Personalized Learning: a Tool for Equity?

“That's at the core of equity: understanding who your kids are and how to meet their needs. You are still focused on outcomes, but the path to get there may not be the same for each one.” Dr. Pedro Noguera

Throughout this year I have had the opportunity to listen to three strong voices in equity and education: Dr. Pedro Noguera, Dr. Sharroky Hollie and Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade. Each message pointed towards a deep examination of how I listen to youth, foster relationships, and address inequalities within the systems and communities I work and live.  If we compare these ideas with the definition of personalized learning there are many parallels that ask educators to be innovative, student centered and authentic.  So...is Personalized Learning a tool for Equity?  Let’s take a look...

Images of Hope and Love

Both equity and personalized learning ask educators to use methodologies that deeply value EACH student. Educators can seek spaces and strategies that infuse messages of hope, self-love and the importance of thinking critically.  Identity webs, visual representations of how students see themselves, allow for exploration of self, critical thinking and empathy.  Similarity, visual storytelling can be an outlet for students to share stories using visuals such as infographics, images or video to inspire change.  

Educators may also look for authentic resources found in the real world. The We Love You Project is a digital space that is working to capture portraits of the black boys and men in communities in the United States. Their mission is to reclaim the image of black boys and men by projecting a message of humanity and love though each photograph.  

Explore and Engage

Personalized learning is about ensuring we meet students where they are and move them forward. Equity adds the elements of ensuring students who've been marginalized have their needs met in ways that accelerate their growth.  Educators engaged in personalized learning and equity create authentic opportunities for learners to discover, connect and understand.

The New York times 25 Mini Films for Exploring Race, Bias and Identity with Students could be a catalyst for discussion and examination of multiple perspectives. Another catalyst could be connecting authentically with classrooms and communities that represent different cultures and experiences through Skype in the classroom.

Classroom libraries that reflect the unique identities and lived experiences of the students that walk into our schools everyday, can create discovery and deep understanding of historical healing and self-worth.  Use this toolkit to evaluate the library in your classroom, and use this book list for inspiration. Engage further by exploring student examples such as Books N Bros - a book club started by an 11 year old boy, that inspired the EyeSeeMe bookstore.  

Take note and Take action

Finally, personalized learning and equity both ask educators to open instructional practices to reflection and rejuvenation.  Ask yourself these questions to think about possible people, perspectives and/or additional learning that might spark curiosity, interests and personalized learning of your own.  

Social Media	Professional Growth	Student Centered
Questions to Ask
Who do you follow on your social media? What opportunities are there to explore additional perspectives?	What themes emerge when you think about the professional development you have participated in? What opportunities do you have to explore personalized learning and equity?	How are you listening to your students?    What opportunities do you offer for authentic and personal learning?   How do you collect student data and what does it tell you?
Places to Explore
Twitter @EquityCoaching @equityproject #PersonalizedLearning	Consider learning from: West Metro Education Program TheEdCollab	Try one of these books: The Teacher You Want to Be Upstanders ELL Frontiers

Tova

@WerlingerTova

Instructional Excellence Coordinator

Department of Personalized Learning and Instruction

A New Awakening

WHAT IF WE ...

“You must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be”. ~ Marianne Williamson

Courageous Conversation National Summit

Six weeks ago I had the privilege and honor of attending the 2016 Courageous Conversation National Summit,  a three day intensive seminar focused on developing and celebrating equity/antiracist leaders through courageous conversations about systemic racism and its impact on opportunity and achievement in schools.   As a DELTA member and one who is passionate about racial equity work, I am extremely grateful to have been surrounded by so many racial equity leaders.  The experience left me reflecting on my own racial journey in the context of my professional life.  Further, it served as a catalyst for my efforts to reintroduce, if you will, the Courageous Conversation protocol to the district.  I believe the protocol is a fundamental component needed to elevate our equity and antiracist work to a new level.  It is time to define that level as one in which we will actually see transformation in the narrowing of the gap between our students of color and our white students while at the same time, increasing the achievement of all.  

Reflections of our Better Selves

The main theme of the seminar was, “Reflections of Our Better Selves.”  Civil rights activist, Whitney Young, Jr. states,  “The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else.  The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self.”    The Courageous Conversation Protocol is not about changing someone else’s beliefs.  It is not about developing the fortitude to tell everyone why they are wrong and you are right.  The purpose is to “engage, sustain, and deepen” our dialogue about race so we will be able to broaden our own racial consciousness, and thus learn from one another.

The first condition, focus on “personal, local, and immediate” is about starting with ourselves.  As a Korean American woman who grew up with a vast amount of white privilege in a dominantly white suburban city, I have come to the realization that the awareness around my own race and my personal experiences play an integral role in my ability to engage in courageous conversations.  By looking inward, I am making an investment in the work of increasing my own racial consciousness.  In other words, by intentionally working on building my own racial consciousness, I will build my capacity to engage in conversations which are integral to the learning and experience of our students of color, and thus be able to put out a “reflection of my better self.”

The HOW

As a member of the Personalized Learning department, and a teacher who is passionate about equity/antiracist work, I see the two concepts as synonymous.  For me, truly personalizing the learning experience for each student is equity at it’s core because there is no denying or ignoring of the barriers or systems that prohibit each student from reaching his/her fullest potential.  That dream for all of the students of Eden Prairie is one in which I hope to see come to full fruition as we journey toward the convergence of personalized learning and equity.  Notice I said, all of the students.  This is because I believe strongly that when we do this work, we are benefiting our entire student population, regardless of race, culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.  

Through the past decade and a half, I have been on a journey of racial and cultural awakening.  Often I have asked, and been present around many others who have asked, ‘how’ do we do culturally responsive teaching.  

Often it sound like,  “Tell me what to do, and I will wholeheartedly do it.  I want what’s best for my students and care deeply about them!”  Recently I picked up a binder labeled 2008 and in it were pages upon pages of Equity workshops that I had attended as a part of WMEP.   Many of the questions and comments that I had written in the margins and the material in the presentation notes were almost exactly the same as the ones I have now in my current binder.  This tells me that the conversation about these inequities and institutionalized racism in our education system have not changed much at all.   It’s a frustrating phenomenon because I know as a district we have tried many different approaches.  

I’m going to take a risk and speak my truth (one of the 4 agreements).  I do not believe that an initiative or program will ever address the gap alone.    I don’t believe that simply ‘doing’ culturally responsive strategies in my classroom will reach each and everyone of my students.  The reason?  Because I have come to the awareness through a decade and a half of focusing on this work, that it lies in our hidden biases, in our system-wide structures and processes, and in our deeply honest belief that each child can achieve at high levels.  My belief, after attending the national summit, is that it has to start within each of us.

I believe that we are an outstanding, proud and distinguished district.  However, we are not exempt nor should we be immune to the information that our data tells us.  If our mission is about ‘each’ and the mission of antiracist/equity leadership is systemic change, then we have a moral imperative to look in the mirror and start having these important conversations.  Utilizing the protocol and committing to examining our own racial consciousness is the how to culturally relevant teaching in our district and my hope is to reignite the work in our district.    By writing this blog, in this post election moment in history, I am pledging to increase my work around the advocation of our Eden Prairie Black and Brown and Indigenous students.  Will you join me?