1.2 Member Identity and Success Criteria

1.2 Member Identity and Success Criteria

“Communities are always “for” someone - a group of previously disconnected people who share one or several commonalities: a shared identity.”

-- the Community Canvas Framework

There are two aspects of member identity: how members are perceived, described (and accordingly, treated) by the community, and how community members perceive their own identity as members. Members of our HPL community have an “experiential” commonality - they are going through the shared experience of How People Learn, and progressing to the process of obtaining an HGSE M.Ed. We can infer to some extent that HPL members have a shared affinity - they believe in the importance of education and inquiry.

We can look to HPL's core values for more clues about member identity. HPL’s Professional Identity value, it is stated that “this course will build upon your prior experiences, knowledge, and beliefs to help you develop a self-understanding and identity as a professional who is responsible for supporting others’ learning.” In the “Agency” goal, it is declared that “Learning is never one-size-fits-all and by necessity relies on a deep understanding of each student.” In “Demonstrating Mastery”, it is said, “It is our hope that your HPL learning experience reflects this belief by providing varied pathways, experiences, and means of access aligned with your unique needs and interests.”

We can see that in HPL, we see members as valued community contributors who are as capable of structuring their learning as much as instructors are. They are expected to take ownership of learning, and the course has been designed to accommodate that freedom. They are also necessary supporters of others' learning. For an educational community, members are held in significant esteem and given significant freedom. For some, this may be an unfamiliar set of privileges and responsibilities. It is also essential that the structure's members engage with are designed to make good on this promise genuinely. To that extent, opportunities for students to take ownership of course content are central to the HPL concept.

Diversity

Cultivating true diversity begins with designing selection processes for diversity. However, it ends with making sure that diverse groups of people feel genuinely comfortable and welcome. “Even formats and rituals that speak to the strengths of all types of members - ideally, diversity is an integral part of all aspects of the organization.”

- the Community Canvas Framework

HPL makes a concerted effort to take up equity both as a cause - something to consider academically - and a way of life, something to be practiced within the community. HPL makes an apparent effort to consider representation by introducing problems of practice and educators in which students can see their own realities reflected.

Although 86% of students in the HPL 2020 iteration thought the course was an equitable experience for all learners, a notable minority strongly disagreed with this statement. One area in which the course needs to be designed better for diversity is creating sound support systems for students from diverse backgrounds. Some incoming students may not be familiar with the types of academic assignments used throughout HPL. Some international students had this to say:

"[A] very simple thing HPL makes us do is annotate. I know many people from my part of the world who did not understand what that means. I had never annotated before, I did not know what annotation means. So the first assignment I submitted was a grand confusion - what are we exactly supposed to do?"

“[An important issue is] how to take into consideration of technology issues and cultural shock (e.g., for international students) during synchronous sessions - since for most of us, these sessions are the first point of synchronous contact we have with HGSE; some of my friends were experiencing these two issues. ”

This anxiety can compound with people making their first academic contributions to Harvard to leave them feeling lost or intimidated. They may be afraid to create or be seen as offering up shoddy work. Students may also not “reach out“ to TFs and other support systems for fear of being seen as needy or out of touch. Support systems that destigmatize asking questions are essential from the very beginning. For instance, there is a place for an event that introduces international students or students in general to the types of assignments in HPL. The Ask Me Anything events being pioneered this year will undoubtedly do a terrific job offering this type of support.

Although 92% of students saw themselves reflected in the course, a minority also strongly disagreed with this statement. It is important to question why this might be. Representation is important, but it can also sometimes be perceived cynically. “Token” representation can be interpreted as the inclusion of diverse content to fill a quota or in order to avoid having to have a more substantive discussion about inequality. Higher educational systems such as Harvard have rejected large numbers of minority students in the past. In the course content and communications, and particularly in the discussions, it is critical that HPL firmly center the study and mission of ceasing educational inequality. It is particularly important that learners are able to reflect on where they come from and share out their own personal experiences in a meaningful way.

Super Members

The most successful and active members in the community tend to be very proactive. They act as high-interaction nodes in the community. They make sure to take advantage of the opportunities and find ways to involve other members and their gifts. Their enthusiasm and commitment to the community pervade every part of it. We might say that 10% of our community does 90% (or at least a majority) of the work, making it feel like a welcoming home for all members. Although all our members are valuable, these members contribute and unlock the most significant social capital.

A great example of this in the Harvard Community would be somebody like Nishant Singh, who migrated the HGSE Class of ‘21 from Facebook to Slack. Although he was just a student, he was committed to the HGSE community being a positive and connected experience for its members. He organized the transition to Slack and the onboarding process, and made a group of fellow students into an administration team. When he found out that HGSE was going online for ‘20-’21, he even wrote to Slack four times in one year to get the community a “Premium” plan. The result was that HGSE Class of ‘21 had a centralized hub to share news and info, bond and socialize, and connect for the entire year.

Other prominent members of the HGSE community have started affinity groups, clubs, or organizations. They have hosted event series or interviewed classmates and faculty for their blogs. These members are exemplary in their work and motivation to make the most of their HGSE experience. These members’ engagement is essential, and we should take care to avoid their disengagement. We can do so by recognizing and drawing attention to members’ contributions and giving them new, more extensive responsibilities for engaging with the community.

Success Criteria

Although communities with internal purposes often have soft success criteria, having a clear and unified goal is critical. Students in the HPL are ideally inspired, motivated, and enabled to connect across differences and make valuable relationships for academic, professional, and social purposes. In an ideal membership, individuals trust the community as a place to learn, grow, and change while simultaneously reflecting and reporting back to the group about that process and enabling others to do the same. The student's experience in the community, including their “sense of belonging,” is the primary metric in gauging the community's health - therefore, its success is measured by how positive the student's experience.

Members also need to feel that they are co-contributors to the community. In a co-ownership process, members transition from navigating their entry to the community to shifting their attention to supporting others. Because community is about shared values and goals, this could take the form of contributing to a sub-group, shared project, or discussion prompt.

Members can also share about themselves, their experience, and their gifts. We will talk more about this in section 2. However, we must note here that members' stories are a treasured form of content for creating their personal and professional identities. By creating more opportunities for members to share their stories and learn from others', we increase the sense of meaningfulness in a sense coined by psychologist Roy Baumeister and referenced earlier -"understanding our own lives by reflecting on what came before and what the future will hold." Therefore stories are a critical axis of meaningfulness in the course. Students naturally crave to talk about what they do and learn about what others do. Furthermore, stories tell the history of the community and members’ experiences in it. It charts a valuable progression of learning and thinking about the community.

Citations:

Community Canvas, The. (2020). The Community Canvas Framework. Retrieved from https://community-canvas.org/