I started watching yesterday asynchronous sessions from the 2021 Lily Conference online. The second session I watched was by Stephanie Garrone-Shufran from Merrimack College and entitled “Using Reflection to Promote Social Justice in Coursework and Beyond.” Garrone-Shufran started by describing the importance of training teaching to better support English learners (ELs). Garrone-Shufran course is “focused on advocacy for ELs” and learners in the course are preservice teachers, most with little experience with diverse populations. Garrone-Shufran wanted to design reflection assignments and used Kolb’s “Cycle of Experiential Learning with four stages: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. Garrone-Shufran design course assignments using the Cycle of Experiential Learning and had a very thoughtful design. The steps Garrone-Shufran used for this assignment were:
- Learning by encounter to identify and describe an experience preservice teachers have seen affecting ELs’ access to education.
- Learning by reflecting on the issue and considering multiple perspectives.
- Learning by thinking, connecting the issue to systemic issues and proposing solutions.
- Learning by doing, selecting a problem, explaining the issue, creating a short literature review on the topic, describing a proposed product, and describing short and long-term goals.
Garrone-Shufran did a small study that included two years and nine(consenting) ESL teachers. All participants were white females. Participants in the study responded to a Google Form survey consisting of three open-ended questions about the focus of the course on advocacy of EL students. Respondents mentioned the advocacy project and the problems of practice. Students seemed to appreciate the reflective assignment and its connection to a real-world problem and propose solutions. When asked what was missing, some respondents wanted more experience in about these situations and more contextual information. Garrone-Shufran mentioned that “the course needs more discussion of how systemic factors are responsible for the lack of equitable access to education for marginalized populations.” Nevertheless, Garrone-Shufran thinks that reflective assignments in this context and “grounded in students’ real experiences” has potential. Garrone-Shufran ended by saying that “[…] I am committed to reflection that is action oriented and social and political.” I found this short (fifteen minute) session quite intriguing. I typically have students reflect on the experience in the course but never directly ask learners to reflect on events beyond the course and grounded in their lived experience and advocacy. This approach may be very useful for first and second year students in the BIT 295 course I am designing. I’ll have to keep it in mind.
