenting their transformative, inclusive, multilingual, multicultural projects across content areas.

This study examines to role of global education and brain based research in transforming teacher education curriculum by aligning local, national, and international standards and frameworks such as 1) International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). 2) Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE). 3) Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). 4) Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21). 5) Council of Chief State School Officers’ (CCSSO) and Asia Society Partnership for Global Competencies. 6) National Center on Universal Design for Learning at Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST).

Key Questions: How does integrating transdisciplinary projects in teacher education curriculum, instruction, and assessment meet the needs of global classrooms and contribute to preparing diverse teachers and students for a global and just society? What is the impact on student learning and on the broader context of global education curriculum when new media and technologies such as mobile technologies and digital video production are integrated into P12 classrooms?

Research and Knowledge: How can teachers and teacher candidates in P12 public schools become researchers and be valued for their expertise, insights and multicultural perspectives? How can P12 student knowledge and voice influence how multicultural teacher preparation programs may be reshaped? How can participatory action research presented in case study format contribute to dialog regarding use of new media and technologies in P12 classrooms in media education research agenda?

Specific problem to be investigated and its significance

The impact of daily media integration and technology participation in students’ out-of-school lives cries out for transdisciplinary curriculum, critical media literacy and media production skills to be integrated in the school curriculum. The way students access information and engage in learning has changed over time. As the way we learn switches from paper/pencil to digital and web based applications, fostering various digital and web-based learning becomes essential. It is imperative that we bring these new technology activities from out-of-school life into the classroom. Many teachers are not comfortable with various visual digital media tools, open source applications, web-based collaborative environments and online communication tools, yet it is critical for these tools to be incorporated into the classroom. Our project aims to implement these tools and put them in the hands of some of the youngest learners in a setting that makes their studies of the visual arts and visual culture more engaging and relevant. Students will expand current technology skills while learning new platforms and innovations. They will also become leaders of visual culture literacy in their school and communities.

This project facilitates work with classroom teachers, teacher candidates and P12 students to study, interpret and respond mass media while simultaneously producing digital understandings of humanities content. With the assumption of students as “digital natives,” who bring inherent knowledge of technology to school, this project for one year, in one classroom engages students in video and sound production, photography techniques and web building, through open source web-based software. This work leads to subsequent findings and implications in which will be reported, presented, and published to hopefully support the practices for K-12 art teachers to engage students in critical knowledge of media and its role in current conditions of learning and cultural production.

2) Global Health and Climate Change Across Cultures throughout History

New Jersey Chapter of the Fulbright Association received a Grant (2015-2016) to conduct a Global Health and Climate change project in collaboration with Rutgers University.

Since 2012, NJ Chapter of the Fulbright Alumni Association has been committed to broadening and amplifying its impact in New Jersey. Over the past three years, thanks to the Fulbright Association’s support and guidance, the NJ Chapter advisory board has increased its membership and become more active in hosting events, mentoring current and future Fulbrighters, and participating in Fulbright Association conferences. In April 2015, the state group partnered with Rutgers University to deliver a Global Kitchen event at World Forum event and shared augmented reality projects to educators in New Jersey. The group continues to partner with Dr. Mary Curran on World Forum at Rutgers University.

This Global Health/ Climate Change Project investigates the role of health across cultures throughout history. In November 2015, we started the Community-Mapping/ Digital Storytelling Project. This participatory community-mapping project documents global voices, collects the wisdom from NJ Fulbrighters and their experiences, and develops a community-based, transdisciplinary, interactive, online platform that showcases oral history projects and digital stories. The online platform will be developed by integrating the new media and technologies like mobile technologies, Global Positioning System (GPS) and Google Earth. This educational platform (Google Earth community-mapping) will serve as a repository of interactive maps and searchable global database of multilingual, multicultural and multimedia resources, and document the climate change, health and human rights issues around the world.

Google Earth[1] provides us a platform to document stories in an interactive way, taking users on a narrated tour through the map. Those affiliated with the project will create digital stories that provide audio, video and pictures that show pop-up balloons on the map, and allow users around the globe, creating a video-like experience.

With the help of 2015-16 grant, the New Jersey chapter will re-design chapter events to promote Global Health and raise awareness to Climate Change issues as well as facilitate networking among young professionals and Fulbright alumni who work across multiple sectors. Based on feedback, comments and suggestions provided by Fulbrighters on online surveys[2] the chapter’s officers will be able to find the speakers and panelists, and pick the day and time and location for the Global Health Events. Invitations will be extended to NJ government representatives, members of the NJ congressional delegation, journalists, activists, academics, health educators, and business leaders.

