In-Service Computer Science Teachers' and Researchers' Notions of Equity in a Professional Learning Community

• In Event: Science Education With Multilingual Learners: Toward Equity as Transformation

Abstract

Objectives. We share findings from a two-year professional learning community (PLC) facilitated by researchers to support teachers to incorporate Computer Science (CS) with a translanguaging lens (García & Li Wei, 2014) into classrooms serving multilingual, racially minoritized students. We analyze how teachers conceived of equity in teaching and grapple with facilitators’ dual-roles as researchers and PD providers -- roles we felt were in conflict at times.

Theoretical framework. We draw on two equity frameworks in science education (Barton, 1998; Philip & Azevedo, 2017) which recognize the need to expand access while pushing towards transformation of what, how, and why students learn. These frameworks illuminate how seemingly unidirectional trajectories from access to transformation are in fact, complicated and even interdependent.

Data and methods. For 2 years, our researcher-facilitated summer PLC brought together 14-17 in-service teachers interested in “equity” in CS-Ed and translanguaging. As researchers and facilitators, we sought to both understand teacher viewpoints and to support development of transformative mindsets and practices. Using grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1994), we analyzed their responses to prompts about what they thought equity meant. We then used our frameworks (Barton, 1998; Philip & Azevedo, 2017) to interpret these grounded categories. We also leveraged autoethnographic reflections (Jones et al., 2013) to highlight our own roles and facilitator moves.

Results. Teachers’ ideas intermingled access and transformation: lowering systemic barriers, providing differentiated and/or culturally and linguistically relevant supports, and changing the nature of how, what, and why students learn in CS-Ed. Many teachers raised concerns that responding to the needs of some students meant others would be unsupported: “if you use ‘girls who code’ what about Black boys?” We interpret this tension in the context of dominant neoliberal zero-sum discourses about resource allocation (Cochran-Smith & Villegas, 2016), narrow notions of culture (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003), and the recognition that not just the marginalized benefit from conversations about systemic oppressions. We identify facilitator moves made in response to this comment including naming the genre of concern, validating the need for discussion, re-framing the comment, and sharing suggestions for classroom practice. In the moment, the teacher re-stated her inquiry, indexing dissatisfaction with these “answers.” Given the comment was one of only two responses that indexed race, it had the potential to spark a deeper conversation about equity, but did not.

Significance. Many researchers straddle PD and research roles and seek to support teachers to take up conceptions of equity that seek transformational systemic change. In our case, these roles felt conflicting. As researchers, we centered teacher voices and experiences and found their insights helped shed light on the heterogeneity (and sometimes conflicting ideologies) under the surface of seemingly similar equity commitments. From a PD perspective, it took more work to turn those insights into generative fodder for promoting transformational understandings of equity in CS-Ed for multilingual learners. We reflect on the kinds of facilitation moves that might promote a community of teachers, researchers, and PD providers to critically interrogate and evaluate heterogeneous equity ideologies towards transformative ends.

Authors

• Lauren Vogelstein, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Sara Vogel, City University of New York

• Jasmine Y. Ma, New York University

• Christopher Hoadley, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Laura Ascenzi-Moreno, Brooklyn College - CUNY

• Wendy Barrales, New York University