Leveling Up: Connected Teacher Learning After-School Digital Media Production Space in an Urban High School

• In Event: From Connected Learning to Connected Teaching: Toward a New Vision of Digital Literacy Teacher Education

Abstract

While there is a significant body of research about teacher learning and professional development in schools (e.g., Wilson & Berne, 1999), far less research has focused on teacher learning and professional development for educators in out-of-school contexts (Woodard, Vaughan, & Phillips, 2017). This paper draws on a two-year ethnographic study in an after-school space for digital media production housed in an urban high school to consider a model for teacher learning in out-of-school learning contexts. The educators who worked in the digital design studio, who were known as digital media mentors (DMMs), met together weekly to reflect on the previous week of activity in the digital design studio, to plan for the coming week, and to focus on their continued growth as educators. This paper describes and explores the ongoing model for teacher learning the DMMs and their supervisor enacted--a model we call mirrored practice of leveling up both teaching and learning--and articulates the possibilities for teacher education rooted in principles of connected learning.

Our conceptualization of the mentors’ learning as mirrored practice of leveling up teaching and learning originates from one of the four interconnected design principles identified in the Connected Learning Report (Ito et al., 2013): “challenge is constant.” Ito et al. (2013) describe “challenge is constant” as “develop[ing] expertise in order to access resources that are available but just out of reach” and “‘gates,’ levels, or other structures that pose challenges or obstacles to overcome offer opportunities for advancement” (p. 79). The DMMs working after school in the digital design studio intentionally identified “leveling up” as an area of focus for their collective work of mentoring and for their collective work of teaching. We articulate teacher learning in the digital design studio as mirrored practice because leveling up occurred across two planes of practice at the digital design studio (in teacher learning and in teacher practice). Additionally, mirrored practice identifies the ways in which cycles of self- and group-reflection supported the mentors in understanding and improving upon their practice day to day and week to week as they worked to intentionally level up youth learning and level up mentor teaching.

Our analysis is drawn from two years of ethnographic observations, including audio and video recordings, in the digital design studio. Observations were typically conducted weekly and lasted 2-4 hours in a single session. Observations almost always began with weekly mentor meetings lasting 1 hour and included mentors’ interactions with young people who dropped in to the digital design studio to work on interest-driven projects they had chosen with guidance and support from the DMMs. The studio was open for 2 hours after school.

This poster has significant implications for teachers who work in out-of-school contexts. We argue that mirrored practice of leveling up both teaching and learning through self- and group-directed reflection cycles has the potential to be a model for continually improving teacher learning and teacher practice.

Authors

• Virginia Killian Lund, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Nathan C. Phillips, University of Illinois at Chicago