Icon for: Roxana Hadad

ROXANA HADAD

Northeastern Illinois University, University of Illinois at Chicago
Public Discussion

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  • Icon for: Jameela Jafri

    Jameela Jafri

    Informal Educator
    May 14, 2018 | 12:26 p.m.

    I appreciate you sharing some of the challenges to integrating culturally responsive pedagogy in making activities. Would love to hear some of your thoughts about structuring the conversations between students and teachers, as referenced in the video. In what ways is the project looking to connect to student-driven interests?

     
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    Lisa Lynn
  • Icon for: Roxana Hadad

    Roxana Hadad

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Math, Science, and Technology
    May 14, 2018 | 01:51 p.m.

    Hi Jameela!

    There are various ways we could go about this, but I think the structuring of the conversations between the students and teachers has to generate from beginning to help students to think critically. Who is making now? Who is recognized as a maker? Who develops the software we use to communicate with one another? Do these individuals represent our values and our communities? Are we using certain products and technologies because we feel we have no other options? What does it take to ensure your voice is represented? 

    This is by no means easy, and the struggle is how to get these conversations happening, when we have other learning objectives to meet, is difficult. But I don't think it's necessarily an either/or situation with physics or computational thinking content. I just think we have to be more intentional about how we present the content in a culturally responsive way. 

    We look to connect with student-driven interests by having students think about how they spend their time, what they care about in their community, and what they love doing. We have worksheets to help with this that I can share with you (and we will put on our website!).

     
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    Lisa Lynn
    Natasha Smith-Walker
  • Icon for: Kelsey Lipsitz

    Kelsey Lipsitz

    Facilitator
    May 14, 2018 | 01:08 p.m.

    Very interesting project! I also appreciated your willingness to share those challenges. Like Jameela, I am interested in your thoughts about supporting in depth conversations between teachers and students, and how the tools you're creating for your teachers might be supporting those conversations?

     
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    Lisa Lynn
  • Icon for: Roxana Hadad

    Roxana Hadad

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Math, Science, and Technology
    May 14, 2018 | 01:55 p.m.

    Hi Kelsey!

    We have worksheets to assist with this (that we will put on our site) that gets students to think about (1) their favorite things (music, tv, movies, mentors, etc.), (2) how they spend their time, and (3) what assets their communities have and what could be improved upon. These serve as the starting point to getting students to think about their agency and what they might want to make.

     
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    Kelsey Lipsitz
    Lisa Lynn
  • Icon for: Lisa Lynn

    Lisa Lynn

    Researcher
    May 14, 2018 | 06:12 p.m.

    Great project! I'm interested to hear more about assessment, especially formative self-assessment. I love it as a form of metacognition. I'm wondering if it is an added "load" on top of computational thinking or if there are ways that it actually is useful for the students in evaluating their own work (e.g., figuring out why something isn't working), and how do you support students in ongoing self-assessment?

  • Icon for: Roxana Hadad

    Roxana Hadad

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Math, Science, and Technology
    May 14, 2018 | 07:58 p.m.

    Hi Lisa! So great to "see" you!

    We have students assess not just themselves, but each other. The teachers we worked with said it was vital when they have classrooms of 35+ students. If they can delegate the assessment work to the students, it not only helps with metacognition (as you said), but 's a timesaver!

    We don't see it as added "load". What you need to do is to set up the appropriate conditions for self-assessment to happen. That involves creating an environment when teacher-student roles are fluid, where discussing and documenting process and failure is valued, and where outcomes are clear. When dealing with computational thinking and engineering, some assessment is simple because "either it works or it doesn't". When there is more complicated understanding that needs to take place, students begin to discuss how to proceed, which is also great for learning. 

     
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    Lisa Lynn
  • Icon for: Tomoko Nakajima

    Tomoko Nakajima

    Graduate Student
    May 14, 2018 | 09:31 p.m.

    So cool to see these activities actually taking place with real students!

  • Icon for: Andee Rubin

    Andee Rubin

    Facilitator
    Senior Scientist
    May 15, 2018 | 09:57 a.m.

    Thank you for your video - and for your honesty about the challenges of culturally responsive pedagogy - fully integrating this kind of pedagogy is certainly a goal many of us share, but conversations about the process of achieving it need to be more common.  I'm also curious about the peer assessment process, as I've found in other projects that students need a lot of support to be able to provide useful feedback to their peers. I've sometimes seen a bimodal result - students either say their peers' work is great or they are critical of small details.   How do you scaffold the process so that students are focusing on appropriate parts of the work?

  • Icon for: Roxana Hadad

    Roxana Hadad

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Math, Science, and Technology
    May 15, 2018 | 06:13 p.m.

    Hi Andee,

    Great question, and one I think our project really needs to work more with. One of our teachers used a worksheet organized around Bloom's Taxonomy to help students think more deeply about what their peers did and ask questions that reflected that. It was impressive to see that when given some guidance, students asked very thoughtful questions that pushed the presenter to consider other avenues to pursue. We were thinking that perhaps we could do something similar to the Bloom's worksheet, but more organized around computational thinking skills. 

  • Icon for: Erica Halverson

    Erica Halverson

    Facilitator
    Professor
    May 15, 2018 | 09:14 p.m.

    Thanks for sharing your video!  This is important work in a much needed area of learning sciences. I appreciate the focus on formative and summative assessment in the work as well as the connection to culturally responsive pedagogies. You mentioned in the video that the work to integrate CT and CRP into a curriculum is on-going...what are your hunches about where your design efforts might lead you in this area?

    - Erica

  • Icon for: Roxana Hadad

    Roxana Hadad

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Math, Science, and Technology
    May 15, 2018 | 11:46 p.m.

    Hi Erica!

    Great question! We see the integration of CT and CRP happening in three ways. First, students need to develop a critical mindset. They need to questioning assumptions about the way they are supposed to interact with the world and learn. Are they using knowledge and communication structures built for them? If it doesn't work for them, why not?  Second, teachers need to really get to know their students and their communities in order to best understand how to help them with challenging concepts. Finally, there has to be a lot of attention paid to process. Both teachers and students should document student learning and periodically revisit the evolution of their understanding in order to develop the metacognitive and strategic processing skills that can help students advance. 

  • Icon for: Alka Harriger

    Alka Harriger

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 16, 2018 | 11:55 a.m.

    Thank you for the important work your team is doing to show the relationship between CT and making. Our project (http://stemforall2018.videohall.com/presentatio...) is examining motivation and the development of CT across three contexts, but the activities in all contexts qualify as "making" activities. I would welcome the opportunity to compare notes about your approach to assessment and any tools/instruments you've created to accomplish that.

  • Icon for: Roxana Hadad

    Roxana Hadad

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Math, Science, and Technology
    May 16, 2018 | 03:10 p.m.

    Hi Alka! I enjoyed watching your video and would really like to learn more about your assessment approaches. Our summative tools measure affect and CT/physics/engineering learning. Our formative assessments are embedded in activities throughout our unit that not only help teachers and students gauge learning, but are designed to motivate them, as well. Let's plan a time to talk! 

  • Icon for: Alka Harriger

    Alka Harriger

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 16, 2018 | 03:19 p.m.

    Absolutely! The best way to reach me is email because I'll be traveling on and off the rest of the summer. Our lead researcher, Loran Parker, and I are attending the DRK12/STEM+C PI meeting in June, so if you are also attending, perhaps we can meet up there?

  • Icon for: Roxana Hadad

    Roxana Hadad

    Lead Presenter
    Director of Math, Science, and Technology
    May 16, 2018 | 03:21 p.m.

    I am! See you then! Safe travels.

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