 Hello, OER Conference participants. I'm Christina Spears. I use she, her pronouns, and I'm a subject matter expert with ISSCME. I'm also a black woman educator from a working class background with upper upward class mobility. I'm an English speaker and an able-bodied person and a U.S. citizen. We'll talk more about social identities throughout our session. I'm going to pass to my friend Dr. Jamila Coze. Hello ISSCME participants. My name is Dr. Jamila Coze and I have the pleasure of helping educators to become more progressive in their teaching thinking about how they teach toward justice and not only how they teach towards justice, but how they get their colleagues and their students to think about how we teach towards and move towards a more socially just society. And I pass to my friend Dr. Yvette McMahon Arnold. Good day, conference participants. We're to be here. My name is Yvette McMahon Arnold. I am the state director of instructional development in the Virgin Islands Department of Education in the state office of curriculum and instruction. I am so happy to be here in the company of these ladies. I've learned so much from them through the work that we've been doing in partnership with ISSCME and the team that ISSCME has brought together for us. And we just look forward to sharing with you today. Let me take it over to Tamara. Thank you Yvette. Hello and welcome. My name is Tamara Mao and I work at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction in the office of the state superintendent where I focus on both inward facing equity work as well as outward facing equity work. Super excited to be here today with my colleagues. I'm grateful that ISSCME has brought us together to be able to work collaboratively on this project. And with that, I'll pass it off to Joanna. Hi, I'm Joanna Scamizzi. I'm a professional learning specialist with ISSCME and really excited to be here with this dynamic group who represent many other educators on their journey to be culturally responsive and sustaining and how we use open education openly licensed resources to do this work because at the end of the day we realize that educational resources shouldn't be static. They should be dynamic. They need to be able to change. So you're going to see how that change happens when you have educators who are passionate, engaged and working on their own journey. So as we think about this tool, we think about Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop and her idea behind windows, mirrors and sliding glass doors. Books and curriculum are sometimes windows offering views of the world that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors and the readers have only to walk through an imagination to become a part of whatever world has been created and recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, the window can become a mirror. So we think about all of the ways in which we want our students to experience and see and think about the world. When I think back to every time I'm in my classroom, I try to ensure that my students have the opportunity to see the world from various perspectives. So by the end of the year, we have covered ideas on the topic of race and gender and socioeconomics and religion and all of the identity markers that my students experience. But there was one particular year at the end of the year, I had my students, I brought that idea up and I said, we've covered all of the things, we've thought about all of the things throughout the semester. And one student raised their hand and said, well, we haven't talked about disability at all. What was ironic was that I was teaching in the special education context. Yet I had missed one of the biggest identity markers that my students identified with and in ways that they experienced the world. Throughout the year, I thought I wasn't interrogating not only my practice, but also my resources. But I wasn't doing it in the ways that maximize the feeling of gaps in the acknowledgement and celebration of various identities. What's even more is that I didn't have the right curriculum resources. You see, sometimes we are thinking about how we remakes and look at our curriculum very intentionally. And even when we're well-intentioned, we miss it. So take a look at the graphic at the bottom. Can you find the mistake? Maybe some of you looked at it and you immediately found the mistake. But some of you are still looking at it and you still can't find the mistake. That's sort of what happens in our classroom, even when we are looking for ways to close the gaps, we still miss them. The mistake in the graphic on the bottom is that there are two does in the mistake in the graphic. Our eyes were drawn to the numbers, but the mistake was somewhere else. This tool, the identifying bias tool, helps us to check off those mistakes that we miss. Sometimes they're glaring, sometimes they're easy to miss. But I'll turn it over to Christina to tell us about how you use this tool. Thank you, Jamela. And thanks for the reminder that we sometimes miss things, even with well intentions, right? So my friend Jamela may have found two things helpful in her reflection back on that those units and lessons with her students. It sounds like she needed curriculum materials that were open, open to be remixed and changed to not only meet her needs to fill those gaps, but to also meet the needs of her students. So her students could see themselves, mirrors in the curriculum. So students