Centering Teacher Voices in Science Classroom Assessment Design That Welcomes Translanguaging

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Acknowledging and Taking Up Teacher Expertise in Translanguaging Co-Designs: Voices From the Field (Table 9)

Abstract

Objectives
This paper presents opportunities and challenges our teacher-researcher collaborative experienced centering translanguaging pedagogies in science classroom assessment. Two teacher co-authors share their perspectives as we discuss how to frame ‘teachers as experts’ in this important work.


Perspectives
Recent scholarship has reimagined school science as a place for the various named languages and registers students bring from their communities to make sense of science ideas and practices (Brown, 2019; NRC, 2012; Warren et al., 2020). However, less is known about welcoming translanguaging in science classroom assessment (Author, 2023). The framework of translanguaging (co)stances, (co)designs, and (co)shifts guided this study (Tian & Shepard-Carey, 2020). Specifically, our teacher-researcher collaborative negotiated and co-constructed stances about bilingualism and translanguaging, co-designed assessment tasks that welcomed students to use their full linguistic repertoires, and discussed student work and feedback to inform our pedagogical shifts.


Methods
We approached this work through four cycles of participatory design research (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016; Bang et al., 2015) to position teachers’ needs, knowledge of the local context, and pedagogical expertise as critical parts of the design process. Participants included Author2 and Author3, their 6th grade science students, and Author1 – a doctoral student researcher. Author2 is an English monolingual teacher with 19 years of teaching experience. Author3 is a Korean-English sequential bilingual with four years of teaching experience. Author1 is an English-Spanish sequential bilingual who taught science in K-5 contexts prior to pursuing graduate studies. Mountain View Middle School students spoke a variety of home languages and 35% were designated as English Learners by the district. English was the official language of instruction.

Data sources
Data sources included transcripts of 31 teacher-researcher meetings, meeting minutes, artifacts, and four interview transcripts with Author2 and Author3. We engaged in collaborative rapid qualitative reflection (Gravemeijer & Cobb, 2006) within design cycles to inform future cycles. Author1 led two rounds of retrospective inductive and deductive analyses (Miles et al., 2020) to identify themes related to challenges and opportunities teachers’ faced as well as connections to the translanguaging (co)stances, (co)designs, and (co)shifts framework. We engaged in member checking (Miles et al., 2020) to ensure emerging findings aligned with teachers’ experiences and perspectives.


Results
Results indicated both opportunities and challenges in centering teacher voices in our design work. Opportunities included 1) making space for teachers to relate translanguaging resources to lived-experiences, 2) co-planning assessment tasks that centered teachers’ knowledge of their students and curriculum, 3) leaning into teachers’ pedagogical expertise, and 4) centering teachers’ reflections during task re-design. Challenges included 1) being the lone teachers at Mountain View doing this work, 2) feeling pressure to prepare students for English-language assessments, 3) providing multilingual feedback to students, and 4) needing more time and sensemaking tools to interpret student work. In the symposium, Author2 and Author3 will highlight concrete qualitative examples from their perspectives.


Scholarly significance
This study sheds light on the nuanced, complex nature of centering teacher voices in collaborative translanguaging pedagogies research. Findings can inform future research in this critical area.

Authors

• Caitlin G. Fine, Metropolitan State University of Denver

• Maren Getz, Aurora Public Schools

• Haeyoung Littich, Aurora Public Schools