In Pursuit of Engaged Learning With Latinx Students: Expanding Learning Beyond Classrooms Through Performance-Based Engagements

• In Event: Critical Conversations: Social Justice Practices for Overcoming Psychological Barriers in K–12 Settings

Abstract

This study of Mario Molina High (MHS), a small, urban high school, examines schoolwide efforts to promote Latinx students’ academic engagement. Committed to immersing youth in transformative learning experiences and interrupting societal inequities, MHS instituted performance-based assessments (PBAs) that emphasized complex thinking, content mastery, dialogic discourse, and civic participation. These assessments drew school actors out of the spatial/temporal boundaries of classrooms and fostered serious, spirited, interactive spaces for learning. Framed by literatures on effective pedagogies for nondominant youth and performance assessment, this qualitative research explores three types of PBAs (academic challenges, scenario challenges, and real-life problems) and demonstrates how PBAs fostered students’ academic and civic engagement and furnished youth with robust knowledge and skills relevant for college, work and life.

Authors

• Marnie Curry, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Steven Z. Athanases, University of California - Davis