Pedagogy for a more equitable world: Centering relationality and praxis in teaching research methodology

Group Submission Type: Pre-conference Workshop

Description of Session

The goal of this workshop is to provide participants with a space for exploring pedagogical approaches to teaching research methodology with an eye towards issues of ethics, equity, and critical consciousness raising. Drawing on the pedagogical approach we have developed in the process of writing our textbook, Making Sense of Social Research Methodology: A Student- and Practitioner-Centered Approach, we aim for the workshop to address the following objectives:
1. Help participants consider ways of addressing the disconnect (fissures) between students’ conceptions of ‘research’ and their own connection to social research;
2. Provide opportunities for exploring the connection between teaching and being through an emphasis on relationality, dialogue, and critical consciousness raising;
3. Make explicit the socio-political conditions of, and impact of social and educational research, in ways that draw attention to ethical dimensions of research and issues of equity
4. Model foregrounding students’ lived experiences in teaching/learning research methodology

Participants will complete the workshop with a new understanding of how to approach teaching research methodology in a critical and equity-oriented way, and with concrete ideas for rethinking syllabi and classroom experiences. Moreover, participants will constitute a critical peer-group through which to share teaching and learning ideas.

In order to meet these objectives, this workshop will utilize active learning techniques and reflective exercises to help participants explore what using an equity-centered, relational pedagogy in teaching research methodology can look like in their own classrooms. We will provide an overview of the equity- and ethics-oriented pedagogical approach we have found useful in our experiences teaching research , and then engage participants in exercises that allow them to imagine what this approach might look like in their own classes. Based on the needs and desires of workshop participants, these might include:
- An exercise in collective imaginations of classroom interactive possibilities using Theater of the Oppressed methodology;
- Opportunities for reflection on specific aspects of participants’ teaching (e.g. creating classroom community, centering student expertise in teaching content);
- A dialogue on how we understand the terms “expertise” and “knowledge” in relation to building an equity-centered classroom;
- Exploring the tension between challenging assumed ideas about research that students bring with them, and doing so in a way that assumes sameness in students’ understandings or influences
- Exploring creative approaches to assessing students’ conceptual framing of research
- An opportunity for reflection on centering ethics and equity in research methodology classes;
- A "research journey" exercise that allows participants to bring to the foreground the connections between conditions shaping research, the research process, and the outcomes/impacts of research
- Sharing pedagogical designs/structures/exercises that we have used and found useful, which help to create student-centered, participatory oriented, critically engaged relational classroom culture.

Sub Unit

• Pre-Conference Workshops, Book launches, and Visual Art Exhibits / Pre-Conference Workshop

Workshop Organizer

• Pengfei Zhao, University of Florida

Presenters

• Karen Ross, UMASS Boston

• Barbara Dennis, Indiana University - Bloomington