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Lesson Study Cycle #1: The implications of Shelby vs. Holder
October 24, 2019
Why Lesson Study?
Lesson study is not only a way for teachers to get effective critique on their lessons, it's also an amazing tool that makes teachers evaluate and strengthen their own teaching practices through a constructivist lens.
Research Lesson Topic
The Supreme Court and whether it's power is equally balanced with the other two branches of government.
The goal of our lesson was to introduce students to the world of voting rights and get students to start to question the power balance of the branches of their government.
Research Question
How can we continue to purposefully engage students of color into historical lessons that have a predominantly white bias?
How can we reinforce the power and privilege of voting to students while simultaneously exposing the inherent disparity of power in the branches of government?
Planning
Our team brainstormed a consistent, underlying thread in our high school YouthTruth reports: that a disproportionate amount of our students of color didn't feel represented in our lessons...or in our staff.
We talked at length about several students of interest in the class, and eventually narrowed them down to five students, each with a different list of needs and expectations of the class, ranging from low-reaching to overachieving, with a variety of neurotypical and neuroatypical skills and behaviors.
During the planning phase, we constantly sought out the "why should we care" angle, to maximize buy-in from the class.
The lesson observation occurred at the mid-point of the Supreme Court segment, at a pivotal point in voting history: the Shelby v. Holder ruling.
The Lesson
We adopted a mixed-media approach to try to maximize attention of students, consisting of two short videos, two free writes, pair-share, popcorn sharing, a physical activity (4 corners), a tactile activity, and closed with a quiz/reflection as an exit ticket.
I had two focus students "Trina (fs1)" and "Kelly (fs2)", each with different attention/processing challenges.
During the lesson itself, Garrison kept the class energy moving by utilizing a multimodal approach, and it seemed to work for the majority (+90%) of the class.
"Trina" spent the majority of the non-physical/non-tactile elements completely disengaged, but was quick to join movement/conversation-based activities.
"Kelly" was an extremely hard worker when it came to the text-based/writing activities (easily the most writing of the class), but was often reluctant to share out unless called upon.
Each focus student was able to find a segment in the lesson to shine.
Artifacts
Examples of focus student work
Scanned examples of student work can be found HERE
Annotated Bibliography
An annotated bibliography can be found HERE
Literary Synthesis
Our initial exploration of this lesson focused primarily on the "why": why are our students of color feeling ennui in the classroom? Are they not seeing their cultures and communities reflected in their lessons? Is there a reason for the achievement gap that continually exists in our classrooms?
The majority of the articles I read throughout this quarter dealt primarily with attendance challenges (to better understand FS1’s continual eloping) and restorative practices (to get a better idea of why FS2 had feelings of disconnectedness). Also, I read about achievement gaps with students of color; why were we seeing a marked decline in class participation/success in our students of color? And why were Latino/Hispanic boys predominantly our lowest achievers annually? Why was this a pattern that we were seeing over the years, using metrics like state testing and YouthTruth surveys?
Nearly every source I examined had one major thing in common: communication. Broadly speaking, the authors of the articles we read saw a distinct correlation between students feeling “heard” in their classrooms and an increase in academic success. Simply put: if the students felt like they had a stake in their learning environment, they attended school more often, and increased their grades. When families felt understood, students were often less absent, and when both students, parents and school staff felt connected, major progress was possible!
In Klein’s article “This Simple Survey Could Help Close the Achievement Gap” she hypothesizes that having staff and students fill out a basic interest survey could help identify commonalities within the school’s population...interests that may not have come up organically in day-to-day conversation. “From this knowledge and the increased interactions, teachers may connect better with students at an interpersonal level, and may be better equipped to connect their subject matter to students’ interests.” (Klein, 2015)
But interest conversations aren’t the only thing that schools are incorporating to bridge these institutional gaps; some schools are reevaluating their practices and embracing the concept of restorative systems in lieu of traditional, punitive responses. Sharon Lewis’ article “Improving School Climate” addresses this in her study of 10 different schools across North America, ranging from low income/working-class districts to private schools. During the yearlong study, nearly every school saw a 20-40% or greater decline in negative behaviors, suspensions, and referrals. By incorporating communication circles and encouraging students to have agency in their own classrooms, the study found that students were more likely to embrace accountability. In the study, Palisades High School principal David Piperato was quoted as saying “You cannot separate behaviors from academics. When students feel good and safe and have solid relationships with teachers, their academic performance improves.” (Lewis, 2009)
By including student voices into classroom expectations/norm-setting, students feel more invested in their learning and are thus more likely to take ownership of their own educational destinies.