could see other people across lines of different sliding glass doors. So having curriculum materials that are open, able to be remixed to meet our needs as the educator and instructor, but most importantly to meet the needs of our learners. And Jamela may have found a tool like our identifying bias and resources tool to be helpful in interrogating her own social identities and biases as she works with curricular materials and diverse groups of students, right? So with this in mind, needing curricular materials that are open and a tool to help us interrogate bias, we ask, why is OER needed to help us pluralize curriculum resources? And why does a tool like this need to be OER itself? So we've named our students need to see mirrors, windows and sliding glass doors, being able to change our materials to meet the learning needs of our students. And as you can see on the slide, the tool itself is remixable. You're going to hear how you can remix this tool for your specific classroom, school, or district context, right? So the tool's purpose is to allow teachers to remix and the tool itself is remixable because they are OER resources. So for the next few minutes of our presentation, you are going to hear from Yvette and the Virgin Islands who use this tool to engage teachers in professional learning, to interrogate their own resources for bias. And then you'll hear from Tamara from Wisconsin on how we modified and remix the tool and then did professional learning with educators to use it with their curriculum as well. Yvette, tell us what happened in the Virgin Islands. Thank you, Christina. Well, here in the Virgin Islands, we've had some great experiences with the tool. We engage with ISME for a series, the Culturally Relevant Teaching Academy, six weeks of intense work around culturally relevant teaching that included an analysis of the tool, truly interrogating this tool. And we brought to the table some of our own community cultural bearers as well as coordinators and a number of our teachers. So we had quite a span of individuals in these sessions. And we looked at the tool through different lens. And one in particular, we looked at that created some discomfort and in the sessions was around religion, faith, and spirituality, as you see here. And we had some discussion on it, and we've pulled a snapshot of one of the responses that was in the group chat, the group discussion. And have you considered your own beliefs about religion as a question? Very well explained, Ms. Aleem indicated. However, there are many people that do not agree with this process as it is ethically controversial because of this destruction of human embryos. And so this brought about quite a bit of conversation. But what was interesting about the tool itself is that some of the conversation came after the session, came through emails and text messages. Because while we are looking at using the tool to interrogate resources, we are also looking at the tool to look at ourselves and our own bias. And one person found that the tool itself had some bias in it because it spoke to Christianity itself. And the idea was, the questions I had was, why is this so offensive to you? Why do you feel that the tool speaks against you? And the feeling was it uses the term Christianity as the sole perspective. So what would have been more comfortable? And it was the idea of religion, just talking about religion across the board, rather than talking about Christianity on its own. And I got it. And I understood where she was coming from. So we were able to then go back into the tool and tweak it, make those changes, remix it so that it became something that we needed. And so that instructor would have some comfort level because she is using this tool to interrogate herself and using it to interrogate the resources for our students. And so to share with you how the remixing can actually be done, I'd like you to hear from Tanara. All right. Thank you so much, Yvette. So we were so excited to learn about the work that was happening in the Virgin Islands with the tool for identifying bias and resources. And at the same time that we had this excitement, we also were really cognizant of what our current landscape is in Wisconsin. Wisconsin classrooms are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. Yet school districts are struggling to build staffs that reflect their students' background. In fact, about one-third of Wisconsin public education students are students of color, whereas our licensed teachers in Wisconsin are 94% white, just over 2% Hispanic, and 1.8% black. So when we reflected on this tool, we reflected on the demographics of our state. We wanted to think about how are we setting up our educators for success in their classrooms to really think about how they can understand how identity is socially constructed, to be able to hold a mirror up to themselves, to really understand their own identity, as well as to understand the identities of the students and families who are in their classrooms within our pluralistic society. And also to think about what does this mean for how they're showing up in their classrooms? How are they working with selecting instructional resources that represent our pluralistic society? So what we did was we took the original tool, but what we did was we added a huge section on there at the beginning that helps Wisconsin educators better understand how identity is socially constructed. So there's questions on there. There's