Papers by Gigi (Geralyn) S Yu
Affirming the Rights of Emergent Bilingual and Multilingual Children and Families
Social Theory in Art Education , 2024
Arts-based research offers us the ability to understand the unnamable aches and allusive psychic ... more Arts-based research offers us the ability to understand the unnamable aches and allusive psychic pains that afflict us without symbolic form-afflictions so defiant of language that we often doubt their existence and ignore our embodied ways of making sense, until they metastasize into a more aggressive pathology.
Intellect eBooks, Oct 20, 2023
Routledge eBooks, May 22, 2023
Routledge eBooks, May 22, 2023
Routledge eBooks, May 22, 2023
Routledge eBooks, May 22, 2023
Routledge eBooks, May 22, 2023
ASTC 2013 Annual Conference, Oct 21, 2013
Affirming the Rights of Emergent Bilingual and Multilingual Children and Families
International Journal of Education & The Arts , 2023
This article reflects the inquiries and discoveries experienced by early childhood educators and ... more This article reflects the inquiries and discoveries experienced by early childhood educators and teaching artists involved in participatory action research designed to explore how to co-construct sustainable collaborations in early childhood settings. Drawing inspiration from the Reggio Emilia Approach and other international examples, the authors detail how professional development through collaborative research leads to
CAPE CoLab Report , 2023
This research reveals two teaching artists’ dynamic practices that emerged from participating in ... more This research reveals two teaching artists’ dynamic practices that emerged from participating in the Collaboration Laboratory (CoLab) professional development and coinciding classroom arts-based co-inquiry projects of Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE). The researchers draw upon the 60-year-old Reggio Emilia Approach as one of the most widely recognized examples of sustainable partnerships with contemporary artists in an educational system with notable comparisons to CAPE. The Reggio Emilia Approach and CAPE disrupt educational systems that narrowly define curriculum by working with contemporary artists to co-create arts-based inquiries with teachers and students.
Visual Arts Research
This paper describes the collective aesthetic practices of an early childhood art educator and te... more This paper describes the collective aesthetic practices of an early childhood art educator and teachers in a public school context, inspired by the principles of the Reggio Emilia approach. A related purpose here is to reflect on and re-examine the educators’ professional growth while developing these practices. This study begins with the author’s personal experiences as an early childhood art educator. The other educators in the study also reflect on their aesthetic approaches toward teaching and learning prior to the adoption of a district-wide, prescribed “boxed” early childhood curriculum. The purpose of this article is to make visible what was lost with the shift to a boxed curriculum, including the aesthetic practices and negotiated learning experiences co-constructed with the children. In contrast to the boxed, prescribed curriculum, an aesthetic approach toward teaching and learning brought a heightened awareness of everyday school experiences through an engagement of the se...
Innovations in Early Education: The International Reggio Emilia Exchange, 2019
The Developing Early Literacies through the Arts (DELTA) project, made possible
through an Arts i... more The Developing Early Literacies through the Arts (DELTA) project, made possible
through an Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination Grant from the U.S.
Department of Education, consisted of a three-year collaboration between Chicago Public
Schools (CPS) and Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE). DELTA applied the CAPE
model of improving schools through arts integration, teacher professional development,
teacher/artist collaboration, documentation and reflection, and formal research. The DELTA
project focused on increasing the contribution of arts learning to literacy development with
all teachers in grades 1, 2, and 3 in three schools, with each school collaborating with both
a visual artist and a performing artist.
They found that integrating art into the literacy curriculum not only affected
student learning, but also improved classroom dynamics and student behavior.
Teaching Artist Journal, 2008
An art specialist and action researcher discusses the dynamic role of documentation in the classr... more An art specialist and action researcher discusses the dynamic role of documentation in the classroom as influenced by the Reggio Emilia approach.
