Conference Agenda

Purpose

In this session, we introduce frame shifting, an approach developed in the context of a school-university partnership to help experienced educators address persistent teaching dilemmas. The frame shifting approach entails the re-interpretation of a dilemma using a different domain of teaching as a frame, allowing the teacher to explore new strategies for a solution using this new view. Frame shifting can also be applied by school leaders, teacher educators, and researchers.

When frame shifting, teachers consider their dilemma differently by relating it to three domains of teaching (Kennedy-Lewis, 2012):

1. Relationships: Sustained patterns of interaction among individuals in the class;

2. Classroom management: Rules, routines, and teacher behaviors that structure teaching and learning;

3. Curriculum and instruction: The content taught and activities used to support students’ learning.

For example, a teacher we worked with first framed students’ unruly behavior at the beginning of class within the domain of classroom management because she presumed the dilemma stemmed from having lenient rules. However, since the behavior persisted despite tightening her rules, frame shifting was a useful approach. We coached her to reframe the dilemma within the domain of relationships by exploring whether students were unruly because they did not feel connected to her, and within the domain of curriculum and instruction by exploring whether students did not understand or care about the class warm-up. After shifting the frame, she practiced building stronger relationships with students and making warm-up activities more relevant to students’ lives, strategies that improved the start of class in ways that adjusting rules alone did not.

While using this approach during the partnership, we recognized the need for educators to have three foundational habits of mind when frame shifting (Costa & Kallick, 2008):

1. Habit of Deliberate Interpretation: Separating observation from interpretation in order to view a situation more clearly.

2. Habit of Asset Identification: Combating deficit-thinking by identifying and focusing on students’ assets.

3. Habit of Personal Attribution: Engaging self-efficacy and personal responsibility for solving the teaching dilemma.

Session Format

We will begin with a 12-minute presentation introducing the domains of teaching, frame shifting, and habits of mind. Participants will then complete an interactive exercise to engage with these concepts.

Educational Importance

Frame shifting propels educators to solve persistent dilemmas by changing their views in ways that open up different possible solutions. How teachers think about and respond to dilemmas cannot be divorced from considering how race, culture, and other social groupings affect teaching and learning (Ladson-Billings, 2017; Milner, 2013). We examine these issues as we discuss teaching dilemmas as powerful opportunities for implementing approaches that can lead to social change. Developing the habits of mind and the skill of frame shifting empowers educators to tackle dilemmas throughout their careers, which could improve student learning and job satisfaction.

Connection to Theme

This session illustrates how university researchers can leverage research to improve educators’ practices. We will model specific content we have used in professional learning with practicing teachers. 

Objectives or purposes of the session

During this innovate session participants will explore their own and others’ lived experiences of staffrooms in education settings. Staffroom users can create habits, cliques, and community. Staffrooms can feel physically or emotionally inclusive or excluding. The session will reveal the hidden curriculum of staffrooms and provide an opportunity for reflection, dialogue and re-imagining.

Educational importance for theory, policy, research, and/or practice

Staffrooms may have overlooked potential as sources of teacher wellbeing and learning, professional solidarity and a sustainable workforce. However, the research evidence indicates that there is a loss of staffroom space and reduction in use in many education settings, due to reallocation of existing space to other purposes, the designing out of staffrooms in new buildings and the reduction of document-based communication. In terms of professional learning environment staffrooms can recreate cultures of micro-management or can encourage more exploratory thinking.

The format and approach(es) that will be used in the session to engage participants in the exploration of the area of practice

This will be an interactive session of provocations interspersed with staffroom ‘chatter’. We will reflect on how staffrooms can be places of professional formation, solace and collaboration. Participants will be invited into a part-planned and part-responsive session. There will be opportunities to consider the potential of staffrooms, to reflect on research evidence and connect with each other as social learners.

There will also be an exhibition of photographs which have been used to elicit reflections on staffrooms from over 70 educators working in a range of roles, across different international settings and diverse education phases.

Participants will be invited to add their own image-elicited reflections.

Connection to the conference theme

Quality professional learning can happen by design and can also occur in the interstices of school communities. Much of what is now planned for and programmed in terms of induction, coaching, collaboration and knowledge mobilization does (or used to) exist in staffrooms. However, staffrooms are not always inclusive spaces, and can be overlooked in terms of their possible positive value or constraining influences on professional learning. Viewing staffrooms as creating a hidden curriculum of professional learning offers new ways to explore the realities of the drive to build momentum and sustain quality in educational improvement.

Objectives or purposes of the session

This session explores how we at the Center for Technology and School (CTSC), based in Teachers College, Columbia University, partner with educators through an asset-based, and interactive approach to professional development (PD) in order to build inclusive, authentic inquiry-driven, project based learning (PBL) experiences, units, and curricula for diverse student populations.

During the first 30 minutes, we will share our approach to PD, informed by decades of research at CTSC, and brought to thousands of teachers around the world. We will explain how and why PBL provides critical opportunities for minoritized students to address real-world problems, and in doing so, build their agency as global change makers. We will emphasize that while most PD tends to only passively involve teachers and provide general tools, our sessions are interactive and contextualized, and draw upon teachers’ assets. We will explain how and why educators must experience inquiry and collaboration in order for their designs to authentically support student inquiry. In the second 30-minute session, we will walk attendees through a condensed version of our PD, in which they will begin to design a project-based learning experience. In the last 30-minute session, we will guide participants through a reflective discussion to explore how our PD process and PBL design approach connects to their own professional goals.

Educational importance for theory, policy, research, and/or practice

Our theory of action offers practitioners and leaders a process for developing more just and equitable education for all students. In order for educators to create learning opportunities that are responsive to students’ background and contexts, elevate student voice and assets, and highlight student agency -- PD with educators must reflect those qualities as well. This approach is critical during a time when multiple global crises call for all young learners to collaboratively innovate and problem-solve across social, racial, gendered, and economic lines toward a more just and equitable world. Without educators who have themselves experienced real-world inquiry and collaboration, students are not as likely to be equipped to answer that call.

Format and approach

We will be offering interactive sessions that can be accessed virtually and in-person. We encourage the use of technology, and that participants bring devices, though this is not required for participation.

Connection to the conference theme (and sub theme)

We believe that all students, particularly those from communities challenged by racialized divestment, need meaningful inquiry opportunities in order to become self-directed learners and grow as leaders for global change. Effective teacher learning includes a focus on inclusive and culturally responsive practices that address the diverse needs of their students, including those from different cultural backgrounds, with disabilities, or with varied learning styles. The learning sciences and adult learning theory support active learning, teacher choice, social connectedness, constructive feedback, contextualized learning, and opportunities to reflect. When teachers are able to engage in collaborative, asset-based inquiry, their students are more likely to experience a sense of empowerment, develop critical thinking skills, and actively participate in their own learning process.