Celebrating 70 Years of Fulbright through Global Cuisines

NJ Fulbrighters believe every dish has a story. Each recipe reflects the tapestry of culture, history, and its people. This community-based, transdisciplinary gallery walk project will connect Fulbright alumni, academics, health educators, historians, chefs as well as youth to explore and experience global cuisines They will be able to deconstruct the stories of each dish from linguistic, scientific, historical, cultural, and economical points view while showcasing the interactive and collaborative multilingual, multicultural community mapping project that showcases NJ Fulbright Alumni’s digital stories.The gallery walk posters will be created and presented by NJ Fulbrighters using augmented reality software like QR codes and Aurasma. With the help of multimedia technologies, multilingual and multicultural posters, including sign language, will be created.

This transdisciplinary project allows all Fulbrighters from every discipline (e.g, Education, History, Medicine, Science) to gather and exchange ideas on Global Health issues. The growing number of fast food outlets and processed food choices in the world has had a significant impact on global health. Scientific reviews have documented the crucial role of education in promoting the healthy eating habits among youth and the positive effects of nutrition education on lifelong healthy behaviors. Research has shown that nutrition education can prevent health risks among young people and have a positive effect on academic performance.

Childhood obesity has become an epidemic around the world. According to Stop Childhood Obesity[1] over the past three decades, the childhood obesity rate has skyrocketed. The consequences of obesity are serious, including persistent overweight into adulthood with adult health complications such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and stroke. Furthermore, children’s health is related to their school performance, and healthy eating may contribute to their academic success. For school-age children, schools become an important place where they acquire knowledge about healthy eating behaviors so that they can practice them in their lives.

Schools can create environments that promote and support children’s efforts to eat healthy by integrating nutrition lessons into reading, language arts, history and social studies, mathematics and science curriculum. In other words, educators can engage the children in self-determined and self-driven heutagogy where they can experience healthy eating activities and make informed choices for their own nutrition choices. With its community-centered and participatory community-mapping project, the oral history methodology can provide an environment that support a heutagogical approach and maximize the affordances of technology partially due to the ubiquitousness of online resources.

In my recent Global Kitchen project, we promoted health education and 21st Century skills using educational technologies among 2nd and 3rd grade elementary classrooms in urban schools in New Jersey The project offered creative strategies for developing culturally and linguistically responsive Universal Design for Learning (UDL) curriculum while integrating global education and media literacy skills into the curriculum with limited resources. The participants' reactions, discoveries, and experiences with new media were described. Most young students who participated in the project could not identify more than a few fruits and vegetables and do not eat a balanced diet regularly. In the face of such challenges, nutrition education in elementary schools has tremendous potential to awaken a self-reflective awareness of nutrition.

By the end of June 2016, this community-mapping project will be on Google Earth platform including the audio, video, and text. NJ Fulbrighters plan to collect, create, and curate a community-based interactive and multilingual online platform for parents, educators, and librarians to teach youth about nutrition in a meaningful, integrated way as well as showcase the collective wisdom from kitchens across cultures throughout history.

Community Mapping Project- (Participatory, Collaborative, Inclusive and Interactive, Advocacy and Awareness Project)

As Ben Shneiderman said, “The great fun of information visualization is that it gives you answers to questions you didn’t know you had.” Google Earth helps us visualize the data we collect. Each digital stories, audio and video files will be geotagged using GPS technology and recorded for the community-based mapping platform. I hope to uncover hidden wisdom from Global kitchens. Most importantly, the study will provide open dialog and communication among all stakeholders to examine the nutrition education through the scientific, historical and cultural lens while integrating innovative technologies and frameworks.

Based on the findings, we plan to publish white paper on our community-mapping project focusing on the role of health education and bridging the theory into practice outlining the lesson learned from wisdom learned from the participants. We may be able to conduct a workshop at Newark Museum and curate an exhibit/ gallery walk activity for community as well as work with children to co-write a multilingual children’s book. Children will be able to explore different spices and ingredients from Global cuisine, develop digital stories as well as illustrate and write a children’s book based on their explorations.

By collaborating with health educators, educators, gastronomists, parents, and librarians in this project, the proposed project will develop, implement, and conduct a community mapping project called “Wisdom from Global Cuisines” through the digital storytelling and gallery walk activities. The community-mapping project can be replicable and adaptable in educational settings and classrooms.

In conclusion, through Global Health events, gallery walk and community mapping project will draw on the natural links between health and global education. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson said, “We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically.” With this grant, the NJ chapter will explore how a critical approach to the study of health education combines knowledge, reflection, and action, promotes educational equity, and prepares new generations to be healthy and productive members of a multicultural, global society.

[1] https://www.google.com/earth/outreach/tutorials/kmltours.html

[2] https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vU-mMxj1_zNV6oXxm7nceGH6Ft9bDvYVQlJMmB8lFBY/viewform?usp=send_form