Teaching Artist Journal , 2005
Conference Presentations by Gigi (Geralyn) S Yu
UNM college of education Mentor Conference, 2018
The Central New Mexico Community College Early Childhood Mentor Network (ECMN) addresses the need... more The Central New Mexico Community College Early Childhood Mentor Network (ECMN) addresses the need for a stronger early childhood workforce through an innovative approach to mentorship training for experienced early childhood teachers supporting practicum students in their classrooms. The power of peer networking and relationship development is used to support reciprocal learning among all participants in the network including higher education faculty and early childhood program directors. The ECMN participants represent diverse school programs and teaching philosophies. Through the peer network, participants jointly develop shared strategies and practices that are used in their one-on-one mentoring relationships with early childhood practicum students. The strategies developed by the network participants make a collective impact on the individual mentoring relationships. Mentors support and challenge each other while moving towards individual competencies in their roles as mentors. Using innovative self and collaborative reflective practice strategies during face to face meetings and an online course, mentors analyze and develop strategies based on teacher candidate experiences and classroom scenarios. In this sense, the practicum students and children in the classrooms contribute to the mentor teachers' learning and the practicum students benefit from the collective dialogue and shared strategies developed by the mentor group. This paper will highlight the evaluation findings of the ECMN. The findings suggest that mentorship networks and the developmental relationships that emerge from the networks have potential impact on retaining experienced professionals in the field while simultaneously building a better educated early childhood workforce.
Uploads
Papers by Gigi (Geralyn) S Yu
through an Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination Grant from the U.S.
Department of Education, consisted of a three-year collaboration between Chicago Public
Schools (CPS) and Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE). DELTA applied the CAPE
model of improving schools through arts integration, teacher professional development,
teacher/artist collaboration, documentation and reflection, and formal research. The DELTA
project focused on increasing the contribution of arts learning to literacy development with
all teachers in grades 1, 2, and 3 in three schools, with each school collaborating with both
a visual artist and a performing artist.
They found that integrating art into the literacy curriculum not only affected
student learning, but also improved classroom dynamics and student behavior.
Conference Presentations by Gigi (Geralyn) S Yu
through an Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination Grant from the U.S.
Department of Education, consisted of a three-year collaboration between Chicago Public
Schools (CPS) and Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE). DELTA applied the CAPE
model of improving schools through arts integration, teacher professional development,
teacher/artist collaboration, documentation and reflection, and formal research. The DELTA
project focused on increasing the contribution of arts learning to literacy development with
all teachers in grades 1, 2, and 3 in three schools, with each school collaborating with both
a visual artist and a performing artist.
They found that integrating art into the literacy curriculum not only affected
student learning, but also improved classroom dynamics and student behavior.
The book is driven by the authors’ research-based discourse including an interview with Reggio Emilia educators and direct observations in the Preschools and Infant–toddler Centers in Italy. Chapters include survey and follow-up interviews, and classroom examples from U.S. early childhood educators inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach some of whom are in multilingual settings. Recommendations are included for practitioners who are intentional about advocating for the rights of emergent bi- and multilingual young children. Also included are the researchers’ interpretations and reflexive narratives on contextuality, intersectionality, and intertextuality, which interweave theories and practice. The insightful examinations of scholarly work and the critical review of the distinctive features of the Reggio Emilia philosophy contribute to an early childhood education transformative lens that challenges the status quo of inequities and foregrounds the linguistic and cultural rights of learners who speak different languages. The authors review research and theory that inform the latest developments in culturally and linguistically responsive practices in innovative early education (infant through pre-k), family participation, and teacher preparation and development.
Of general interest to educators and researchers around the world who work to ensure the rights of emergent language learners, this is an essential text for upper-level and graduate students, early childhood educators, educational and community leaders, administrators, and researchers.
created an opportunity to promote awareness and empathy within
the everyday lives of young children. Public-school art educator, Gigi
Yu, and early childhood classroom educator, Mary Bliss, located in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States collaborated with preschool
children (4-5 year-olds) on an emergent study of yellow as a
transformative color. To structure the emergent study, the phases of a
reflective planning cycle were employed. Throughout the process, the
concept of empathy emerged. Visual art materials were foundational
to children’s thinking, theories, and socially constructed knowledge.