Reflecting and Planning Next Steps
Overall the feedback from this PD was positive. One of the elements that I think made the PD the strongest was the inclusion of a student panel. We did not frame the panel as an exercise in equity, but I believe it modeled the idea of including all voices in the process. In my ever-expanding thinking about equity, one idea I keep returning to is equity between adults and students. If our ultimate goal is as Fuller (2010) suggests to “give young people the skills and capacity to engage in the practice of freedom” (1), then we must always work to include them in the conversation and leverage their leadership today as young people. Until I reflected on this PD, I had not thought about the idea of power and privilege from a student-teacher lens, though it is clearly an obvious connection. I believe my lack of awareness of that power dynamic is a testament to Delpit’s (1995) assertion that those who already have power are least of aware of its existence (24). As an adult in education, structurally I have more power than students and thus need to intentionally and consistently work to empower them. I believe our student panel was a small step towards that empowerment.
In thinking about how we could have improved the session and what we will do moving forward, one comment truly struck me:
This PD was great. Equity wasn’t really front and center though.
This comment resonated with me because I felt the same way during the session. In PD entitled Equity in Groupwork, it seemed that we all focused much more on the groupwork than the equity. I realized though that there was a very clear connection between participants take-aways from the PD and equity, we had not made those connections explicit. We did not begin our session by framing our discussion of groupwork with Cohen and Lotan’s explanation of the connection between groupwork and equity. Though participants had previously discussed these ideas, I think not revisiting them allowed equity to fade from the conversation more than I would have liked. In planning this PD, we operated from two important assumptions that I wish we had shared explicitly with the participants. The first was that when we are discussing and striving for effective groupwork that is by definition equitable groupwork. Cohen explains that groupwork is often plagued by status issues where some students’ voices are valued more than others. The ideas and strategies we were discussing were designed to mitigate those status issues from emerging in a groupwork setting. Secondly, when groupwork is done effectively, it is a tool for equity. Effective groupwork is a lever for equity in that it is provides learners with the individualized social learning that can be particularly helpful for students who struggle with school or who might otherwise feel estranged from academics.
Our next step then is to make those connections between groupwork and equity clear and continue the conversation about and application of the ideas Cohen and Lotan suggest for equitable groupwork. We are considering returning to the activity about equity stances or equity moments with the staff and possibly including students in that conversation. We could then connect those ideas to our thinking about effective groupwork. In addition, we want to provide space for teachers to support one another in both the strategies they are trying individually in their classrooms and the collaborative work that is possible. Based on that thinking I began drafting an outline for the next session (Appendix C). I think regardless of the exact structure of the PD, however, I am committed to continuing to include student voices. Allowing the students to speak for themselves and share their thoughts on equity is empowering for the students and truly an equalizing moment.
Over the weeks to come, I am excited to see what strategies and innovative ideas our staff experiments with to create more equitable classrooms. Though defining equity is difficult and measuring it both in terms of inputs and outputs is similarly complex, I left our PD inspired by energy around thoughtfully designing groupwork to create more equitable classrooms. Though there will always be more work to be done, I believe groupwork is a powerful tool to help realize the idea of equity as personalized inputs that lead to equal (though personalized) outcomes for students. Through continued collaboration and experimentation, I believe we as educators can create more equitable environments that build students’ capacity to “engage in the transformation of their world” (Fuller, 2010, 1) and “to think deeply about questions matter” (Kohn, 2011, 4).
References
Cohen, E., & Lotan, R. (2014). Designing Groupwork: Strategies for the Heterogeneous
Classroom (3rd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press.
Delpit, L. (1995, excerpt). Other people’s children. New York: The New Press.
Fuller, H. (2010). Education, choice and change. UnBoxed, 6, Fall 2010.
Kohn, A. (2011). Poor teaching for poor children…in the name of reform. Education Week,
April 27, 2011.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of cultural relevancy. American Educational
Research Journal, 32, 3 (Autumn 1995), 465-491.
McLeod, S. (1995). Pygmalion or Golem? Teacher Affect and Efficacy. College Composition
and Communication, 46 (3), 369-386.
McLaren, P. (2009). Critical pedagogy: A look at the major concepts. Chap. 3 in The Critical
Pedagogy Reader. New York: Routledge. Second Edition.
Noguera, P. (2003). Joaquin’s dilemma. In Sadowski, M., ed. Adolescents at school:
perspectives on youth, identity, and education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education
Press.