Outside the classroom, listening to parents and families express their concerns and needs also reflects a sense of belonging in the community as well. Many schools in New York City have hired people as “attendance teachers” in an attempt to discover the reasons for students’ chronic absenteeism. Instead of acting as educational police, the attendance teachers go out into the community and connect with students and families to understand why the students are consistently absent. Even missing one or two days per month can have longstanding issues for students that are considered to be academically at-risk.
In Nauer’s article “Battling Chronic Absenteeism”, students are considered “chronic” if they have missed 10% or more full school days. There’s a specific school mentioned, P.S. 48., which was the focus of an intensive, three-year study on chronic absenteeism. The program was able to highlight ~160 chronically absent students and assigned them “success mentors” that would work with teachers and families and let students know that even in their absence, they were still being noticed. After a year of data collection, several students showed remarkable progress; one student went from 73 absences in 2010-11 to 4 absences in 2011-12. (Nauer, 2016) Like I mentioned before, this was hardly an isolated event; it required direct, meaningful communication on behalf of the school, family and students to work.
Of course, none of these incredible benefits would be possible without teachers learning to understand themselves...specifically with disparities involving race and privilege. In Milner’s “Beyond a Test Score”, he cautions us not only to be aware of conditions that we may present in our classrooms, even when teaching with the best of intentions. Instead of focusing on achievement gaps in standardized tests (which may themselves be racially biased), Milner suggests that we shore up opportunity gaps, which cause the perceived achievement gaps. Milner suggests that we examine several educational practices that can distance students from engaging in lessons. For example, when attempting to adopt a “color blind” mentality, it is often said from a place of privilege, which can actually delegitimize a person’s racial or cultural identity in the classroom. Even worse, by choosing Euro-centric history lessons, we run the risk of subconsciously reinforcing that nonwhite students’ cultural history is not as important. “When educators do not include curriculum content related to Black people in a social studies class, students are actually learning something about Black people through the absence of the content in the curriculum,” (Milner, 2012)
Lastly, as educators of any race, it’s imperative that we are aware of our systemic biases and what we could potentially bring to the classroom. Given that we graduated from college and have a steady job, it’s easy to lose track of the fact that other students and families are not afforded the same advantages that have brought us to our classrooms. In previous years, there was a big push to tell children “you can be aaaanything you want to be,” but when teachers (specifically white teachers) tell non-white students that, it’s often met with an eye roll. Students are far more aware of their social and cultural place in society, thanks to the umbilical of social media, and they are painfully aware of their own perceived shortcomings, and using trite affirmations can cause more harm than good. “Teachers, in general, can fail to understand that they have gained their status through a wide range of unearned advantages chances, circumstances, and consequences.” (Milner, 2010)
Overall, the emphasis on effective, thoughtful communication was reinforced in all of these articles. Honest, positive communication can convey a genuine sense of academic encouragement, both to parents and to students, and the ability to be honest and self-aware can, in turn, make us better teachers.
Memorialization Document
Research Lesson Memorialization Document
Team Members
Dominique, Michael, Garrison
Lesson Date
October 24, 2019
Instructor
Garrison
Grade Level
12
Research Lesson
Shelby v Holder: Implications
Research Question
How can we create experiences that help our focus students unlock their academic potential and what additional supports are necessary for building their academic achievement?
Theory of Action
The long-term goals for our students and how we will get there
If we create opportunities for students to pose questions to explore content as a class and create clear, structured learning goals (clearly specified student learning goals along with accountability checkpoints), then our focus students will be able to develop the necessary skills needed to drive their independent learning, resulting in student preparedness for post-secondary life.
Research Lesson Topic
The Supreme Court and the Division of Power
Unit Goal
The goal of the unit is to get students to question the structure and balance of their central government.
Design of Instruction
Students have covered the executive and legislative branches of government. Thus the next logical step is to cover the judiciary branch.
Unit Plan
The lesson sequence of the unit, with the task and learning goal of each lesson.
Lesson #1 Goal: Identify the structure and purpose of the Supreme Court and how it was created.
Task: Graphic organizer of different offices
Lesson #2 Goal: Students will know more information about the Civil Rights, the Voting Rights Act, Supreme Court, and Shelby v Holder.
Content Understanding Goal
Students will know more information about the Civil Rights, the Voting Rights Act, And The Supreme Court
Student will know more about other court cases pertaining to race or voting rights
Student will be able to ponder/question if the movement for voting access has ended, is continuing, or has just begun. (Critical Thinking Goal)
Students will understand the Shelby County AL vs Attorney General Eric Holder Supreme Court Case
Student will be able to connect past and present events with a critical lens.
