Teaching Toward Equity: The Teaching-Learning Research Stance and Its Practices

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Educating for equity entails the ongoing work of positioning all students as active,
capable, and valued intellectual agents, as the subjects of their developing learning
narratives rather than as objects of a set of externally imposed learning objectives. As
teacher educators, we have worked with one or both of two practitioner research
traditions—Critical Exploration in the Classroom (CEC) and Descriptive Inquiry
Processes, developed by Eleanor Duckworth (2006) and Patricia Carini (2001),
respectively–to create classroom cultures that inspire all students’ active intellectual
engagement and development and nurture democratic community. Here, we
characterize these traditions as teaching-learning-research practices (blinded), trace
their intellectual histories, and discuss features we find most salient for our own work.
Illustrative classroom examples are provided throughout.

Sub Unit

• Division C - Learning and Instruction / Division C - Section 2b: Learning and Motivation in Social and Cultural Contexts

Chair

• Susan Jean Mayer, Critical Exploration Press

Papers

• Situating Critical Explorations in the Classroom toward Culturally Responsive Pedagogy - Mary Kay Delaney, Independent Scholar

• How and Why to Assess Interpretive Authority Balances in Exploratory and Problem-Solving Learning Experiences - Susan Jean Mayer, Critical Exploration Press

• The Cultivation of Teacher Presence Through the Process of Descriptive Review - Carol R. Rodgers, University at Albany - SUNY

Discussant

• Mary Kay Delaney, Independent Scholar