Eli Tucker-Raymond Receives Award for STEM Literacies Book
Eli Tucker-Raymond Receives Award for STEM Literacies Book
Eli Tucker-Raymond, BU Wheelock research associate professor of language & literacy, has been awarded a 2020 Outstanding Book Award by the Society of Professors of Education (SPE) for STEM Literacies in Makerspaces: Implications for Learning, Teaching, and Research. The book is one of 14 texts highlighted as outstanding by SPE.
Published by Routledge, the book provides an original framework for studying makerspaces in a literacy context. Tucker-Raymond and coauthor Brian E. Gravel of Tufts University, define and illustrate five key STEM literacies: identifying, organizing, and integrating information; creating and traversing representations; communicating with others for help and feedback during making; documenting processes, and communicating finished products.
Tucker-Raymond hopes the book underscores both the agency of learners and the academic potential that learning in making spaces can support. “Dr. Gravel and I hope that the book is a way to understand learning in all kinds of making spaces,” he says.
While the text emphasizes making, literacies, and STEM, Tucker-Raymond stresses that the book is,“really about how people interact with each other as they learn together, not just as individuals, and how those interactions can support broadening educational spaces in more equitable and inclusive ways.”
At BU Wheelock, Tucker-Raymond explores creating and understanding humanizing spaces for learners at the intersection of STEM, literacy, and the media/arts. He is especially interested in spaces that promote racial equity and critical, compassionate relationships between educators and learners.