Participatory Methodologies to Transform the Project of Schooling: Student Voices Leading (Poster 7)

• In Event: Designing for Racial Justice Through Speculative Pedagogies: Learning to Build Liberatory Futures

Abstract

Objectives: This case study offers a look at the power of learning in a classroom where teacher and students share the responsibility of designing and teaching a course. The boundaries of who is the “expert” and who is the “learner” dissipate to create fertile ground for transformational approaches to teaching and learning. The school is a public community school in the heart of Koreatown and Pico-Union neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

Theoretical Framework
As a community school, we (students, families/care-givers, teachers, staff) aim to construct and live in “fantastic paradigms of collective thriving,” spaces where speculative education can tether us to the stories of our communities while providing us with wings to fly above the mundane and overdone, the regimented and bounded (Garcia & Mirra, 2023, p. 4). We look to the speculative and the power of storytelling to reclaim knowledge creation for and by students. We dwell in the speculative to guide transformative work in instruction, teacher leadership, student leadership, research and practice (Garcia & Mirra, 2023).

Methods Lead author Garcia and now college students Jaune Reyes and Edwin Cruz captured the evolution of a co-taught course in their high school with their teacher Mx. Keating.

Findings Students represented their experience as co-teachers and shared important lessons about the role relationships play in the process of learning. They advise aspiring educators to spend time building relationships to create learning experiences that are worthwhile for all.

In addition, the high school student co-teachers realized that they had to learn to ask for help and consider the experience and expertise of their history teacher Mx. K. Student co-teachers recognized that they were coming to the teaching experience through two perspectives–as students who have “received'' instruction, and as teachers-in-practice, trying to enact liberatory practices they learned and they desired to foment in their own classroom. They found that reflecting on those two experiences allowed them to create lessons for everyone and thus increased the levels of engagement and learning that transpired in their history elective course. Their team approach to teaching allowed for purposeful collaboration that resulted in an effective teaching practice. They made improvements based on feedback from students and their own observations. The cycles of learning and reflection they enacted informed the improvements they made to their course over time. Their analysis of their journey provides insight into the complexity of what is required for the creation of genuinely engaging learning environments.

Significance
Although there is some literature expanding on the relationships between guiding and novice teachers (Francois & Hunter Quartz, 2021), there is a dearth of literature that captures what that experience can be like when the novice teachers are high school students. Elevating the experience and reflection of what high school student teachers can accomplish through a reflective and guided process alongside their teachers can inform future projects in the high school setting and beyond. Centering student voice and agency can help usher in educational spaces where authentic learning and collaboration can happen.

Authors

• Leyda Waleska Garcia, University of California - Los Angeles

• Jaune Reyes, UCLA Community School

• Edwin Cruz, University of California - Los Angeles