SLOW.
That is the word that best described my process for developing an action plan to the question I tried hard to answer this year: how might I identify strong opportunities for culturally responsive teaching in the [SCIENCE] curriculum in order to build student knowledge in prejudice reduction and collective action towards inclusion?
For many months in trying to produce a quick answer to this question. I learned that I was trying too hard to get to a final product. But as I developed my action plan, I realized that the product was actually the process I took to answer my question. Taking the time to research, document thoughts and share ideas allowed me to be intentional in answering this question. Sure, if I wanted to take the quick route to create a culturally responsive teaching curriculum, I would have some final products to show – but, would those final products be effective? Would they be successful? Would they be meaningful and respectful towards different perspectives?
Instead of my product being a final curriculum with a bunch of lesson plans that are aligned with DEIJ goals, my final product became the game plan or the ACTION PLAN to how I will get there. With this plan in my mind, I have recognized that content development for DEIJ will be a never-ending process (in order to align with changing societal values). But what will rarely change, is the framework I will follow to create/curate these lessons.
In the slides below is my action plan. It documents my roadmap for how I will go about changing my science curriculum over time (and perhaps other subject curricula), and examples I have taken of this process in practice! You’ll notice that in my roadmap, I was left with another big question to tackle – “what does success look like?
A big thank you to the Cohort21 group, and Team “Be More Dog” for helping me get to this plan. AND, for teaching me that small wins are equally as meaningful as big wins.
@avillanueva! What amazing work! I can totally relate to the process you write about in your blog.
When I first joined C21 I wanted to focus on integrating inquiry while collaborating with classroom teachers. But before I could do any work with teachers or students I had to learn more about the topic myself.
The roadmap you have created looks like a solid and long-term plan to make sure you are addressing the important aspects of your HMW question.
You’re right… it’s a bit of a never-ending process, but that’s often teaching, right? Constantly learning and developing our practice. Awesome work! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Thanks for reading Nivole! Being flexible with our process is so important – I love how aware and reflective your inquiry process has been. I’m so happy that there were things that resonated with you – it helps to validate a lot of the questions I had when going through this process.
Amazing Anna! Slow and steady wins the race. Looking forward to hearing more on Saturday.
Thank you for reading this Jennifer!
@avillanueva this is powerful sharing. Of course, the focus of your Action Plan is powerful (essential, urgent) in and of itself, and the manner in which you’ve framed it alludes to a desire to make real, important and lasting impacts beyond your own sphere or practice. Amazing! I believe the extent to which which you’ve captured your process is also so important – and encouraging to each of us immersed in action.. Let’s not get stuck by measuring “progress” against our initial goals or intentions (as, it seems, they are almost always unreasonable, and really only ever a launching point :). What a great outcome of your journey (so far): a clear template to carry your ongoing action forward – a template for you, and everyone. Again, this is such essential learning, and I hope you will continue to invite us in. Thank you for this!
@swelbourn @tjagdeo @iliu @jvipond @ksegedin @lhanimyan @aiorio @jknapp @jadams
Yes! I learned that not letting go of my initial goals can be a big roadblock for progress. Thank you for reading, guiding and listening Graham 🙂
Wow @avillanueva – thank you for sharing your journey. Can’t wait to hear more about the framework that you have created to make DEIJ work a reality in your school. Figuring out what success looks like is a great next question. Let’s collaborate to accelerate and discuss this question with other science teachers.
I would love to collaborate Tina – thank you for being such a great mentor for me in this. The book clubs you run have been inspiring me to keep the momentum.