definitions because it's important for us to be able to have a common understanding with terms. So we did that. We also organized the tool through these lenses of head, heart, and hands, knowing that we can study about different identity markers from an intellectual perspective. But we also want to be able to hold that mirror up and really think about what it means for us as educators, as people, as we're showing up in classrooms with learners. And then hands, thinking about the push to practice. So we remix the tool. So it has a section on social, how identity is socially developed, what that means for the head, heart, and hands. And then we also recognize that as teachers are working on this in communities of practice, there's begins to create some automaticity to the tool. So we created another tool which we call the push to practice tool for the tool for identifying bias. And with that, that's that push to practice that third column of the hands, which we've put into one resource. And so we've been working with Wisconsin educators to be able to go in and examine their resources and OER resources, to really interrogate them to look for bias within those resources. And so there's a little screenshot here of how Wisconsin educators are using the tool, and to be able to reflect on their own identities, and how they're seeing bias within two within resources. We have, and this is again, building on the work that Christina had talked about, and Yvette had talked about this idea of do we need to completely not use a resource? Do we can we use the OER resource with some modifications? Or can we use this resource with this idea of teaching really through this lens of criticality? So we had Wisconsin educators go into these resources and put comments in there as models. So we got, we start to make our practice public in this way. So I'm super excited. I'm excited to share what's next. But before we go and do that, I'm going to pass this on to Christina to actually take a look at using the tool. Thanks Yvette and Tamara for sharing how you use this tool in your respective spaces. So now we want to show you how to use the tool, how to look at curriculum resources alongside that tool. So our resources can be mirrors, windows and sliding glass doors for our students. So we as educators, folks who are good pedagogues who know best practice, when we come to a resource, first we just want to look at it. Is it a good resource that we want to share with our students? We ask ourselves, is it standards aligned? Are there primary sources that I can use with my students? Does it offer me discussion questions to start with as a teacher? And this resource that we're sharing with you in our session, Feeding the Hungry with Food Stamp Programs, has all of those things that I named. It's standards aligned. There's a strong introduction about the purpose of the resource. There's a really strong group of primary sources, primary source set, as well as additional resources from other places outside of the Digital Public Library of America that we can use to supplement what's there, as well as a teaching guide that offers discussion questions for students, as well as classroom activities to help you engage in what is the food stamp program, how did it start, and how does it live today. So this resource gives us a great start, but to Jamela's story that kicked off our session, I have to think about who are the students in my class? Who am I? How am I coming to this resource? What do I know and what do I don't know? What critical questions to Tamara's point about criticality? Can I ask my students to help them interrogate their own biases and understandings about the world? So if I'm going to use our tool on this specific food stamp resource, I want to interrogate race and social class to socially constructed identities that when we think about food stamps, we often think about socioeconomic status. And then there are implicit or explicit narratives about race around food and food access. So our tool has questions like, am I a member of a privileged or oppressed group based on my race, gender, disability, citizenship, or socioeconomic status? How does race and social class, my own and my understanding of it impact how I show up in my relationships, curriculum and pedagogy? How does my race and social class impact how I show up in creating or remixing curricular resources and in my instruction and pedagogy? So if I considered those for myself in my context with my special ed students, I might do some reflection first and saying, I'm a working class black woman. I'm non-disabled and a US citizen. I hold both privileged and oppressed identities as a working class person who grew up in a working class home where we grew our own food. We shocked at food lion and Walmart. I didn't know about Wegmans until I moved to college, right? And I often ate school lunches. I thought a great deal about how social class impacts my access to food and how important food and food rituals are to me now and in my home growing up, right? And because I'm a black working class woman, those oppressed identities, I see how social class is considered because of the nature of the food stamp program. But race is not considered as a part of the content of this resource. If you look at the pictures, there are no people of color in those pictures. There are no questions about how people of color relate to the food stamp program and its inception, right? So I know that there are