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When the World Tilted Differently: Science Teachers' Pandemic Stories Through Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education

Sun, April 24, 9:45 to 11:15am PDT (9:45 to 11:15am PDT), Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina, Floor: South Building, Level 1, Pacific Ballroom 19

Abstract

Objectives 

This paper explores teachers’ experiences with culturally responsive-sustaining science education in our schools when the COVID-19 pandemic and protests against anti-Blackness hit in 2020. We focus on “Stories from the Field,” a conversational routine at professional learning group (PLG) meetings where teachers share observations and insights about teaching in the context of culturally responsive-sustaining education (CRSE). Compelled by the effects of these pandemics, we investigated, In what ways did our stories change throughout the year?

This study occurred in the second year of a PLG comprising science teachers and researchers, focused on CRSE in science classrooms. Collaboration in the group heightened during this time, increasing meeting frequency and interest in sharing stories about interactions with students and teaching related to racial justice.

Theoretical Perspectives

Research-based tenets of CRSE frame our analysis: valuing and integrating students’ assets as instructional resources (López, 2017); strengthening and sustaining students’ cultural connections (Ladson-Billings, 2014); holding high expectations for academic learning (Gay, 2010); and developing sociopolitical consciousness (Paris & Alim, 2017).

CRSE in science is the context for “Stories from the Field,” a pedagogical practice for reflection and sensemaking. Storytelling is a universal tradition featured across cultures and a method for learning about how humans make sense of the world (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). Storytelling taps into teachers’ “personal professional knowledge” (Clandinin, 2015), bringing in learning and expertise. Importantly, storytelling is instrumental in work toward change and transformation, and prevalent in anti-racist pedagogy (Alderman et al., 2019) and social justice advocacy (Novak, 2021).

Methods

Using a case-study approach, we developed an in-depth exploration of teachers’ stories grounded in the group’s ongoing actions, behavior, and language (Armstrong et al., 2019). Our study is informed by culturally responsive research practices (Berryman et al., 2013) in which teachers and teacher educators engage in reciprocal learning (Christianakis, 2010). Teachers reflected on excerpts of their own stories from meeting and interview transcripts, and collaboratively used an iterative process to identify themes (Thomas, 2006). 

Data 

We collected multiple data sources over the 2019-2020 academic year: 40 group meetings transcripts, teacher interviews, collaboratively designed artifacts, and reflective memos. 

Results 

Coinciding with the pandemic, stories shifted heavily to incorporate sociopolitical critique. For instance, stories during the pandemic highlighted teaching strategies to support students in cultivating critical thinking and promoting student talk, and teaching about the Black Lives Matter movement and protests.

We explicate three emergent themes: 1) Examining white privilege and whiteness, in connection with our identities and positionality; 2) Working with students remotely, frequently related to access and equitable practices; and 3) Teaching without constraints of a standardized exam, which provided opportunities for inclusive curricula and decentering dominant paradigms in science classrooms.

Significance

Analyzing and reflecting on our pandemic stories provided insights during a time that offered little sense, clarifying our thinking about CRSE in devastating and uncertain times. Stories and reflection helped increase our self-awareness insofar as positionality and criticality (Lyiscott, 2019). As an educational and cultural support, they allowed us breathe and re-set (Ladson-Billings, 2021), “navigate pain and possibility” (Lyiscott, 2019, p. 89), confront educational inequities, and continue centering CRSE and our students’ experiences in our work.

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