Facilitating Communities of Practice

Our area of educational focus is examining the academic success and supports for our two advanced science courses with particular attention to the success of our African American students. Based on our school databases (Tableau is the platform we use) only about half of our students are passing these two courses with an A or B. And less than 10% of our students are passing the exam each year.

The school’s WASC has identified three “Learner Needs” or goals. Each learner need has a list of data used to help identify this need. Two of the three needs from the WASC report are related to how are students perform in our advanced science courses;

• Identified Critical Learner Need #2: Continue to strengthen AP Passage rates and CAASPP math proficiency as part of the school’s College and Career Readiness Indicators

• Identified Critical Learner Need #3: Continue to improve school climate and provide students with a safe, inclusive, positive learning environment that exudes a culture of high expectations and a culture of respect.

In the first need/goal we see that we need to better support our students in the Advanced Placement class or change the course to something of higher interest. In the second need/goal we see recognize that not all our students feel included the school community and need to asses our own classrooms for inclusivity and relevance in order to better support all students academically. The school’s mission “To reimagine public education in low-income communities of color to prepare conscious, critical thinker who are equipped to graduate from college and create a more equitable and sustainable world” challenges our department to not only get our kids into college but make sure they have the academic and social-emotional skills to thrive in college. This means that our science courses should not only be rigorous but also a place where students feel like they belong, so they don’t have imposter syndrome in the future.

Based on our causal system diagram, the team decided that surveying students and parents to gather input for course offerings and opinions on science course structure would be the best evidence based strategy. We want to increase student achievement in our advanced science courses and we know one way of increasing engagement is to offer courses that students have interest in and hopefully create buy in. The data showed that over half of our African American students and also another four racial and ethnic groups were getting a C or not passing these courses.

Knowing what the student’s interest in science courses is, will help us better design course offerings and electives that reflect what the students want to learn. We also collected data on student’s interest in Advanced Placement courses or honors courses versus courses that do not enhance their grade point average, like Marine Biology. We recognize that sometimes students’ interests are tied to their aspirations of getting into college or getting into a science related field.

The first step we took was to look at science achievement and enrollment data. We looked at how our different groups of students were achieving (letter grades per semester) in our advanced science courses, which are physics and advanced placement environmental science. We also reviewed two student interviews and two counselor interviews regarding enrollment and achievement in these two courses. To understand the greater context and implications of this data, we read three articles that talked about equity issues in advanced science courses and AP courses in general. The articles were; (1) Supporting Latino and African-American Students in Advanced Placement Courses: A School Counseling Program's Approach by Ohrt, Jonathan, Lambie, Glenn and Ieva, Kara. (2009). (2) The Role of Advanced High School Coursework in Increasing STEM Career Interest by Sadler, P., Sonnert, G., Hazari, Z., and Tai, R. (2014). (3) A Critical Race Analysis of Latina/o and African American Advanced Placement Enrollment in Public High Schools by Solorzano, D., and Ornelas, A. (2004).

After looking at all of the data and reading the articles, we generated questions (using Jamboard) related to equity issues we saw in achievement data, the interviews, and enrollment data. We then took all of these questions and grouped them into common themes. We then chose one theme as our central focus for a problem of practice that we wanted to address. The theme was “course offerings and structure.” From this theme and the questions surrounding it, we created a problem statement/problem of practice and then using the “Plan Do Study Act” from the Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools can Get Better at Getting Better framework we generated a fish diagram that helps explain the causal factors of this problem of practice. The problem statement is “Science course offerings do not reflect student interest and aspirations.” The department/school practice reflected in this problem statement hopes to improve the science course offerings at our school to improve both learning and well being of our students by taking into account their interest and post secondary school plans.

Problem Statement and Related Data: The problem statement is “Science course offerings do not reflect student interest and aspirations.” This problem of practice is related to student’s wellbeing and academic achievement. Research shows that students do better in courses they are interested in because they are more engaged with the content. In addition, giving students choices may help them have more ownership over their learning. The data that helped us arrive at this school problem of practice are the student interviews, the counselor interviews, the enrollment data, and the achievement in our Advanced Placement Environmental Science (APES) Course and our Physics course. From the students' interviews the team noticed how both of the seniors interviewed said they did not want to take any of the advanced courses offered by our school but only did because they had no other choice or in order to increase their GPA. They both said they did not find the courses relevant and both made suggestions of other courses they would rather take. From the counselor interviews, the team noticed that the counselors did feel that their job was to suggest courses that students would get the highest grade point average in, rather than look at student interests. They mentioned discouraging students form taking our APES course if they thought another advanced placement course would be easier for students to get a higher grade. Some of it had to do with the reputation of the class based on the counselor’s interviews. The team also took note that the counselors felt bad about the 20-30 students that do not take an advanced science course before graduating because of their math achievement (meaning they are taking remedial math courses instead) or because they are English Language Learners and have to take the mandatory support class.