assumptions and stereotypes about who receive food stamps or government assistance and for what reasons. And I wonder how the images that are here perpetuate or disrupt that thinking. There are not questions in the resources to help students interrogate this. And then finally, as a non-disabled US citizen, those are two privileged identities that I hold. I need to do some learning and unlearning to answer the question in the tool, does this leave out concepts of disability to Jamela's point or citizenship status when they are needed for deeper contexts? And that's a gap for me, right? So I've recently come to learn that folks with disabilities, DACA recipients may or may not be eligible for food stamps program or government assistance to access food. And that is not here in this resource. So if I were going to remix this, I might wonder how can I remix this resource to find additional resources to interrogate those questions to ensure I don't cause harm or perpetuate harm against these historically and culturally oppressed identities, right? So when remixing this resource, which you can see on your screen, I would add primary sources that inform students about the food stamp program through present day. So we've added a video from the USDA in modern times talking about how this program impacts student lunches and student child nutrition services in our schools, right? And then I would add primary sources that inform students, like I said, through present day. I would also add some discussion questions that allow for that criticality that this identifying bias tool challenges us to do. So you can see that we've added images, video resources, as well as questions for students to, again, challenge their criticality, specifically around race and social class. And I will name before we talk about next steps, that it's important to do this work in community with one another. Joanna and I work together on this remix and Joanna and I hold different social identities. So when Joanna and I come together to work on this resource, we are working across those line of difference to make sure we don't and we are creating resources that are mirrors windows and sliding glass doors for our students. This is great work that we've done. And this is just the beginning. So Yvette and Tamara, what's next for you all with this tool and OER resources? Okay, so what's next for us? We definitely want to revisit the first cohort of educators with whom we work. And we are always reminded of our mission with ISMI and that is to partner open education resources and culturally relevant teaching to create space for Virgin Islands educators to reflect on one's cultural lens and use our Go Open USB platform to select local resources that are meaningful, engaging, uplifting and without bias. And that first cohort of educators can help us to move this forward. We also want to look at a second cohort because we want to build capacity around using this tool. And we want to bring awareness of the tool through our new social studies standards. These were recently approved by the Board of Education and the standards incorporate embed the social justice standards, which focus on anti-bias education for K-12. So we have started a gap analysis to look at where the missing links are, the resources that can support our standards. And in so doing, what an opportunity it is for us to use this tool to look at those gaps, those missing resources to determine if these resources have bias that unintentionally harm students. And by using the tool, we are able to do this. So we are using the tool in our conversations around resources that are to be curated, to be developed and to be explored aligned to our new social justice study standards. And we are also incorporating and using the tool with our community partners who have such a vast knowledge of culture and the resources around social studies. I'll turn it over to Tamara to tell us what's happening in Wisconsin next. All right. Thank you very much, Yvette. So yeah, so very similar to Yvette. We too want to continue this work. So working at a state agency is how do you create a system where we have 421 school districts in the state of Wisconsin, over 800,000 students. How are we making this so it's impacting every student every day? And so part of that is being able to leverage a tool like OER where the tools are within a repository that everybody has access to and can engage with. So we want to continue to expand our education cohorts for Wisconsin educators to continue to use the comprehensive tool to examine their identities and how they're showing up in their classrooms to be able to use that push to practice tool to build representative, interrogated, multimodal tech sets that are culturally and linguistically not only responsive but also help to sustain our students cultures. We've been working in partnership with Dr. Goldie Muhammad this past year aligning a lot of our work to her five pursuits. So kids are seeing their identity, building skills, developing deepening intellectualism, understanding systems of privilege and oppression, and most importantly are like engaging in learning that promotes joy. So continuing to work with our Wisconsin educators around how to build these tech sets that are really student-centered and also expanding on our community partnership. So we've been working in partnership with our communities. We have a strong partnership with our African American and Jewish group and they have