Shifting From Vulnerability to Agency in the Co-Design and Implementation of Arts-Integrated Data Literacy Units

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: Designing Online Professional Development Toward Creative Production (Table 24)

Abstract

Curricular innovations can trigger teachers’ vulnerability as they lose control of their processes and responsibilities. Vulnerability depends on teachers’ identity, beliefs, and perceptions of their own competencies (Lasky, 2005; Kelchtermans, 2005). According to Lasky (2005), teachers experience open vulnerability when they are confident enough to risk the possibility of emotional stress. Meanwhile, teachers experience protective vulnerability and avoid risk when circumstances make them anxious. Teachers move from protective to open vulnerability when developing agency, resulting in shifting pedagogies (Zembylas, 2010). Co-designing curriculum can serve as PD that mediates vulnerability by fostering agency in designing and implementing curriculum (Gravemeijer, K., & van Eerde, 2009; Kwon et al., 2014). Online co-design contexts, such as sites for oTPD, offer opportunities for teachers to move from vulnerability to agency in curricular innovation.

Our research team partnered with Grade 7 mathematics and art teachers to co-design arts-integrated units to support students’ data literacy. We asked: How can oTPD support teachers in moving from protective to open vulnerability in co-designing and enacting curriculum innovations? We explore two teacher pairs from two NYC schools. Researchers video-recorded online co-design meetings, interviewed teachers after their implementations, and conducted virtual observations of all classroom sessions in one school (the other was restricted by IRB). We present descriptive cases to illustrate how we supported teachers in navigating their vulnerability through creative production.

The Comics and Friendship unit engaged students in analyzing and integrating data about their friendships into comics. The teacher began with a protective stance. She hesitated using the digital comic-making tool Pixton, identifying herself as “traditional” and preferring to use paper and pencil even though Pixton would support her students’ remote learning. We supported her shift into open vulnerability by encouraging her to create a Pixton comic about her challenges and triumphs running a marathon. This allowed her to connect personally with the tool while learning its capabilities, providing her with the agency to integrate it into her curriculum.

The Postcards from the Bronx unit asked students to think critically about “What is a healthy place?” engaging them in generating data about what they value, have, and want for their community. Drawing on “The Oakland Power Map Project,” students created virtual postcards to introduce their community, using photos taken on neighborhood walks. The art teacher articulated her difficulty committing to any one of the ideas discussed during co-design. She came to own the team’s choice by creating her own “power map,” leading to personal insights (e.g., identifying her childhood grocery store as a stressful place due to her social anxiety). Ultimately, this personal narrative sparked a class discussion that helped her students represent their neighborhoods in new ways.

Co-designers can support teachers’ individual vulnerabilities and enable them to take risks in curricular innovations. Future research might explore how the medium of co-design (online or in-person) influences teacher vulnerability, how it can address different levels and sources of vulnerability, and how we might take advantage of affordances of other platforms (e.g. social media).

Authors

• Anna Amato, New York University

• Ralph Vacca, New York University

• Kayla DesPortes, New York University

• Camillia Matuk, New York University

• Megan Silander, Education Development Center, Inc.

• Marian Tes, New York University

• Veena Vasudevan, University of Pittsburgh

• Peter J. Woods, Massachusetts Institute of Technology