Finding (Y)Our Pack: Coming Together to Inform and Transform Teacher Education

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session aims to unite the concepts of Communities of Practice and Social Justice Pedagogies. First, we illustrate the ways in which our own community of practice as four differently-positioned teacher educators who labor in differing institutional contexts has enabled us to enact and sustain critical practices and navigate academia. Second, we document communities of practice we have co-created in our divergent locations and describe how they have been inspired/informed/influenced by our ongoing collaboration. This highly interactive session will engage audience members in considering how communities of practice might be developed and sustained over time and space and how these communities might be mobilized in the interest of disrupting power dynamics, fostering social justice, and furthering educational equity.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Critical Educators for Social Justice

Chair

• Katherine Crawford-Garrett, University of New Mexico

Papers

• Teaching Out Loud: Teacher Inquiry as an Intergenerational, Critical Community of Practice - Katherine Crawford-Garrett, University of New Mexico

• A Community of Transformative Optimism: Cultivating Nonviolence in Curriculum and Pedagogy With K–12 Teachers - Christian Alejandro Bracho, University of La Verne

• Creating Humanizing Urban Classrooms in Community Through Empathy, Humility, and Vulnerability - Oscar Navarro, California State University Long Beach

• Reimagining a Community-Informed M.Ed. Environmental Education Program - Nini Hayes, Western Washington University

Discussant

• Sherry Lynn Deckman, Lehman College, CUNY