CILT Seed Grant Final Report
September 30, 2001 Deadline
Project title: The CILT Seed Grant “Equity Lens” Project
Participants:
Co-Principal Investigators:
J. David Ramirez, Ph.D., ,
Center for Language Minority Education and Research (CLMER)
California State University (CSU), Long Beach
Kim Williams, Ph.D., ,
Northwestern University, Center for Learning Technologies
Other project participants:
Kevin Rocap, ; CLMER ; CSU, Long Beach
Yolanda Ronquillo, , CLMER; CSU, Long Beach
Versonya DuPont, , Northwestern University
Bonnie Bracey, , George Lucas Foundation
Laura Blasi, , Center for Technology and Teacher Education, University of Virginia
Robbin N. Chapman, , MIT Media Lab
Project Summary
This is a final report of the “equity lens” CILT Seed Grant.
Apropos to the theme of CILT2000 the goal of this seed grant was to help inform an agenda and guidelines for equity and diversity-responsiveness in the use of advanced learning technologies in K-12 math and science education.
CILT2000 voiced a commitment to addressing the digital divide, yet there was a recognized need within CILT to define criteria for what we mean by equity, diversity and action in a CILT context. Without a framework for identifying issues and strategies, it's difficult for us to move forward with this commitment strategically and to support and inform CILT members about approaches to addressing equity in R&D efforts.
This CILT Seed grant was used to facilitate the development of “equity lenses,” guidance and criteria, through the use of which we may view, assess, recognize and transform, as appropriate, CILT-type endeavors with regard to their contribution to addressing issues of diversity-responsiveness and equity, particularly with regard to the Digital Divide. To accomplish this, collaborators worked together to share their own frameworks and experiences and to develop outreach approaches to learn from others’ ideas and experiences, including users and designers of advanced learning technologies both within and outside of CILT, who have long-term understanding of and commitment to addressing issues of diversity and equity and/or have salient direct experience as members of underserved communities.
The equity lens project was initiated with the overall goal of identifying exemplary research and development, educational and community-based activities and other programs that consider issues of equity and diversity as integral to their work. Members of the equity lens group, though bringing different experiences to this project, all held a collective belief in the importance of developing helpful rubrics or guides for considering equity and diversity issues in the research design of CILT-type projects.
The group created and made use of a private listserv, for communication, planning and coordination purposes, and a private webboard for threaded discussion and archiving of meeting notes, drafts and evolving plans, documents and image files.
We engaged in several key activities in order to draft key issues, rubrics and guidelines. 1) We queried colleagues about projects that they were aware of which consider issues of equity and diversity in at least one phase of their work (e.g., design, piloting, data collection); 2) We met with SRI researchers (February, 2001) to obtain permission to review CILT seed grant abstracts. Our goal was to examine the abstracts to see if, or where, diversity and equity issues were addressed. We also considered how equity and diversity issues could have naturally been included. 3) We met as a group in late February to discuss our projects and what we'd learned. 4) We met in June, 2001 to develop a broad-based survey designed to query the CILT membership and members of the advanced learning technology community and the educational research community about equity and diversity issues. 5) We presented our platform to a group of IEEE conference attendees in Madison, WI. We also asked these attendees to review our survey and provide feedback about the questions we proposed to ask of those described in #3. 6) Through on-line discussions and phone conferences we planned a focus group meeting (in California). We plan to hold this meeting in California this fall.
Results and Implications
We have developed a nascent website that is still under construction but will host frameworks, rubrics, guidelines, papers and resources developed by members of this CILT Equity Lens group (some of these already exist but have not yet been added to the website).
The temporary address for the website, not yet for circulation, is:
Another product of our work was the creation of an Equity Lens survey for users and designers of advanced learning technologies for Math and Science in K-12 education. We will be using this survey to gather feedback from the field to deepen our continuing work together. We are committed to continuing this rubrics/guidelines development process with resources from the Center for Language Minority Education and Research (CLMER).
Further, participants in this project are already engaged in specific outreach to and involvement in other like-minded digital equity groups such as the PT3 Digital Equity Task Force and the ISTE Minority Leadership Symposium. We are seeking ways to highlight and contribute to the growing ecology of equity groups and equity considerations in the use of advanced technologies for math and science education in K-12.
