Module 6 — Medgar Evers College

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  Posted by Sara Vogel, PhD. (she/her) on June 7, 2023 at 4:06 pm

  Background

  The CITE Equity Working group has put together some resources to support faculty to think about equity in the context of designing CITE Artifacts

  • Equitable CITE Pedagogy: Putting it into Praxis – Long document on Manifold
  • Interactive version of our goals, approaches, design principles and moves

  Task

  • Feel free to annotate our document on Manifold with any noticings, wonderings, resources, and ideas you have as you review it! You will need to go to this site and create an account: https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/

  Then, come back here and share your responses to any number of these prompts:

  • What are some noticings / wonderings you have about how we’ve framed equity in CITE? Any feedback for us?
  • Where do you see connections between the spotlights you read last week and the ideas shared about equity in this week’s resources?
  • What are some of the inequities that you are interested in tackling as you design and roll out CITE artifacts?
  • After reading this, where do you think you might challenge yourself to go next?

• Jean Marc Cadet (He/Him)

  Member

  June 16, 2023 at 12:19 pm

  After examining the Equitable CITE Pedagogy, many topics hold my attention. One of the most important ideas for me was how to address the needs of disadvantaged students in a classroom by promoting equity in technology in every school. I think every student in every community has the right to high-quality education and this is where building a community within any course is often essential to having students meaningfully engage with their classmates and the course as whole and all of that can be done in classroom as well as outside the school by giving students chance to get access to digital and computing tools to learn better and being competitive in the global market. During Covid crisis, a lot of students did not have the opportunity to get access through technology to learn the materials taught virtually because of lack of resources. I think CITE in an effort to promote equity in schools, lay down some important tools that we need to ingrate in our teaching strategies.

  I enjoy reading the goals (Empower learners and the communities, Promote joyful and meaningful learning, and transform institutions towards justice) and to know that equitable pedagogies can be viewed as designing learning experiences around students’ interests and needs throughout the Equitable CITE Pedagogy. I was also impressed by what it means for educators to understand the diverse experiences, repertoires of practices, identities, language/communication practices in building learners ‘strengths and ways of knowing. Students should always be the center of our teaching strategies.
  Juanita Crafton (she/her)

  Member

  June 19, 2023 at 10:36 am

  In reading the Equitable CITE Pedagogy, the first thing that stood out for me was the first two goals which states empower learners and communities and promote joyful, meaningful learning. As an educator I strongly believe that the best way to help students understand and embrace education is to empower them in a fun engaging but meaningful manner. In my opinion and from my teaching experiences, I have noticed that students are more apt to learning, when material is presented in a way that they are able to make connections to what is being taught, and when they are allowed to take ownership for what they are learning. When I think of the word equity, the first thing that comes to mind is “fairness” and how the words of Bruce, 2020 highlighted the unfairness that students in low-income neighborhoods and especially those who resided in homeless shelters were impacted during the transition of online teaching in 2020. During this time I was an elementary school teacher and it was heart wrenching to see the number of students from my class who missed out on being educated because they had no access to technology or even when some had, the homeless shelters did not provide internet services.  This clearly shows that through CITE, we need to make a conscious  effort to collaborate with teacher candidates as we empower them to understand the importance of bringing equity to all communities. In the article, it was noted that in promoting equity as “acccess”, faculty pointed out that they worked with teacher candidates to help them make links to K-12 classrooms. If they have not done so, I would also suggest that faculty have discussions with K-12 teachers in the public schools and identify how they are promoting equity as “access” when it comes to technology. What challenges are they facing and how are they overcoming these challenges? What tools are they using and what tools they need?

  I am in total agreement that we need to help “teacher candidates and their learners develop cognitive tools and learning habits to engage in inquiry and to flourish” and do so through computing and digital literacy infused with culturally responsive approaches.

  In reading the article, I like CITE’s approach of empowering teacher candidates and their K-12 students as learners. If we want to limit the inequity in our communities, teacher candidates need be comfortable with computing and digital literacy; they need to be able to recognize and understand diversity and most importantly in my opinion, they need to be able to vet and critique the tools they will expose their students to. In other words, they need to be extremely comfortable with technology before they can use it with their students. One area I would like to challenge myself would be on how can I help transform institutions towards justice. I would love to work on adjusting the polices that hamper the learning of students in homeless shelters by not providing them with access to internet services or access to a computer. This alone is an inequity as many of those students are African Americans and Latinx.
  Keshia James

  Member

  June 20, 2023 at 9:35 pm

  What stood out to me after reading Equitable CITE pedagogy is the goal of promoting joyful and meaningful learning. 

  In terms of technology education, being joyful may not be the general sense for all students especially when access to technology is limited. I believe that joyful and meaningful learning is achieved when technology is accessible and design and application reflects students interests. As alluded in the reading, there is no tailored approach to equity as it will mean different things for each individual. The lack of joy and meaning stems from lack of can accessibility so the fact that CITE targets pre k to 12 teacher education programs and candidates is a viable way to address the issue of accessibility. But I don’t think equity stops with accessibility. Students’ cultural, economic and community background will also influence how they interact with technology and whether they view technology designs as interesting or meaningful. That’s where equity focused mindsets will come in.

   I’m exploring ideas for  tackling the cultural and racial inequities in technology as I design my CITE artifacts. These are some questions I think should be answered in my  design process: How would my students be expected to interact with my design? How can I make design more inviting, comfortable, relatable?  How will students be celebrated during their interactions to provide feedback and motivation?

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  Gelonia Dent

  Member

  June 23, 2023 at 10:43 am

  After reading the equity reports and the goals of the CITE for equitable pedagogy, I would focus on equity in access to technology and meaningful learning. Students who gain knowledge and competency in using computing technologies build overall confidence in their ability and can form positive self-identities as experts. One of the main challenges I face with teaching STEM majors is the lack of confidence that they carry across many years of their learning process that they never address so creating an artifact that shows them that what is learning is meaningful is as important as gaining the knowledge.

  Students who refer to themselves as scientists but who do not believe it are disillusioned and disadvantaged as technology is ubiquitous. Equity must be expected as well as available.

  FYI: There is an error in the Equity Impact 2023 report; it refers to the George Floyd ‘shooting’; it was choking.
  Zulema Blair

  Member

  August 4, 2023 at 12:09 pm

  After reviewing the material on CITE Equity, I focused most on capacity and access. It is also important for students to enjoy what they do which the articles point out. I would focus on access to technology that analyze data. Whether students know it, like it or not, they utilize data every day. It is just a matter of how data are transformed into something that are recognizable and meaningful to them. When they have access to a number of data analytical tools and are taught how to use them, in a “language” that they recognize, they feel empowered and will continue to use it.