Diane R. Wood

Faculty Collaboration to Improve Equity, Access, and Inclusion in Higher Education

This article documents the Critical Friends Group (CFG) process five university colleagues used to blend the theoretical frameworks of Universal Design for Learning (Rose & Meyer, 2002) and Interactive Phase Theory (McIntosh, 1990) as tools to increase equity and access in our classrooms. Using the CFG reflective approach, the faculty collaboratively reviewed their syllabi and implemented innovations in their classroom practice. This article presents a theory of action that emerged as well as nine tensions related to teaching and participation in a learning community. Implications for equity and access in higher education and future inquiry are presented.

And then the basals arrived: school leadership, learning communities and professionalism

This article, based on six years of participant observation, provides a close-up view of two learning communities in an urban elementary school. It provides a case study of both learning communities, laying out how teachers participating in them learned to respond differently to difficult problems and dilemmas, to change their language and approach in addressing students’ learning needs, to raise teaching problems and issues with increasing candor, and to become not only less resistant to change but also more innovative. In fact, the article draws close-up portraits of how these two learning communities in a school serving the district’s lowest socioeconomic student population became crucibles for transforming professional identities so that teachers began privileging professional judgment over technical skill, praxis (reflection in practice) over specific technical practices, continuous learning over expertise, inquiry over solutions, and innovation over implementation. Along the way, it provides a back-story of an administrator who set high expectations and conveyed political realities without provoking either passive compliance or outright resistance. In the background looms the power of the district’s shifting leadership and policies to sustain or destroy these promising communities.

The Work of the National Writing Project: Social Practices in a Network Context

The National Writing Project the oldest and probably the most successful professional development project in the U.S. now has sites in every state in the U.S. Their work is best understood by realizing that this network is tied together by a set of integrated social practices that connect intellectual work and relationships into a vibrant professional community. The loose structure of a national network with its local sites and the social practices that model its ways of working and leading make this an important example of scaling down (providing a model to be organized locally) in order to scale up (spreading the model to a larger constituency). How this looks is explicated by a study of two sites, an evolving site (6 years old) and a mature site (24 years old). Each holds the core values of the Writing Project even as they adapt certain practices to the differences in context.

Loosening the bonds of conventionalism: problems and possibilities of a transformative pedagogy

Abstract As two teacher-educators, the authors advocate for democratic practices in classrooms. They describe how, in their Masters programme for veteran teachers, they have grappled to undercut conventions of schooling, which thwart teacher activism. They look critically at how market-driven notions such as efficiency, clarity and outside expertise constrain how teachers think and go about their work, entrenching generic, rather than tailored responses to individual students. The writers describe how they attempt to undermine these forces and they trace the difficulties they encounter along the way. They offer a description of an arts-based curriculum that challenges teachers to surface, revisit, and rethink the ideologies and assumptions that guide their thinking and practices. Such an approach to curriculum, the authors claim, can awaken the critical consciousness of teachers, and motivate them to more creative and empowering practices, practices that provide a freeing context for students to pursue their own unique identities and projects. Despite claiming considerable potential in their approach, the authors also analyse forms of teacher resistance and their own struggles as professors. Finally, they consider whether or not their approach simply replaces one dominating agenda with another, concluding that when their arts-integrated curriculum succeeds in generating heightened consciousness and serious dialogue, teachers in their programme are more likely to resist outside agendas uncritically.

SEEDs of Promise: Transformative Learning Communities for Diverse Schools

The student population of Elk Grove School District in the Sacramento Valley of California has changed dramatically in the last decade. New families pour into the valley drawn by the economic opportunities, suburban lifestyle, and seemingly perpetual blue skies. Among these families are many recent immigrants seeking variations on the American Dream. What was once a relatively homogeneous population has become a rich pastiche of cultures and languages. Beginning with one committed teacher, a network has developed in Elk Grove dedicated to creating equitable and inclusive practices for teaching and learning. That one teacher was inspired by a week-long summer institute designed and sponsored by SEED, a national professional development initiative for educators. The SEED acronym stands for Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity. Over time, SEED educational leaders have built a reputation for their searching conversations regarding educational equity and for their effective and innovative strategies to reach all students (see www.wcwonline.org/SEED). The foundational idea of SEED (McIntosh, 1998; Style, 1998) is that responding to diverse students’ needs