Ethnographic Praxis and Teacher Learning: Attuning to the Politics and Ethics of Pedagogy in Making

• In Event: Attending to the Political and Ethical Dimensions of Teacher Learning

Abstract

This poster addresses the need for “ongoing analysis, disruption, and transformation of historically-structured systems of power” within teacher learning through a close look at cycles of praxis across researchers and educators in a summer STEAM program. This study is part of an ongoing partnership between university researchers/teacher-educators and a community-based making and tinkering program that serves African American and Latinx middle school students. Following a year of relationship building and PD sessions, program directors asked the research team to document their summer program, specifically to help surface the thinking and learning that happens in the process of making, rather than only in the artifacts produced.

Our subsequent documentation was rooted in a collaborative, participatory approach to ethnography and design (Authors, 2016a; Erickson, 2012), substantiated through the following artifacts and relational conditions:
1. daily debrief meetings that brought together educator and researcher perspectives on activity;
2. daily crafting of extensive fieldnotes that were read and sometimes co-written by educators prior to the next day with youth (4-5 per week, 25 total);
3. weekly synthesis documents that shared “beautiful moments” as well as ongoing challenges and areas for pedagogical growth;
4. evening phone calls and check-ins that grew to serve as a space for co-design;
5. flexible roles (researchers serving as educators, educators also serving as co-ethnographers);
6. audio-video recordings that were used to support the writing of fieldnotes and post-program PD with the broader staff.

Our analysis is guided by the following questions: If and how did shifts in pedagogical understandings and practice take shape within these forms of joint activity? How do we understand the ethical responsibilities of researchers engaged in the dual role of documenting educational activity and supporting the pedagogical development of educators?

Our findings examine teachers’ shifting understandings and practices regarding the political and ethical dimensions of pedagogical design in making settings. These shifts included: growing attention to the nuances of pedagogical talk and the values and openings embedded therein; the power of pedagogical design that is attuned to the perspective of learners who are new to activity; respect for the heterogeneous meaning-making practices and cultural life-worlds of students (Roseberry, et. al., 2010); community building as a primary design goal (Zavala, 2018); and growing intentionality with regards to generative forms of assistance highlighted within the fieldnotes.

Key tensions included: naming less generative or dignifying pedagogical practices as interwoven with the need for ongoing trust building across researchers and educators; the role of modeling through co-design; navigating the place of research in dynamics of surveillance and job security, and supporting the time it takes for educators and researchers to meaningfully engage in joint documentation and reflection on pedagogical practice.

Our poster concludes with implications for collaborative ethnographic work that connects micro-interactional flows of teaching and learning and their broader institutional contexts with more just and transformative design.

Authors

• Shirin Vossoughi, Northwestern University

• Alexis Papak, Northwestern University

• Stephanie T. Jones, Northwestern University