Lessons Learned: Collaboration
This seed grant has provided an excellent opportunity for developing deeper relationships with colleagues committed to issues of diversity and equity in the design of learning technologies. We met at CILT2000 for the first time and have become good friends and colleagues seeking new opportunities for collaborative work. In some cases scheduling conflicts have not allowed all members to participate as fully as possible, particularly in face-to-face venues during February, June and August. Core participants have been the Co-Pis, J. David Ramirez and Kim Williams (CLMER/CSULB and Northwestern University), Kevin Rocap (CLMER), Yolanda Ronquillo (CLMER), Versonya DuPont (Northwestern University) and Robbin Chapman (MIT Media Lab). However, Laura Blasi (Curry School of Education) and Bonnie Bracey (George Lucas Foundation), though not available for face-to-face meetings and conference calls have contributed valuable contact information and information resources via e-mail exchanges.
This work is slow, steady and rewarding. Part of what makes the progress slow are the demands of other larger projects that each of the partners is engaged in; however, we have also found meaningful ways to link that other project work to our seed grant dialogues and activities. It is a large but important task to identify the parameters and constructs necessary to develop, pilot, and suggest an equity and diversity rubric. We hope to provide much needed fodder for consideration for CILT members and others.
We feel that there are special strengths to our particular collaboration as we have selected key participants who have found deep similarities in their understandings of and approaches to equity issues in education and specifically with regard to educational technology. Constructive differences have also provided opportunities for heightened dialogue and learning.
Dr. Kim Williams, a Co-PI of this seed grant effort writes: “on a more personal note, this group has been very important to me. It has allowed me to develop my own thinking about design of advanced learning technologies, software, and text-based materials that consider equity and diversity issues at the R & D phase or in other phases of work. I am proposing a course here at Northwestern University which will help graduate students consider methodologies for studying design or enactment with an equity lens in mind.”
Dr J. David Ramirez writes: “my own background in accountability, evaluation and assessment has been greatly augmented by participation in this seed grant. Our work has helped me develop my own frameworks for the design, implementation and analysis of a comprehensive, diversity-responsive accountability system that embraces uses of advanced learning technologies. I feel I can better understand the differential impact of learning technologies on different students with regard to a variety of inequities. We have really developed a potential outline for a book that could be seminal to the field.”
Kevin Rocap writes: “connecting with colleagues who see diversity and equity issues as core issues in the design and use of advanced learning technologies has really been a breath of fresh air. For example, time has not been needed within the group to determine whether or how such issues as language, race, culture, socio-economic status, gender or special needs are centrally important, in order to just get the issues on the table, instead we all immediately put the issues on the table and have been able to roll up our sleeves and discuss details of specific designs and implementations we’ve undertaken to address these as core issues for educational equity. It has been helpful to be able to share and receive feedback, for example, on specific ways CLMER “lenses” are used to design professional development and learning activities, these lenses include: Language, Critical Pedagogy, Anti-Racist Education, Community Learning Theory, Standards and Technology Fluency. I look forward to the focus group gathering of experts later this fall and to our review and analysis of survey results.”
As with many collaborative efforts multiple responsibilities of participants create competing demands on time and attention. Electronic collaboration allows for some level of organic, shared responsibility for keeping the full-group on track; however, overall it seems to work best when one person assumes responsibility for facilitating the groups e-interactions, checking-in routinely and sending out reminders.
Next Steps
We will follow-through on the plans we have outlined in our face-to-face and online planning dialogues. A key next step is to finalize the survey participants, collect and analyze survey results and carry out a focus group review of equity issues and draft rubrics/guidelines. We are also considering specific project collaborations among participating partners for which we would seek external funding.
Related Resources
A more extensive list will be assembled for this project, below are a few highlighted resources that give a sense of the range of resources.
Digital Divide Network
The Math Forum Equity and Access Page
Eisenhower National Clearinghouse Real World Math & Science
Eisenhower National Clearinghouse Checklist for Equity in Math and Science
U.S. House Committee on Science
Vermont Institute for Science, Math and Technology Equity Goal
Weaving Gender Equity into Math Reform