A Playbook of Equity-Focused Conversation Starters for Teaching Educational Psychology Courses

• In Event: Discussing Race, Ethnicity, and Culture While Teaching Educational Psychology

Abstract

Overview
This presentation provides an overview of a digital equity-focused Educational Psychology Playbook for pre-service teachers. This resource provides a set of equity-focused conversation starters that can be embedded within courses taught by educational psychology scholars, including graduate students, and is appropriate for learners any stage of academic journey.

Background and Rationale for an Equity-Focused Educational Psychology Playbook
Preparing graduate students to teach on issues of race and culture is a critical aspect of their graduate training experience in education. The Educational Psychology community has lagged behind other fields such as Teacher Education and Higher Education in advancing local and national conversations on equity for at least two reasons. First, we have not developed many of our own conceptual tools required to teach on equity issues in our undergraduate and graduate education courses. Second, of the conceptual and methodological know-how that our field does possess on issues of equity, we have yet to comprehensively translate this information into practical resources that can be readily understood by those who are entering the teaching profession.

Use Cases for Educational Psychology Graduate Students and Scholars Seeking to Lead Equity Conversations
Using the concept of school belonging as a case-in-point, this presentation highlights the utility of this digital playbook for teaching on topics related to educational psychology. Specifically, this presentation will review a number of use cases for graduate students and scholars seeking to strategically use this digital playbook in teaching discussions. The rigor in the development of this digital playbook comes from curating a set of instructional practices that have been based both in equity-focused empirical research in educational psychology, and then vetted by equity-focused educators, administrators, and district leaders. For example, the illustrative examples provided in this presentation are based on the perspectives of practicing educators who have read and extended an equity-focused Opportunities to Belong framework (Gray, Hope, and Matthews, 2018) in ways that recognize their own contextual and practical knowledge, perspectives, experience, and insights. For educational psychology instructors of record, elements of this digital playbook may be embedded into ongoing activities and topics that are already covered on their existing educational psychology syllabus, or the digital resources provided could be used to develop new lessons centering on the practical advice the playbook provides. Since this is an online resource, students may have additional flexibility to grapple with sensitive educational topics at their own pace outside of classroom time, and bring thoughtful commentaries and artifacts they create (e.g., equity-focused lesson plans) back to class that build on topics in the digital playbook.

Significance
As educational psychology graduate students to learn and teach about issues of equity, resources such as this digital playbook can be leveraged both inside and outside of their classrooms to build confidence and leadership capacity in this area. This presentation will conclude with broader commentary regarding how such resources contribute to a systemic approach on centering equity and decolonizing curricula in educational psychology.

Author

• DeLeon Gray, Black and Belonging