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2018 Hip Hop STEMposium is March 8th!

Free Your Mind: A Hip Hop Education STEMposium brings Hip Hop as critical pedagogy (HHCP) and STEM together in an exploration of innovative educational practices that seek to enhance the engagement and achievement of all students. This dialogue between HHCP and STEM also seeks to critique traditional educational methodologies that fail to connect to students and prepare them to engage with the world around them in critical and meaningful ways.

Why HIP HOP and STEM?

HIP HOP is a dominant and influential youth culture. Hip Hop as critical pedagogy (HHCP) is a methodology that explores how this culture can be mobilized to challenge inequities and provide transformative education and re-education.

STEM is another educational methodology that emphasizes inquiry1 and problem based learning2 to nurture students’ creativity, collaboration, and innovation.

Free Your Mind aims to mobilize the power, popularity and potential of hip hop culture, as well as the effectiveness of student inquiry, problem based learning and technology as a platform for transformative education and re- education. We invite students, educators, parents and communities to join us as we explore the many possibilities for innovative and inclusive education that induces the natural genius of young people.

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1 “Inquiry ... requires more than simply answering questions or getting a right answer. It espouses investigation, exploration, search, quest, research, pursuit, and study. It is enhanced by involvement with a community of learners, each learning from the other in social interaction.” (Kuklthau, Maniotes & Caspari, 2007, p. 2)

2 “PBL exists as a teaching method grounded in the ideals of constructivism and student-centred learning. When using PBL, teachers help students to focus on solving problems within a real-life context, encouraging them to consider the situation in which the problem exists when trying to find solutions.” (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2009. Problem-Based Learning in Mathematics, Research Monograph #22)

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