Cultivating a Humanizing Co-Design Space to Support Compassionate Schools

• In Event: Teacher Care: Working Toward Humanization for Others and the Self

Abstract

Collaborative design as an approach to developing research and learning environments engages teachers as partners in ways that draw on their own lived experiences and identities. We consider design in a context where educators and researchers had varied familiarity with the content, and where there was significant uncertainty about how to link individual compassion practices to the shared design goal of supporting collective action toward more equitable and compassionate schools. We ask: How did teachers experience the co-design process, and what facilitation moves supported and hindered humanizing and agentic experiences? Members brought their personal/professional joys and challenges to the curriculum; we thus designed a course reflecting educators’ experiences and educators felt confident to enact compassionate changes within their schools.

Authors

• Ashley Seidel Potvin, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Leah Pena Teeters, University of Colorado - Boulder

• William R. Penuel, University of Colorado - Boulder