Learn and describe features and outcomes of a systemic

professional learning (PL) framework for educational equity.

Engage in PL processes and content that exemplify principles of systemic PL for educational

equity.

Become familiar with PL resources available and which may be

contributed to the Equity Alliance at ASU website

• Powerful, focused, and sustained approaches that combine external and practice-embedded activities to build teachers’ knowledge, skills, and instructional practice so that all students experience everyday equity in their education

• Begins with assessment of students’ needs, from which teachers’ learning needs are determined by teachers themselves

• Becomes institutionalized and scaled up through a distributive model of organizational change in which effective practices are systematically disseminated through school networks

Improving Opportunities to Learn for All Students

Understanding the Cultural Nature of Learning

Attends to the long-standing disparities in opportunities to learn for students with diverse backgrounds and abilities, and across gender lines. Inequitable access, opportunities, and outcomes for traditionally excluded and marginalized groups are deeply embedded in U.S. history, and are certainly not problems of the past (Haycock, 2008).

Requires that educators understand the cultural nature of learning. Those engaged in this type of PL critique transform normative assumptions race, class, gender, ability, religion, national origin that define who is considered competent or different (Minow, 1990), and focus on nurturing, and educating all students (Artiles & Kozleski, 2007).

Building a Systemic Focus into Professional Learning Frameworks

Building a Systemic Focus into Professional Learning Frameworks

Purpose

Process

Content

Grounding Assertions Desired Outcomes

Demonstrate the impact of

culturally responsive

practice.

Expand local ownership of

equity matters.

Increase learning

outcomes for students who

have been marginalized.

All learners have a right to

high-quality educational

opportunities where their cultures and

experiences are valued and

used as learning

resources

Dispel the myth that individual

student and group deficits

account for disparities in

access, participation,

and outcomes.

Universal equity is

achieved by creating

systems (at all levels) that

embody the principle of everyday

justice.

Education expands our

understanding of ourselves, the worlds in

which we live, and the

possibilities of what we can

become.

Equity exists, in part, to the

degree that all students feel they belong, are included,

and empowered.

Assertions & Outcomes of PL for Equity

oWhat are the purposes of education from your, students’, families’, perspectives? oWhat would equity look like at the systemic level? oWhat education do students have a right to? oHow are educational opportunities defined? oHow do we measure equity in terms of how students feel and what they achieve?

oWhat do you want out of this type of framework for PL? o What myths and/or biases do you want to confront and

address? oWhat kinds of capacities do you want to build? o What kinds of student outcomes do you want to achieve

and be able to connect with your efforts?

WHAT ARE THE TOOLS? How does PL provide educators opportunities to explore their own practice? Experience building bridges between curriculum, the culture of schooling, and the experiences of students?

educators purpose

tools

www.equityallianceatasu.org

Cultural Responsivity Matrix Conceptual Framework

Topics

Activities

Language

People

Assessment

Miscellaneous

Curriculum is examined by each of these areas to determine whether the content and the approach to teaching represents one of the following approach types:

Contributions Additive Transformational Social Action

Dimensions of the Culturally Responsive Matrix

Contributions Diversity Additive Transformational Social Action

Levels of Knowledge Construction

This perspective conceptualizes knowledge construction as occurring on a continuum from factual and peripheral

to transformative and active

Diversity Additive

Transform-ational

Social Action

Contributions

Curriculum structure, goals and characteristics reflect mainstream constructions of knowledge.

Ethnic heroes and their

contributions are noted. Ethnic holidays and themes are

incorporated into the curriculum to acknowledge ethnic holidays and celebrations.

Books, bulletins boards, videos

and other teaching materials portray people from multiple cultural, racial, ethnic, religious, and language groups in a variety of roles interacting across stereotypical lines.

• Teachers consistently reference the multicultural nature of their teaching tools noting the contributions and accomplishments of distinguished individuals from a variety of cultural, racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds.

• Concepts, themes, authors, and perspectives from a variety of ethnic and cultural groups are added to the curriculum without changing its basic structure and assumption.

Diversity Additive

Contribution Transform

-ational Social Action

• Teachers consistently provide opportunities for students to work together across cultural boundaries

• Curriculum is taught from multiple perspectives and points of view

• Teachers involve students in decision-making about classroom culture

• Classroom practices create opportunities to examine multiple perspectives

Contribution Diversity Additive

Social Action

Transformational

• Teachers enact curricula that explore multiple perspectives, ideas, and outcomes.

• Students are able to develop critical lenses.

• Teachers assess student outcomes in terms of knowledge, skills, and critical perspectives as well as social advocacy.

Contributions Diversity Additive

Transfor-mational

Social Action

Story 1 : Mariah Keeps Cool

Mariah, plans a birthday party for her sister, Lynn, with the help of her half sister, Denise,

and several friends. Lynn’s favorite activities are reading and helping out a local

homeless shelter. She says she does not want any special attention to her birthday and,

probably suspecting that something’s up, announces that she’s staying in bed all day.

The story recounts her sisters’, mother’s, and friends’ efforts to keep the party a surprise

and make it a meaningful for Lynn. The party includes dancing, eating, and bringing

contributions to the homeless shelter where Lynn helps out. It turns out well – Lynn is

pleased, and Mariah comes to appreciate her half-sister, Denise, more through their

shared efforts for Lynn.