Equity Goal
All learning types are engaged- auditory, visual, tactical/kinesthetic
Scripting the Lesson
Task: Deck of voter ID profile cards- Read out voting rights bills in different states. Students given an identity with each card (racial, gender demographics).
Students prepare to vote with their ballots. Voting rules change when shown lists of requirements (discredits voting privileges). Last question on the ballot “Do you want to change the voting laws?”
Anticipated response: students don’t think it’s fair that there are arbitrary disqualifications
Students notice patterns that disqualify them from voting
Exit Card: Survey designed to gauge student retention of voting concepts presented
Students will discuss their wondering opinions and concerns
Task: Students will conduct a short quick write that is timed
Should a person be required to vote?
Data Collection Plan
We made anecdotal/observation notes on our specific focus students. We were watching and listening closely to how students interacted with the lesson.
End of Cycle Reflection
Garrison reflection:
I think out of the four lessons this was my weakest one,
Videos and 4 corners activity went really well - got them thinking.
That has been my goal for all of these lessons - have students think about government structure - critically thinking about it
I think there were signs of that happening
Voter id activity didn’t go as well as I hoped, I revised it last night and tried to simplify
I had hoped that students would see the types of discrimination in real time instead of me talking about it, but I don’t think it was as wide-spread as I’d hoped.
I think that had to do with the nature of it - all the slips my have made it more complicated. Solid paper in one place might have been better.
I might make adjustments for this afternoon.
Dominque’s focus student - E & D
E - engaged in writing notes down after the videos, seemed to absorb info - wrote the whole time of the quick write
D came in late and her focus was on college applications - on her computer and asking Edward questions about college applications. She had the ACT book with her.
E: “I noticed people being denied the right to vote such as AA as a potential link between the videos” but then said “I’m not sure it was a link”
During the four corners - E shared about whether Shelby had a legitimate claim. D moved to neutral section.
D and E are definitely a pair and travel together for most of the 4 corners sections
D - provided a response that another student had shared as well during the part whether Shelby had a claim
During the voter ID part both D and E were excited to see what they got - they had an animated conversation about what type of person they might be. E got AA and she got Arab (which matches parts of their identities)
C - wasn’t engaged or involved - ear buds in and stayed in neutral section whole time. (Except when everyone was on the Disagree side)
Wonder if more questions to the neutral section might have elicited some of their thinking
Michael’s focus student - T & H
T reading a book, on her phone, seemed to be distracted, during the beginning of class
Garrison put out question about voting rights act of ‘65 and she re-engaged - during the video H was on phone deleting texts for first couple minutes, T was head down and phone in lap,
During the writing activity T had head down and wrote nothing
H was gripping pen and writing furiously, kept writing even after alarm went off
During the pair share - T was looking at summer research website
H wrote a full page of info (½ page for both sections)
During the pair share - M briefed her on what was going on, and T seemed to take that in and listen to it - then M asked her what she was working on and T shared the college calendar spreadsheet thing
T’s body language could look disengaged even when talking with a partner
N made a point to engage H in a discussion with her and C - H said that people were marginalized and taken advantage of
Good call and response in the room during the four corners
During the first response - hard to hear T - said she disagreed because they were essentially voting for a national power system and that states should not have different processes
H said that she felt that if it [states voting laws] was different it wouldn’t feel unified
H “when forcing people to show a voter id that is restrictive to those that don’t have those types of id’s”
T and H moved to the same area for most of the time, H went to strongly disagree for the balance of power and T went to disagree
T was excited to have a car, H was black male and single
T directed M to sit down when the males sat down
T was moving a lot, eating Skittles,
Both wrote down their profiles
T didn’t write much, but definitely engaged with the moving and talking portions
Daisy’s focus student - N
Sapna
Felt T has a successful day and seemed more engaged than usual
H has an IEP and works really hard
D - Want to pull her into the conversations more
Seemed like this lesson engaged more students in ways that Socratic seminars haven’t in the past - heard from more students
What might the scaffolding look like for students to weigh in on some of the prompts?
Seen really tremendous progress over the past four days - did 4 corners each day
What might it look like to get at deeper conversations happening during the four corners activity (great that so many students shared - how to get at more levels of sharing)
Underlying goal is to get everyone comfortable thinking and speaking publicly
For the afternoon - maybe give them a little journaling/ think time before each four corners prompt
Garrison
Could do more pair shares to provide students with additional opportunities for students to process and hear each other’s ideas
More chewing/think time
More time we give them to discuss with peers, I think the better
What did the team learn about:
The content understanding
Student will know more about other court cases pertaining to race or voting rights
Student will be able to ponder/question if the movement for voting access has ended, is continuing, or has just begun. (Critical Thinking Goal)
The unit was focused on the judicial branch of the government.