Our quantitative data showed that over the past four years less than half our students across all demographics are receiving an A or B in both APES and Physics. We also noticed that less than 10% have ever passed the APES exam (with the exception of last year when they used a modified test due to pandemic). We also noticed lower grade point averages in science courses for our African American students although enrollment showed no difference. Only one English Language Learner has enrolled in our APES course over the past 8 years and that course has dropped from two sections (60 students) to one section (30 students) between the class of 2017 and the class of 2018.

Rationale and process: After looking at the data and generating questions and themes (as described in Question 1 above) we then looked at examples of problem statements from Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools can Get Better at Getting Better and each group member generated their own 1-2 problem statements. We broke up into two groups to discuss them, combine similar ones, and revise them. We then generated a poll on Google Forms and everyone got to choose their top two from the six we ended up with after revisions. After all seven team members voted, we ended up with the top two problems of school practice and we then took another vote to decide on taking on one as a team.

To facilitate this decision, we collectively constructed our causal factor diagram, each team member responding to the various strands with their opinion of what factors we needed to collect more data on and which factors were perhaps beyond our control in this moment. Each team member went into breakout rooms to discuss data collection ideas, using our research norms developed in January. The pair in each breakout room shared their idea and got feedback. Breakout rooms also allowed teachers to pair up if they wanted to in order collect data.

The rationale for selecting student and parent interest surveys (that are a mix of qualitative and quantitative surveys to collect more information on student interests and aspirations) is because if we want to change our course offerings and perhaps the order of when the courses are offered we wanted more input from students and families. We are hoping that any changes to course offerings allow students to have a sense of ownership and buy in since they are the greatest stakeholders. We needed to know if students are more interested in courses for their content or for the grade point average enhancement. We also wanted to know if the courses we currently offered were of high interest already.

To learn more about the strategy we all read over an article on Qualitative Research Methods Overview. We also looked at two examples (from my graduate classes) of moving from causal factors to strategy and data analysis to see how the strategy would generate more data and help us focus our future work.

We agreed that we all have different access to different students and parents therefore we could use our own strengths and opportunities for collecting qualitative and quantitative data. Because our strategy is not an instructional intervention we had more variation in how we implemented it. We agreed that because we all teacher different grade levels, we would have to modify the questions across each group since they have had varying experience with different courses. For examples, all of our seniors are currently taking Physics so they can give us feedback on that course but our ninth graders could only give us feedback on their interest in that course based on what information they gathered from other students, media, or their 8^th grade physical science experience. However to keep our implementation consistent and not redundant we all made shared each other forms to keep track of what each person asked and how. We also edited each other's survey multiple times (throughout the week, not during meetings) to keep language consistent.

We hope to have evidence that backs any changes or lack of in course offerings (with a focus in our advanced science courses) we make for our department for the coming school year. Currently, the science courses were inherited from over ten years ago without any real updated rationale for their order or offering. We know from the authors of Interest Matters: The Importance of Promoting Interest in Education, “interest is a powerful motivational process that energizes learning, guides academic and career trajectories, and is essential to academic success” (Harackiewicz, et.al, 2016). Our next step would be to see what courses most of our juniors are interested in taking for next year and try to create a course proposal to get the course added to the schedule.

Early enrollment results will let us know if the classes we changed are of higher interest to students. For example, each year we only have about 25 students who enroll in Advanced Placement Environmental Science, if we have higher interests in another course we will know by enrollment numbers. Down the line we will be able to see assessment data and see if we see an increase in students attaining an A or B in these courses. Currently only about 50% of our students get an A or B in our two advanced science courses thus any increase above 50% will let us know if any changes were successful. It will also be important to collect specific course feedback in each class to see how the courses can be improved during implementation

I think my areas of strength are; (1) Centering issues of equity, (2) Having practices that lead to co-facilitation, (3) Using research articles to support our work, and (4) Maintaining professionalism but also building relational trust. School leaders should be transformative and transparent about better understanding and centering “issues of equity, diversity, social justice and oppression” (Kose, 2010, p.2). In addition, since schools have been part of reproducing systems of oppression, it is the responsibility of a transformative leader to counter this oppression (Khalifa, Gooden, & Davis, 2016, p. 1275). In a transformative school, teachers would engage in inquiry informed by the data they are analyzing in their Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). As Darling-Hammond contends “research shows that when schools are strategic and persistent in creating productive working relationships within academic departments, across them or among teachers school wide, the benefits can include greater consistency in instruction, more willingness to share practices and try new ways of teaching, and more success in solving problems of practice” (2014, p. 12).

