Emergent Tensions and Strategies When Scaling and Sustaining Student-Centered Learning

• In Event: Students at the Center of Research Design: Promoting Learning, Equity, and Rigor Using Youth Expertise

Abstract

Student-centered learning opportunities that build on the lived experiences of students, encourage critical reflection on social structures, and facilitate activism and voice have gained attention under the banner of action civics and youth participatory action research (YPAR) (Anyon et al., 2018; Benner et al., 2019; Cammarota & Fine, 2008; Cohen et al., 2018; Ito et al., 2015; Levinson, 2012). Unfortunately, such opportunities rarely move beyond exemplary programs to become integrated and sustained parts of K-12 learning systems. Scaling any sort of educational innovation is difficult; scaling an approach that invites challenges to entrenched norms and power relations through justice-centered student activism is more difficult (authors, in press; Coburn, 2003). In this paper we draw on theories of anti-racist education and community organizing (Torre, 2009; Warren et al., 2008) to articulate our theory of change and identify emergent tensions and strategies from our two year project.

The investigation grew out of a Research Practice Partnership (Coburn & Penuel, 2016) between a large metro-area school district and researchers in three universities who developed an approach to student-centered learning called Critical Civic Inquiry (CCI). In CCI students work with adult coaches to identify an equity issue that affects them directly, conduct original research, and propose a policy solution to school leaders and policymakers. CCI supports student agency by inviting students to participate in creating more equitable structures in their schools and communities. We draw on two years of data collection: two rounds of interviews with students and teachers, observations of student teams at nine schools, student-generated artifacts, and notes documenting monthly planning meetings between district partners and researchers. Analysis took place in bi-weekly research meetings followed by systematic review of data that occurred at the end of the two year cycle.

Our paper discusses three findings that illuminate tensions and strategies for scaling and sustaining CCI.

1) The role of students as agents of systems-change: Although we attempted to map out how the program should be scaled, the form it took was shaped by student agency. For example, whereas the original plan was to create a credit-bearing elective class, students at some schools insisted on having their work be less official and voluntary by meeting after school. Other student teams saw the elective class as central to sustainability and they persuaded their principal to add it to the school master calendar.

2) Adults as key holders of student-centered spaces: Students cycled out of specific programs and campaigns through graduation or residential mobility, which had the potential to disrupt campaigns still underway. Adults played key roles by taking responsibility for processes that centered student voices.

3) Cascading, cross-age leadership: Effective student teams built in cascading leadership roles that created low barriers to entry for onboarding new members and crafted succession plans for student leadership of campaigns.

This work is important for scholars interested in designing opportunities for student-centered learning in large complex systems. Such design work, carried out in RPPs, requires a complex harmony between intentional planning and support for student agency and ingenuity.

Authors

• Ben Kirshner, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Carlos Porfirio Hipolito-Delgado, University of Colorado - Denver

• Shelley Zion, Rowan University