Designing for Belonging in Collaborative Teacher Groups

• In Event: Theorizing Teachers' Situated Talk to Disrupt Inequitable Instructional Practice

Abstract

Purpose
Teachers’ interactions in collaborative groups are shaped by extralocal structures and ideologies that maintain hierarchies and exclusion, such as hierarchies between instructional coaches and teachers, and hierarchies of mathematical ability. The design of local settings mediates these structures and ideologies. Here, we explore how design choices—conscious and unconscious—support and hinder teachers in negotiating rich possibilities for belonging and learning, for themselves and their students.

Theoretical Perspectives
We draw on social design-based research (Gutiérrez & Jurow, 2016) and teacher solidarity co-design (Philip et al., 2022). The former emphasizes designing for new forms of joint activity that foster expansive learning, rather than design products. Tensions and contradictions are expected and treated as resources for collective learning. Teacher solidarity co-design addresses the specific context of collaborating with teachers, foregrounding the importance of sustaining a shared articulation of education justice and of relationships across the design process.

Methods
We analyzed video recordings of two groups of teachers (over 18 hours total). The first group, at School 53, consisted of three teachers and an instructional coach. They convened as part of a district professional development program aimed at fostering students’ mathematical agency and authority. The second group, dubbed “Math Crew” by members, consisted of six first-year teachers and an instructor from their teacher preparation program (Author). Math Crew members were united by a commitment to grounding their instruction in students’ strengths.

We analyzed the local arrangements and resources that participants drew on to negotiate belonging and exclusion, and how they reproduced and/or disrupted culturally dominant ideologies that maintain hierarchies and exclusion. We considered how design choices made these arrangements and resources available. Whether these choices were intentional or not, they were consequential in teachers’ interactions.

Results
Comparing School 53 and Math Crew surfaced several points of contrast, summarized in Figure 1.

Design choices that disrupted exclusion were present in both Math Crew and School 53, as were choices that functioned to maintain exclusion. However, more choices that disrupted exclusion were evident in Math Crew, related to its location outside of schools as institutions. Math Crew meetings took place at [Author’s] home, the group’s agenda and activities were co-constructed, and conceptual tools deliberately aligned with a shared articulation of educational justice. In contrast, participants at School 53 were constrained by the default arrangements of schooling, including titles, roles, and norms that tended to concentrate power in the hands of the coach; conflicting messages from the district regarding students’ abilities; externally set agendas; and tight schedules. These arrangements shaped participants’ capacity to participate in and generate forms of social activity that were rich with possibilities for their own and their students’ learning and belonging. Our analysis of four pivotal episodes showed how this capacity was expansive within Math Crew and limited at School 53.

Significance
Our analysis highlights design choices for teacher learning environments that tend to be taken for granted rather than deliberately made, but which are essential for opening expansive possibilities for both teacher and student belonging.

Authors

• Nicole Louie, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author

• Mallika Scott, California State University - Fullerton
  Presenting Author