Our Lesson
This lesson study cycle was far from perfect. I personally left the lesson and debrief feeling like it had flopped. The room I facilitated (and where the rest of the team gathered data) was slow to pick up the conversation and full of long pauses. Students were respectful and thoughtful, but the conversational part of this lesson—building off of each other's ideas and jointly constructing understanding--never fully came to life.
But that's not to say there weren't seeds of conversation to be nurtured! There were! Students were committed to a respectful space. They were thinking critically about US history, the role of government, and racism. They were asking incredible questions. The disconnect wasn't so much with the content as it was with the format—with taking all of those thoughts and working together to understand them more deeply. In light of this, I'll leave you with two things to look for as you begin to parse through the research, goals, plans, and data points of our lesson:
But that's not to say there weren't seeds of conversation to be nurtured! There were! Students were committed to a respectful space. They were thinking critically about US history, the role of government, and racism. They were asking incredible questions. The disconnect wasn't so much with the content as it was with the format—with taking all of those thoughts and working together to understand them more deeply. In light of this, I'll leave you with two things to look for as you begin to parse through the research, goals, plans, and data points of our lesson:
- Where was the groundwork laid for a productive conversation? What was missing?
- Where can we see conversational "seeds" that can be nurtured going forward?
Our Goals
As we planned this seminar, the following goals served as our team's "North Stars"
Equity Goal:
Content Goals:
Socratic Seminar Goal:
Our StudentsFocus Student 1
Questions for FS1:
Focus Student 2
Questions for FS2:
Focus Student 3
Questions for FS3:
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Our ResearchThis lesson was also informed by our team's research on the following
Research Question:
Theory of Action:
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Our Lesson Plan
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The Conversation
Though we don't have a recording of these students' conversation, two of my teammates tracked the entire thing! As a part of our data collection, they also look for attributions of blame to individuals and/or systems. As you will see, there is some variation between the two documents because of the speed of folks' fingers when typing.
Micah's "Attribution of Blame" Tracker
Connor's "Attribution of Blame" Tracker
Student Thinking
We asked students the following question before and after the seminar. Read some of their answers below!
13th starts off with a statistic: the US contains 5% of the world’s total population, but 25% of the world’s prison population. Who/what do you think is to blame?
13th starts off with a statistic: the US contains 5% of the world’s total population, but 25% of the world’s prison population. Who/what do you think is to blame?
BeforeFocus Student 1: "A bigger population maybe" Focus Student 2: "i think the jail has a big part of this because people dont want to go to jail and when people get out some want to get some type of revange" Focus Student 3: |
AfterFocus Student 1: "Our government officials because they have no done anything to change this or step up and I don’t feel like this is just as a whole society" Focus Student 2: Focus Student 3: "I don’t think there’s just one person to blame." |
*If a student was absent or didn't respond to a question, that space has been left blank.
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Before the seminar, students recorded thoughts, ideas, and quotes they wanted to bring up and have handy.
During the seminar, they recorded thoughts, ideas, and questions from their peers.
During the seminar, they recorded thoughts, ideas, and questions from their peers.
BeforeFocus Student 1: "how will the 9th graders open up and ask any questions to us about this documentary?" "I’m excited to speak what’s on my mind and am looking forward to hearing from my peers and reflecting on myself" Focus Student 2: "People that had been to jail lose the right to vote" "Jail is like a business" Focus Student 3: What is “freedom” anyway? Does everyone deserve freedom? "Yes everyone deserves freedom. But I do think our safety is more important" What links and connects EVERYONE? How do we keep from being divided? "Culture, family, the past, the present. These are all variables that create an impact in what will be the future of our society, our communities. Greed is a bid downfall for humans as is racism. Seems that we all need to be educated and have empathy, sympathy for those around us. It always starts with “me”, “you” us as individuals, “us” as in community and humans. If we start to educate our own children then it will create a ripple effect that will take time, but will create change. Hopefully good change, or we will continue going in circles." |
DuringFocus Student 1: "I like how we are all contributing and speaking what’s on our mind so far I’m glad I have contributed by saying something" "[Another student] has brought up good points and I agree with them about it because I feel like they know what they are talking about regarding the seminar" Focus Student 2: Focus Student 3: "I agreed with everything that [another student] said about reconstructing the justice system and I never really thought about that but I totally agree and see how deconstructing and reconstructing could help us create more of a foundation of love and nonviolent community." *If a student was absent or didn't respond to a question, that space has been left blank.