Overall the feedback from this PD was positive. One of the elements that I think made the PD the strongest was the inclusion of a student panel. We did not frame the panel as an exercise in equity, but I believe it modeled the idea of including all voices in the process. In my ever-expanding thinking about equity, one idea I keep returning to is equity between adults and students. If our ultimate goal is as Fuller (2010) suggests to “give young people the skills and capacity to engage in the practice of freedom” (1), then we must always work to include them in the conversation and leverage their leadership today as young people. Until I reflected on this PD, I had not thought about the idea of power and privilege from a student-teacher lens, though it is clearly an obvious connection. I believe my lack of awareness of that power dynamic is a testament to Delpit’s (1995) assertion that those who already have power are least of aware of its existence (24). As an adult in education, structurally I have more power than students and thus need to intentionally and consistently work to empower them. I believe our student panel was a small step towards that empowerment.
In thinking about how we could have improved the session and what we will do moving forward, one comment truly struck me:
This PD was great. Equity wasn’t really front and center though.
This comment resonated with me because I felt the same way during the session. In PD entitled Equity in Groupwork, it seemed that we all focused much more on the groupwork than the equity. I realized though that there was a very clear connection between participants take-aways from the PD and equity, we had not made those connections explicit. We did not begin our session by framing our discussion of groupwork with Cohen and Lotan’s explanation of the connection between groupwork and equity. Though participants had previously discussed these ideas, I think not revisiting them allowed equity to fade from the conversation more than I would have liked. In planning this PD, we operated from two important assumptions that I wish we had shared explicitly with the participants. The first was that when we are discussing and striving for effective groupwork that is by definition equitable groupwork. Cohen explains that groupwork is often plagued by status issues where some students’ voices are valued more than others. The ideas and strategies we were discussing were designed to mitigate those status issues from emerging in a groupwork setting. Secondly, when groupwork is done effectively, it is a tool for equity. Effective groupwork is a lever for equity in that it is provides learners with the individualized social learning that can be particularly helpful for students who struggle with school or who might otherwise feel estranged from academics.
Our next step then is to make those connections between groupwork and equity clear and continue the conversation about and application of the ideas Cohen and Lotan suggest for equitable groupwork. We are considering returning to the activity about equity stances or equity moments with the staff and possibly including students in that conversation. We could then connect those ideas to our thinking about effective groupwork. In addition, we want to provide space for teachers to support one another in both the strategies they are trying individually in their classrooms and the collaborative work that is possible. Based on that thinking I began drafting an outline for the next session (Appendix C). I think regardless of the exact structure of the PD, however, I am committed to continuing to include student voices. Allowing the students to speak for themselves and share their thoughts on equity is empowering for the students and truly an equalizing moment.
Over the weeks to come, I am excited to see what strategies and innovative ideas our staff experiments with to create more equitable classrooms. Though defining equity is difficult and measuring it both in terms of inputs and outputs is similarly complex, I left our PD inspired by energy around thoughtfully designing groupwork to create more equitable classrooms. Though there will always be more work to be done, I believe groupwork is a powerful tool to help realize the idea of equity as personalized inputs that lead to equal (though personalized) outcomes for students. Through continued collaboration and experimentation, I believe we as educators can create more equitable environments that build students’ capacity to “engage in the transformation of their world” (Fuller, 2010, 1) and “to think deeply about questions matter” (Kohn, 2011, 4).
References
Cohen, E., & Lotan, R. (2014). Designing Groupwork: Strategies for the Heterogeneous
Classroom (3rd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press.
Delpit, L. (1995, excerpt). Other people’s children. New York: The New Press.
Fuller, H. (2010). Education, choice and change. UnBoxed, 6, Fall 2010.
Kohn, A. (2011). Poor teaching for poor children…in the name of reform. Education Week,
April 27, 2011.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of cultural relevancy. American Educational
Research Journal, 32, 3 (Autumn 1995), 465-491.
McLeod, S. (1995). Pygmalion or Golem? Teacher Affect and Efficacy. College Composition
and Communication, 46 (3), 369-386.
McLaren, P. (2009). Critical pedagogy: A look at the major concepts. Chap. 3 in The Critical
Pedagogy Reader. New York: Routledge. Second Edition.
Noguera, P. (2003). Joaquin’s dilemma. In Sadowski, M., ed. Adolescents at school:
perspectives on youth, identity, and education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education
Press.