My areas of growth are first, knowing when to move a meeting along if we need to get some thing done. You can see from my agendas that sometimes we had too many things to cover and because everyone has equity a voice we sometimes wouldn’t get to everything. I feel I need to strike a healthier balance around equity of voice and moving the research forward. I have gotten peer feedback regarding when I should make a decision rather than let it be consensus based. Another area where I struggled was in quantitative data analysis. I need to learn how to use statistical devices better on spreadsheets so that I don’t have to count data points individually in our school databases. This would have allowed me to share a lot more quantitative data with the team.]

From this cycle I have learned that doing qualitative and quantitative research, developing a problem statement, and acting on it is a way to start chipping away at equity issues in our schools. My goal is to get better at being more efficient in moving meetings along while maintaining equity of voice. In addition getting more practice with quantitative and qualitative data analysis tools can help provide my staff information faster and with better analysis. For meeting efficiency, I want to meet with our organizations curriculum specialist who is very efficient at running meetings with instructional coaches. I hope to seek her out as a mentor since she is very intentional about these facilitation skills and had an equity lens as well. For better data analysis, I need to become more familiar with all of our organizations databases, this means attending our school’s “data dive Tuesdays” with the person who maintains our data systems. I can also meet more frequently with him to keep learning about statistical analysis. I also want to establish this as a routine, meaning establishing cycles of inquiry in our science department so that we might have something that can be reproduced in other departments. We have started to talk about presenting our work to the whole staff so that they can also do more cycles of inquiry and look for equity gaps in their departments. We also have a goal of presenting this at a conference for science teachers.

Another area of growth is learning from other schools. I would like to establish more relationships with other principles and science school leaders to know how they are addressing issues of equity in their science programs, especially in regards to advanced science courses. I hope to seek out examples from other schools as a final part of this project before we start implementing structural changes to our science program.

1B: Developing a Shared Vision and Community Commitment

- Engaged research team in creating research norms together using equity focused research articles.

-Met with multiple stakeholders to explain the work we were doing in our research team, to get their insights and in some cases help with data collection.

- Team created a collective problem statement and causal analysis related to the school’s goals.

1C: Implementing the Vision

-Research team looked at 3 sources of quantitative data, including LCAP data, gradebook data, and students and counselor interviews.

-Research team selected goal related to accessibility of advanced science courses for all students and recommended structural changes.

-Research team analyzed enrollment and grade data for all science courses over the past 6 years and will continue monitoring.

2A: Personal and Professional Learning

-Research teamd use their strengths to help facilitate meetings.

-Research team reflected on process of progress of the work in every meeting.

-Research team used research articles to better understand their work and to develop next steps.

2B: Promoting Effective Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

-Used various types of achievement indicators to support the research team in identifying equity gaps. Focused on advanced science courses for all students establishes and maintains high expectations for all students.

-Research team explored culturally sustaining pedagogy in science courses to address the diverse educational needs of all students.

2C: Supporting Teachers to Improve Practice

-Used the “plan, develop, study , and act” (PDSA) cycle approach is a strategy to support staff members in improving their practice and guide professional learning.

-Used research that grew out of identifying equity gaps in our science program (using data) which focused on reaching the shared vision of equitable access to learning opportunities and resources and positive outcomes for all students.

2D: Feedback on Instruction

-Used new measures (developed with anti-Blackness principles) to provide each other feedback on how to best support student learning and wellbeing in reflective work on instructional practice

3A: Operation and Resource Management

-Used the Zoom platform and Google Suite to create agendas, facilitate meetings, and create shared documents with everyone’s feedback.

-Established student and staff confidentiality in every meeting as part of our meeting norms.

3D: Managing the School Budget and Personnel

-Research team considered budgetary and operational restraints on proposals for structural changes in our science programs with efforts to prioritize expenditures that support the school’s vision, goals, and improvement plans.

5A: Reflective Practice

-Read various articles related to the work we would engage in before starting the research team project, I made sure to

-Completed a PDSA cycle with cohort members before engaging my school team in the practice which prepared me to identify areas of improvement prior to research work.

-Maintained high standard of professionalism throughout process by having detailed agendas, transparency, establishing next steps collectively, and meeting with members of the team individually to get suggestions and address any concerns.

5B: Ethical Decision-Making

-Included community building in every meeting helped us establish trust which allowed the team to speak openly about implicit bias, anti Blackness in our program, and elements of white supremacy in our field and instruction, this helped us recognize any possible institutional barriers .

-Made sure to be careful on how to analyze data, and not only look at institutional quantitative data, but also talk to students to better understand their experience.

-Included student as part of our research team throughout the whole process.

5C: Ethical Action

- Meeting norms (revisited in every meeting) helped establish an atmosphere of respect, dignity, and fairness, as well as establish confidentiality.

-Transparent facilitation at every meeting helped communicate rationale for actions and helped include everyone in the process which helped with equity.

Supporting Documents