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Final Thoughts
As this lesson came to a close, I wasn’t sure what to feel. On the one hand, the product of our trimester of research and planning—this lesson—had finally been put into the world! On the other hand, I felt as though it had been a bit of a flop. It wasn’t that students weren’t learning or had missed the point of the lesson or were yelling half-lies and mostly-made-up facts at each other; instead, they were quiet, respectful, and as far as I could tell, didn’t disagree with each other even once.
Talking through this with the rest of the team and our equity commentators afterwards, some questions began to emerge:
In the future, I’m excited to integrate screen sharing into discussions and classwork even more. In my particular class, students are extremely hesitant to turn on cameras, even when speaking and regularly engaging. While I have spent a lot of this year thinking about ways to convince them to turn on their cameras (or check that they’re still by their computers) this lesson was the first time I thought about utilizing the screen as a place to provide literacy supports while students were having a discussion. By screen sharing a copy of the prep sheet with sentence starters and co-created discussion questions, for example, I could have provided supports for Emerging Multilingual students while also more fully integrating the prep sheet into the conversation for all students. In addition, this screen sharing might serve as a cover for students who struggle with camera shyness and promote new voices in this online setting, as well as offer a potential place for students to show more engagement (possibly through real-time note-taking).
I’m also excited to begin working with this group of students on “productive disagreement.” This may at times look like me stepping in as the “devil’s advocate,” but it also will likely include looking at examples of productive disagreement and creating a standard we can agree to as a class—”We don’t move on from a discussion until _____," for example.
And finally, I’m excited to lean into my teaching presence. In this lesson, I forgot to check in with my students as human beings before diving into the content. Upon reflection, I’ve realized that I often try to speed things up for “high stakes” lessons, and cram more in. The result? I still slow down and end up running short on time. Instead, I’m looking forward to intentionally leaning into my more relaxed pace, particularly as I start classes. By opening with a pace that feels natural for me and carving out time to say hello to students, I can comfortably allow them to get ready for class and understand that I’m here to listen to them and take them seriously. I can show them that I’m grateful for their presence, their thoughts, and their voices. And that is something I’ll keep striving to do in every class I teach.
Talking through this with the rest of the team and our equity commentators afterwards, some questions began to emerge:
- How can we promote discussion and building understanding together?
- How can we bring new voices in, especially on Zoom?
- How might students demonstrate engagement with cameras on (facial expressions, etc.), or in the chat on Zoom?
- How can we really integrate prep sheets into the conversation?
In the future, I’m excited to integrate screen sharing into discussions and classwork even more. In my particular class, students are extremely hesitant to turn on cameras, even when speaking and regularly engaging. While I have spent a lot of this year thinking about ways to convince them to turn on their cameras (or check that they’re still by their computers) this lesson was the first time I thought about utilizing the screen as a place to provide literacy supports while students were having a discussion. By screen sharing a copy of the prep sheet with sentence starters and co-created discussion questions, for example, I could have provided supports for Emerging Multilingual students while also more fully integrating the prep sheet into the conversation for all students. In addition, this screen sharing might serve as a cover for students who struggle with camera shyness and promote new voices in this online setting, as well as offer a potential place for students to show more engagement (possibly through real-time note-taking).
I’m also excited to begin working with this group of students on “productive disagreement.” This may at times look like me stepping in as the “devil’s advocate,” but it also will likely include looking at examples of productive disagreement and creating a standard we can agree to as a class—”We don’t move on from a discussion until _____," for example.
And finally, I’m excited to lean into my teaching presence. In this lesson, I forgot to check in with my students as human beings before diving into the content. Upon reflection, I’ve realized that I often try to speed things up for “high stakes” lessons, and cram more in. The result? I still slow down and end up running short on time. Instead, I’m looking forward to intentionally leaning into my more relaxed pace, particularly as I start classes. By opening with a pace that feels natural for me and carving out time to say hello to students, I can comfortably allow them to get ready for class and understand that I’m here to listen to them and take them seriously. I can show them that I’m grateful for their presence, their thoughts, and their voices. And that is something I’ll keep striving to do in every class I teach.