Sessions
Stitching Heritage, Tradition and Identity at the iEARN Conference
Maha Alawdat
Kseifa Abu Rabe'a
Dr. Maha Alawdat holds a Ph.D in Composition and TESOL from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and a Masters degree in foreign English Literature from Ben Gurion University in Israel. Currently, she teaches at a Multidisciplinary school, a college, and is the coordinator of a Women’s Political Leadership program. Previously, she...Read Full Bio
Maha Alawdat
Dr. Maha Alawdat holds a Ph.D in Composition and TESOL from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and a Masters degree in foreign English Literature from Ben Gurion University in Israel. Currently, she teaches at a Multidisciplinary school, a college, and is the coordinator of a Women’s Political Leadership program. Previously, she taught at Indiana University of PA and the Language Center in the United States. During her career, she received a number of awards, including the Teaching Excellence award, the Graduate Women’s Leadership award, the Fulbright scholarship, and an award for her dissertation completion. She has also a number of publications, including articles and poems: Lo-Tech Tools as Episteme: Rethinking Student Engagement in the Writing Process and Beyond, Standing Alone in Darkness, English Writing students' Perception of using Eportfolios in the Writing Class, and Israeli English Teachers' Perception of Using ePortfolios. She started her journey with iEARN in 2016-17 and continued to implement iEARN projects during the school year of 2017-2018, including Girl Rising, the Teddy Bear project, Taking Kites, the International Movie Club, and One Day in the Life. To spread the word among educators in her community, she arranged two workshops to introduce iEARN projects and invited important personas from the American Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, and the American Embassy in Jordan.
Type: Interactive Workshop
Location: Room 1103
Date: Thursday
Time: 11:00-11:50 AM
This session is associated with a UN SDG!
This session relates to the My Identity, Your Identity iEARN Project!
Session Description
This practical workshop will teach educators to document their heritage in a fun way. Each participant in the workshop will be asked to draw something to present their culture and tradition. They will also be asked to do some embroidery and work with a small piece of hardanger fabric. The final product will be displayed at the iEARN Conference for those who are interested in starting the Heritage project differently in their institutions.
What will educators learn and be able to do at the end of the session?
At the end of the session, educators will be able to:
- Address creativity in implementing the Heritage and Tradition project
- Use alternatives to writing and taking pictures of a certain culture
- Improving Stitching skills and teaching embroidery
Additional Session Information
Based on the iEARN project, Heritage, Tradition, and My Identity, I went beyond documenting and sharing pictures and providing written descriptions about Bedouin culture and tradition in Israel. I used crossed stitches on hardanger fabric to document the culture. This workshop will familiarize educators with alternative ways of sharing heritage and tradition. Every community is culturally rich and can be expressed by stitching and embroidery in place of taking pictures and writing descriptions.