Craft Category: Artifacts

Cedar Rapids: Defining a Commitment to Equity and Resiliency

Cedar Rapids Community School District used its existing district vision for teaching and learning as an important anchor for its process to design near-term change. This helped the district advance progress on its current plans toward a goal that already enjoyed broad buy-in among families and staff. The vision features equity at the center: it is one of the stated core beliefs. Other core beliefs (like student ownership and student learning) emphasize the importance of student empowerment and focus on ALL students’ needs. The vision also paints a picture of what resiliency looks like in practice; the core belief around innovation challenges the district to be creative, to continuously evolve to stay relevant in context of the broader world, and to adapt to different students’ needs and interests.

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February 3, 2021

equityXdesign Spectrum of Design Power Dynamics

The equityXdesign Collaborative has defined a spectrum of design power dynamics to help people starting on a design process to determine how they can best make their process inclusive and equitable. The spectrum shows three different approaches to inclusive design – user-centered, co-designed, or user-created design – each with a deeper type of engagement of those who will eventually benefit from the design process’ results (e.g., students, families, teachers, classified staff).

Credit to Michelle Molitor, Caroline Hill, & Christine Ortiz; check out their organizations, 228 Accelerator, The Equity Lab, and Equity Meets Design, as well as their writing, Racism and inequity are products of design. They can be redesigned.

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February 3, 2021

Phoenix Charter Academy: Engaging School Leaders in Design

Phoenix Charter Academy Network began a design process to improve teaching and learning with a team of network leaders. As leaders reflected on their vision and pressing challenges, it became clear that there was a major need to focus on consistency in teaching, staff coaching, and professional learning. Understanding that staff development requires significant ownership from school leaders, the design team included school leadership in the design process. This approach ensured that those in charge of implementing a new approach to teacher development (i.e., school leaders) had a say in designing solutions; it also enabled school leaders to directly suggest and plan for design adaptations that reflect the unique needs of their schools and students.

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February 3, 2021

Monterey Peninsula: Co-Designing Change with Teachers and Students

Monterey Peninsula Unified School District (MPUSD) began a design process to improve teaching and learning with a team consisting of the superintendent and a diverse group of cabinet members, all strongly committed to the district’s goal to “listen to and engage with all stakeholders (family, community, staff) in order to better understand and respond to the needs of [the] community.” Initially, the team planned to regularly engage a broader set of people (students, teachers, families) to provide input. However, the team eventually decided to deepen their approach, and they invited teachers and students to more directly participate in the work – eventually hosting a teacher- and student-centered design session. This approach demonstrated the team’s deep commitment to prioritizing the voices of teachers and students; it also showed the team’s willingness to adapt its process over time as it learned more about what this work would take.

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February 3, 2021

Mastery Charter Schools: Including a Diverse Array of Voices

Mastery Charter Schools began a design process to improve teaching and learning with a team of academic executives. Important among the charter network’s mission and values is the weight they place on equity: “We disrupt systemic racism and the inequities that limit our students’ choices. We nurture a culture where all staff, students, and families are seen and valued.” As a team, they reflected on whether their composition would honor that commitment. When the group self-identified limitations to their perspectives and experiences, they took steps to include the voices of staff with vantage into the lives of students – especially those most marginalized. This approach ensured that the teachers and students closest to challenges in the district had a say in designing solutions. It also helped the team develop a design that could actually be used day-to-day, as teachers and students could provide an “on-the-ground” perspective to inform the work.

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February 3, 2021

Cedar Rapids: Engaging Students and Teachers in Design

When Cedar Rapids Community School District (CRCSD) began a design process to improve teaching and learning, they started with a set of leaders from their Teaching and Learning team; all were strongly committed to the district’s vision for equity – to “develop a system that assures all students have equity of voices, resources, opportunities, and expectations.” As team members reflected on their own identities, they realized they would need to include other voices at the table, especially given the incomplete set of perspectives represented by their predominantly white, male group of district-level administrators. This led the group to engage a much larger, more diverse set of students and teachers in the design process. This approach broadened the set of voices that helped shape important district efforts. It also helped the team more quickly understand the day-to-day realities of their current approach to teaching and learning, as the students and teachers that the team engaged live that reality every day.

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February 3, 2021
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