Designing Online Learning to Integrate the Everyday Knowledge and Everyday Contexts of Students' of Color in Urban Spaces

• In Event: STEM Justice: Reenvisioning Science Education/Justice/Place

Abstract

Due to the sudden onset of classroom learning completely online, science teachers have faced difficulties in transitioning their in-person pedagogical practices to online spaces to maintain culturally relevant approaches. Strategies to contextualize phenomena in local settings, and utilize of funds of knowledge (FOK) in physical classroom spaces, have been thoroughly researched. These strategies, however, are underdeveloped in the context of online learning. This study seeks to provide evidence of how one teacher engaged her students in online community-based science learning with two strategies: using maps and models to investigate local phenomenon, and including family and community members in classroom conversation. This work provides evidence of strategies that can be adopted across educational platforms to engage students in online science learning.

Author

• Symone Gyles, University of California - Los Angeles