CI501:

Lesson 2: Purposes and Plans

In this lesson, we have two primary purposes:

• To get to know each other as a community of educators and inquirers.
• To get a feel for the inquiry by engaging in a brief inquiry cycle.

In this lesson, we plan to:

• Read and reflect on Buchanan-Rivera (2022) focusing on why unpacking identity is important for you and your learners.
• Create an identity web and respond thoughtfully to questions related to your identity.
• Read through your small groups' identity maps and responses.
• Engage in data analysis by re-reading your small group data and writing to think through patterns.
• Reflect on this mini-inquiry cycle as a participant and a researcher.

Lesson Readings & Activities

This lesson spans two weeks, with due dates in each week. By the end of this lesson, make sure you have completed the readings and activities found in the Lesson 2 Course Schedule.

But I Teach [fill in the blank], Not Identity or Culture Class!

Last week you read and thought about definitions of inquiry and equity, about different purposes for practitioner inquiry, and about the relationship between equity and inquiry. Identity is one key component of both of these activities: inquiry and equity.

While there are many factors to consider when working toward more equitable learning spaces, one of the big ideas that tie all those factors together is identity. To build a safe, generative, and just learning environment, we can’t ignore the identities of the teachers and learners in the room and the ways our complex identities are entangled with power (or the lack thereof).

References

Buchanan-Rivera, E. (2022). Identity affirming classrooms: Spaces that center humanity. Routledge.

Ahmed, S. K. (2019). Being the change: Lessons and strategies to teach social comprehension. Heinemann USA Imprint.

Love, B. L. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon Press.

Starting with Ourselves

Most of the folks who study and facilitate learning around equity agree that this important work begins with ourselves. Across your Master’s program so far and through other personal and professional experiences, you have likely already spent some time unpacking your own identity and the ways your history influences how you view the world.

In her book, Identity Affirming Classrooms, Erica Buchanan-Rivera calls this “mirror work,” explaining how critical self-reflection “empowers us to reflect on how we value differences, including the messages we have internalized about people outside our inner circles…the biases that program how we respond and engage with others” (pp. 7-8, 2022). Dena Simmons (2019)1 calls this engaging in “vigilant self-awareness.” Paulo Freire (1970/2005) calls it developing "critical consciousness.” The term is less important than the practice—of continually examining “everyday realities to analyze the relationships between personal contexts and the wider societal forces…that restrict access to opportunity and resources, and thus, sustain inequity and perpetuate injustice that limit well-being and human agency” (Jemel, 2017).

Considering our own identities is also important as a teacher researcher. When we engage in teacher inquiry—like other forms of qualitative research, the researcher (that’s you, a human person!) asks the questions, collects the data, and analyzes the data. That means our own strengths and weaknesses, our own biases, inherently influence our research. However, as Merriam and Grenier (2019) point out, instead of trying to “eliminate these biases or ‘subjectivities,’ it is important to identify them and monitor them as to how they may be shaping the collection and interpretation of data” (pp. 5-6). They go on to explain how, when carefully considered, our ‘subjectivities’ can be an asset to our research as they form our unique perspective to our work.

In other words, our identities and experiences are our superpower as teacher researchers. And yet, if we don’t take time to reflect on our own identities and uncover our biases, we might not only come to flawed conclusions in response to our inquiry questions but, more importantly, we might perpetuate narratives and practices that are harmful to students’ own sense of identity and belonging within the learning environments and experiences we facilitate.

References

Simmons, D. (2019). How to be an antiracist educator.ASCD Education Update, 61(10).

Freire, P. (1970/2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.

Jemal, A. (2017). Critical consciousness: A critique and critical analysis of the literature. The Urban Review, 49(4), 602–626.

Merriam, S. B., & Grenier, R. S. (Eds.). (2019). Qualitative research in practice: Examples for discussion and analysis (2nd edition). Jossey-Bass.

Individual Identity Work

Before we get into your small groups for some discussion, first take some space to reflect on your own identity.

First, find a space--in your notebook, on a scrap piece of paper, on a jamboard online, whatever feels comfortable for you--to create a web like the one pictured below:

Within that diagram, write your name in the center circle. Each additional circle should contain a word or phrase that captures some element of your identity--those terms or descriptors that have most helped shape who you are and how you interact in the world. For example, one circle might contain the word "woman," another the word "Black," another the phrase "grew up in Deep South," and so on.

You should also include words or phrases that other people use to identify you. This last step may be done in a different color if desired.

This webbing is just for you, but please be as honest and thoughtful as you can be. You will refer back to this for your small group work. You, of course, are always in charge of what you decide to share publicly and what is just for your own identity work.

Practicing a Mini-Inquiry Cycle

In Lesson 1, you were introduced to inquiry. The inquiry process is often conceptualized as a cycle (see image below).

In this lesson, we are going to practice the inquiry cycle.

Develop a Wondering

Inquiry questions, or wonderings, are questions that arise from our everyday teaching. They are manageable, open-ended questions that are connected to our interests and passions as educators.

In this case, we will all be investigating the same inquiry question or wondering: Who are we as a community of educators and inquirers?

Collect or Generate Data

Data collection or generation just means capturing (and trying to hold it still) information that will help us answer our questions. This doesn’t necessarily mean creating surveys or tests that will generate huge quantities of data. In fact, we suggest trying to capture data that is a part of your teaching already vs. generating new data apart from what you would typically do in the classroom.

In this case, we have also already collected data: The identity work you each did in your small groups.

Analyze Data

Keep working through this lesson to learn more!

What Is Data Analysis?

In their book about teacher inquiry, Ruth Shagoury and Brenda Miller Power describe data analysis as “finding the patterns within your data, viewing each bit of information as part of a larger puzzle you must put together…” (p. 136). While we’ll talk a lot more about data analysis in Lesson 6 of this course, this lesson should give us enough information to give it a try.

During this stage of inquiry, we take a closer look at the data we’ve collected and think about what we’re seeing—and not seeing. This part of the process is often the complex and the most uncomfortable for new teacher-researchers. However, if we’re willing to embrace the messiness of this stage, it can be the most interesting and rewarding part of our work!

We will talk about this in four steps:

1. Description
2. Sense Making
3. Interpretation
4. Implications

The following activity will walk you through each of these steps.

References

Shagoury, R., & Power, B. M. (2012). Living the questions: A guide for teacher-researchers (Second Edition). Stenhouse Publishers.

Dana, N. F., & Yendol-Hoppey, D. (2019). The reflective educator′s guide to classroom research: Learning to teach and teaching to learn through practitioner inquiry (Fourth Edition). Corwin.