STORY CONTENT

Mariah Keeps Cool

Topics/Issues The story theme is positive family and friendship relationships, team work, and problem solving.

Again, counters stereotypical African American vernacular speech. Speakers use standard English with occasional shifts of register such as “ya’ll” and “what you doing here?”

Language

People Studied The family is African American and the story apparently seeks to counter common stereotypes of African American family structure, SES and life-style. Most of the group of friends participate in a swimming club and are preparing for competition. The friend who is the swim coach has a swimming pool at his home. Lynn does not participate in the swim club but is an avid reader with a social conscience.

Miscellaneous (Pictures)

All the characters in all the pictures in the story are African Americans. Would seem to support notion of in-group friendships rather than cross-group. Does not challenge traditional societal prejudices regarding relationships.

Activity Discussion

At what level are the Topics/Issues presented? What are your evidences?

At what level is Language portrayed? What are your evidences?

At what level are People Studied portrayed? What are your evidences?

Curricular Profile

Contributions Diversity Additive

Transformational Social Action

Topics/Issues

Activities

Language (form, content, usage)

People Studied

Grading/ Assessment

Miscellaneous

Content Area:__________________________________________________________________________ Teachers:______________________________________________________________________________

Next Steps

What do I plan to do to move my curriculum from contributions to transformational?

What do I need to move my curriculum from contributions to transformational?

How will I evaluate changes in my students over time?

http://ea.niusileadscape.org/docs/FINAL_PRODUCTS/ NCCRESt/Mississippi_tool/Mississippi_tool.pdf

How do we engage teachers in exploration of their own curriculum and examining the effects of their teaching on student learning, through sharing and building on each other’s knowledge?

THE LOCATIONS OF LEARNING: How do we adjust teacher time and resources for the effort and activity

necessary for successful onsite learning, rather than creating learning opportunities

that are only additive, and potentially overwhelming models for existing schools.

Post ideas, questions,

and artifacts

Watch videos

Comment on

practices

How do the PL opportunities that your district

supports attend to both content and CR pedagogy?

Lecturette 1: Why Shift Toward a Culturally Responsive Literacy Model?

Literacy?

• The ability to read and write. (American Heritage

Dictionary)

• The use of language to construct personal and public

worlds and to achieve full participation in society, (NCTE)

• "Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret,

create, communicate and compute, using printed and

written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy

involves a continuum of learning to enable an individual to

achieve his or her goals, to develop his or her knowledge

and potential, and to participate fully in the wider society."

(UNESCO)

The Literacy Debate

"By the year 2000, every adult American will be

literate and will possess the skills necessary to

compete in a global economy and to exercise

the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.”

Darlene tryin to teach me how to talk….Every time I say something the way I say it, she correct me until I say it some other way. Pretty soon it feel like I can’t think. My mind run up on a thought, git confuse, run back and sort of lay down. You sure this worth it? I ask. She say Yeah. Bring me a bunch of books. White folks all over them, talking bout apples and dogs. What I care bout dogs? I think….But I let Darlene worry on. Sometimes I think bout the apples and the dogs, sometimes I don’t. Look like to me only a fool would want you to talk in a way that feel peculiar to your mind. - Celie, in The Color Purple

Culturally Responsive Literacy Model

Lecturette 2: Addressing the Literacy Gap in Classrooms: Reading and Writing

Lecturette 2: Addressing the Literacy Gap in Classrooms: Reading and Writing

Explanations for Literacy Achievement Gap

Linguistic Differences

Cultural Differences

Societal Racism

Inferior Education

Rationales for

Schooling

Teaching Children to Read: National Reading Panel

Alphabetics

Phonemic Awareness Instruction

Phonics Instruction

Fluency

Guided Oral Reading

Independent Silent Reading

Comprehension

Vocabulary Instruction

Text Comprehension

Instruction

Alphabetics

Phonemic Awareness Instruction

Phonics Instruction

Rhymes and alliteration

Oddity tasks

Orally blend words and split syllables

Orally segment words

Phonemic manipulation tasks

Letter-sound correspondences and

uses in reading and spelling

Integrate with other reading

instruction

Fluency

Guided Oral Reading

Independent Silent Reading

Repeated readings

Positive relationship between large

amounts and improvements in fluency

Comprehension

Vocabulary Instruction

Text Comprehension

Instruction

Direct and indirect instruction Repetition and multiple exposures Learn in rich contexts Task restructuring Multiple approaches

Comprehension monitoring Cooperative learning Question answering Question generation Story structure Summarization

Findings of the National Commission on Writing (NCW)

1. Standardization

and scripting of

instruction

threaten to

undermine

writing

instruction.

2. A climate to

encourage

writing must

be created.

3. Genuine reform

requires

personalization of

instruction.

4. Maintaining a

sense of

“community” in

schools is

essential both to

writing and to the

larger reform

movement.

Best Instructional Writing Practices - NCW

• Use the languages, experiences, and images of students home communities as learning

• Students and teachers as co-inquirers and co-learners

• Use writing to collect, analyze, synthesize, and communicate information and opinions

• Draft, compose, and revise a variety of writings for a variety of audiences, purposes, and occasions

• Use all the language arts (listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking) all at once and all together in learning and sharing ideas

• Make some of student writing public beyond the classroom

Professional Learning

Planning and

Implementation Cycle

&

The Equity Alliance at ASU

Online

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