A little frontloading occurred about some of the terms - judicial activism and judicial restraint in the unit.
Wonder about vocabulary development - there are a number of terms that need to be understood to engage in discussing and accessing this material. For example D didn’t seem to understand the definitions from her quiz responses. She may have missed class or been late during the front loading, or it may not have been an effective pedagogical strategy for her to learn
H's understanding of Shelby v. Holder was incomplete - knew it happened and that “people felt it needed to be revised”
“I believe it is like saying this isn’t affecting me so let’s do it, but …”
T seemed to have an emerging understanding of Judicial restraint and applied it to RBG’s dissent in Shelby v. Holder
Student thinking
They are hearing key terms and shoe-horning them into different contexts. Many of them seem to be taking terms and putting them into a format/sentence and hoping it sticks.
Seems like there is a lack of conceptual understanding/schema to hang the ideas on for these students.
Teaching & pedagogy
Lots of the students have gotten use to Garrison’s dialogic teaching style, however, these students struggled with this.
Strategies that could help in this scenario - students often struggle with abstract - especially a lot of verbal information.
Strategies that might help - things that help students not have to synthesize and absorb new details at the same time.
Chunking instruction into small pieces - periods of providing info and then creating space to process “chew” on it
Graphic organizers to help focus the learning
The space to write and pair share - but how to keep it quick and purposeful.
A focused prompt that gets at one particular understanding for the quick write
Or give them a prompt to look for something specific - helps them determine what to focus on and how to take notes
Scaffolding - who need the extra supporting methods to integrate new information to build their schema
The four corners was a good
Our research question
How can we create experiences that help our focus students unlock their academic potential and what additional supports are necessary for building their academic achievement?
Our theory of action
If we create opportunities for students to pose questions to explore content as a class and create clear, structured learning goals (clearly specified student learning goals along with accountability checkpoints), then our focus students will be able to develop the necessary skills needed to drive their independent learning, resulting in student preparedness for post secondary life.
What do individual team members want to implement in their own practice?
Dominique used four corners
Seeing how different structures affect student engagement in profound ways - the focus student was very engaged during the four corners and the voting portions, but not so much in the beginning video portion.
Reflection
The entire concept of lesson study was alien to me at the start of this project, and to be completely honest, I felt quite like a fish out of water until about halfway through the process. As an inclusion specialist, I’m less used to crafting a lesson from the ground up and far more adept at scaffolding and modifying existing lesson plans to individually suit each student.
However, our focus--lesson accessibility--was in my wheelhouse. Add to that, one of the focus students that we decided on was one of my advisees, and I was extremely interested in seeing how she interacted with her peers (as opposed to a mixed-grade class of advisory students).
The main focus, what we kept coming back to, was the “why” of lessons: in order to craft meaningful, accessible lessons, we needed to continually ask ourselves “why should THEY think it’s important to learn this?” One of the biggest hurdles that I’ve his when working with students is the question of practical application, or “when are we ever going to need this?”
This question, coupled with the main research question--How can we continue to purposefully engage students of color into historical lessons that have a predominantly white bias?--made the Supreme Court ruling of Shelby v Holder an easy choice for study, since it repealed section 4b of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, effectively giving state officials the right to move, control or close polling locations. The argument against the change is that it made it possible for state officials to make accessibility of polling locations more challenging for minorities.
This particular lesson would allow students to examine the ruling, but also find ways to apply its implications to their own lives, both in writing and via role-play exercise. The hope was that students would be more apt to utilize a multi-modal approach, as opposed to a traditional lecture series.
The day of, it was interesting to watch the pockets of students who were incredibly interested in the writing aspect (one of which was my focus student #2), as well as students that were seemingly only interested in the activity portions (focus student #1), but not at all interested in the writing/scholarly side.
What I learned most from this, is that I’ll need to be ready for anything...especially the main day of the lesson. I learned that there’s a LOT of research involved, specifically when crafting a lesson that needs to apply to every facet of learner, and how to “surf” the group feeling to figure out which students to volunteer for share outs.
Mostly, I learned to document, document, DOCUMENT! Writing notes and keepig running logs of responses was crucial to the debrief, and served as an invaluable tool for when I need to craft MY lesson! The graphic organizers, while daunting at first, ended up being invaluable to plotting and recalling information. I’m insanely excited to get started on my own lesson circuit, and have already sketched up a plan with a teacher!