Disrupting Deficit Frames Through Experiential Learning in an Urban Education Course

• In Event: Community-Engaged Teacher Preparation: Issues and Insights From Teacher Educators

Abstract

For the first time in the history of the teacher education program, I decided to hold my undergraduate course, Urban Education and Urban Landscapes, in an urban elementary school. There were two goals I hoped to accomplish with the course (1) continue and strengthen the existing partnership between the university and the local urban school (2) help my undergraduate teacher education students develop a rich understanding of urban schooling and dispel deficit framing of urban children and their families. Data for this study came from students’ reflective papers, course assignments, and anonymously submitted course and instructor evaluations. Findings showed that undergraduate students shifted their beliefs about urban schooling, children, and their families as a direct result of working in an urban school.
The course took place during the spring 2023 academic semester. The majority of the students in the required course were undergraduate teacher education students with a focus on English language learners. The course is best described as utilizing a “flipped” instructional design with a core experiential learning experience. This means that students read, reflect, and analyzed course materials asynchronously online. In-person class sessions were focused on experiential learning, or “learning by doing.” Class sessions were held both on campus at UD and at [blinded] Elementary School, an urban public school in Wilmington, DE. The course objectives were:
• Articulate descriptions of asset-based educational frameworks that prioritize equity, racial literacy, and cultural sustenance in the schooling experiences of urban students.
• Critically describe the ways urban schools, families, students, and teachers are constructed, shaped, and (mis)represented by curricular choices, instructional practices, and policy/reform efforts.
• Analyze how practitioners engage challenges and opportunities of urban education and urban resources/assets to support children and their families.
• Apply skills in your (new and exciting!) role as an educational community partner to support efforts that dismantle educational inequities impacting urban school children.
One compelling course activity, a semester-long critical service learning project, seemed to be the catalyst for much of the students’ shifted perspectives. Undergraduate students were introduced to community-based critical service learning through a framework titled, MY VOICE, a structured pedagogical approach created by the Philadelphia-based non-profit organization, Need in Deed (www.needindeed.org). After interviewing urban school teachers and their students, my undergraduates identified the issue they wanted to address; underrepresentation of black identity and culture in the curriculum. Together my undergraduates and the elementary teachers decided to take all one hundred 5th grade students to the African American Museum in Philadelphia. My undergraduates raised over $2,000.00 to cover the costs of the trip, and they attended the trip with the 5th graders as volunteer chaperones.
Data from weekly field reflections and course evaluations showed that undergraduate students shifted their understanding of urban education from deficit views to a more nuanced understanding of challenges faced in urban schooling contexts. In the symposium data examples will be shared alongside key course components related to students’ shift in beliefs.

Author

• Elizabeth Gayle Soslau, University of Delaware