Launching Intradistrict Networked Improvement Communities With a Commitment to Educational Justice in Elementary Science (Poster 7)

• In Event: Equity in Elementary Science Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Problem. This past year has been a year of racial reckoning for educators across the country and based on our work with teachers and school and district leaders over the past decade, we contend that many teachers are poised to advance race-conscious teaching practices within subject areas that typically have been race-neutral, such as science. Yet there are serious barriers that preserve the status quo and restrict opportunities for teachers to learn to be anti-racist. Of consequence are the limitations placed on how teachers can be supported in examining critical and cultural approaches to disciplinary learning and pedagogical risk-taking. In this paper, we examine a PD model designed with the Networked Improvement Community (NIC) approach (Bryk et al., 2015) to support teachers in enacting and reflecting on a set of educational justice principles.
Design. We are working with three large urban public school districts to cultivate and study intra-district NICs to advance NGSS-aligned culturally and linguistically responsive science teaching in elementary classrooms. We have collaborated with over 600 teachers around four educational justice principles (Authors, 2019). Principle 1: Recognizing our own and other’s worlds and developing critical consciousness, Principle 2: Developing relationships to form inclusive communities, Principle 3: Scaffolding for full participation in the culture of science and school science through curriculum, instruction, and assessment, and Principle 4: Critiquing, challenging, changing the culture of science and school science through social and restorative justice. Data sources included interviews and 300 classroom observations with 34 teachers, audio recordings and field notes of 180 hours of professional development and 29 hours of RPP meetings with researchers and district science staff.
Findings & Analysis. Across the NICs, teachers expressed interest in working on the 1st and 4th principles but found it challenging to attend to the critical dimensions of this framework in traditional forms of “sit and get” professional learning, rooted in white norms about teaching and learning. In one of the NICs the critical dimensions of the PD were marginalized and teachers found it challenging to reconcile district mandated commitments to teaching the curriculum with fidelity. In the other two NICs the teachers focused exclusively on the critical dimensions and had agency to change the curriculum. Across all NICs teacher learning was best supported when teachers could adapt curriculum already grounded in a set of social justice principles, they attended to their sense of selves, science and society as they enacted the curriculum with a learning community.
Contribution/Significance. This study examines the enactment of professional learning principles and opportunities based on the NIC approach which can help districts consider how to structure teachers’ professional learning and science instruction for educational justice. Implications for knowledge sharing across dimensions of NICs are also discussed.

Authors

• Jessica J. Thompson, University of Washington

• Soo-Yean Shim, University of Washington - Seattle

• Anastasia Shawn Sanchez, University of Washington

• Cristina M. Betancourt, University of Washington

• Kelsie Fowler, University of Washington

• Sarah Clancey, University of Washington

• Heena Lakhani, University of Washington - Seattle