Dr. Erika D. Tate, founder of Loravore® Professional Learning and high-energy host of Remix EQ Live, has a long personal and professional history of seeking out and creating equitable learning experiences for women and people of color. She sits down with Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, to define instructional equity, suggest how to approach a society-wide problem on a classroom scale, and talk about the rewards and challenges of using EdTech tools in this work.
Meet The Needs And Expectations Of Every Student In The Classroom.
Erika describes instructional equity as the practice of being mindful of every student's needs. Its elements include the curriculum itself, what students expect to learn, how teachers expect to deliver content and assess learning, and the best use of available learning tools. The challenges often encountered in pursuit of instructional equity center on coordinating all those elements to invite and support students in bringing themselves into the learning community of their classroom. To do this, an educator needs to acknowledge students' identities, lived experiences, and family histories.
Erika explains what instructional equity looks like:
"If a classroom is built on equitable experiences, then students should be able to find multiple ways to share their ideas, exchange ideas with others, and apply those ideas to what they're learning in the classroom or what they're going to take home with them or head forward in their school or other life careers."
Empowerment Begins With Small, Doable Changes.
Overcoming inequity is an enormous challenge, and it's easy to see how people can feel intimidated by the work. Erika advises that the best way to start is by looking through a lens that can help identify something that you can actually change. It can be empowering when you find an approach that matches your teaching style and the specific needs of the students you're serving.
"I really like to underscore that the beliefs you have about yourself, and your students, and their learning, and your intentions for making that change are really key for pursuing equitable instruction, or any type of equitable outcome in your schools and communities."
She adds that building a learning community will create comfort and support for students to take risks in asking questions and through trial-and-error learning. Indeed, fostering curiosity is critical in fostering student engagement.
"That curiosity that you have with your learning community will go so far into changing your classroom culture and building more equitable instruction and learning experiences for your students, including yourself as an educator."
Make Sure That Every Voice Is Heard.
EdTech can help achieve instructional equity when the educator using the tool understands why it was developed and has clear ideas about what they want students to get out of that tool, how they anticipate students using it, and how it will best support their own instruction. Erika says:
"A well-designed EdTech tool gives the teacher visibility into students' ideas. For some tools, students can see other students' ideas very easily, and it also gives students voice. And so students are allowed to share in ways that they may not be able to share in a more traditional classroom if those tools weren't there."
However, because inequity can be defined as some people having a voice while others are silenced, Erika stresses paying attention to whether a given EdTech tool silences some students:
"Pay attention to who is using it, who is not using it, and why. Because when we talk about inequities, we're usually talking about someone not having access or not being able to make use of a resource. And so when we can use those as lenses for our field tests with our tools, then I think we'll get more information, and it'll push us closer to thinking about if we are meeting the needs of every student in our classroom."
Erika reminds us that change in pursuit of equity, whether it's within a classroom community, district policy, or society at large, is likely to be uncomfortable.
"Discomfort is necessary for change, but how can we do that in respectful, productive ways that keep our focus on students or educators? I think it's by having an experience with learning that keeps them wanting to learn. It's hard to do it by yourself, but it's also hard to do it with others. And you have to figure out ways that you can respect the challenge and respect the people who are trying to solve it."
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
Loravore® Professional Learning, a service that Erika developed for supporting K-12 teachers and ed leaders to design and deliver equitable instruction
Remix EQ Live, Erika's livestream show that builds community around equity-driven approaches through conversations with inspiring changemakers
LoravoreⓇ Learning Playlist: Equitable Assessment Practice, This playlist includes the ASCD article and the Video-based Academic Discussion mentioned earlier.
LoravoreⓇ Learning Playlist: Digital Instruction Redesigns, This playlist discusses how to redesign common learning activities with instructional strategies and digital learning tools.
Advancing Fair and Equitable Digital Assessment, Erika's article for ASCD about using EdTech in pursuit of instructional equity
Navigating EdTech Purchasing, Procurement, and Pilots: A Conversation With Rayna (Yaker) Glumac, Elana mentions this LCG podcast to highlight the importance of understanding the students who'll be using the EdTech tool
What It's Really Like to Teach in a Pandemic: A Conversation With Tracy Selock, Elana mentions this LCG podcast to remind educators that it's important to take care of themselves as well as their students
National Society of Black Engineers, a national nonprofit that Erika joined early in her career as she sought to increase the representation of students of color in STEM fields
Get in Touch With Erika
Elana Leoni, Host
Elana Leoni has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.
Dr. Erika Tate, Guest
Dr. Erika Tate is the energetic, passionate, and inspiring founder of Bluknowledge LLC, a learning firm that advances equity through collaborative research, insightful evaluation, and equity-driven professional learning. She launched Loravore® Learning to empower school and community educators to design and deliver equitable and effective learning experiences. She also hosts Remix EQ Live, an online platform and learning community that brings together people seeking to make the world a more just place. For over two decades, Dr. Tate has designed and delivered interactive, community-building, and practice-changing K-16 professional development across the country. She specializes in training and instructional coaching for elementary and secondary teachers that center equity in instructional design, digital learning, and STEM teaching and learning. She has also published and presented on these topics, including a book chapter on designing science instruction for diverse learners. Dr. Tate earned her Sc.B. in Electrical Engineering from Brown University and her Ph.D. in Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology, from the University of California, Berkeley.
About All Things Marketing and Education
What if marketing was judged solely by the level of value it brings to its audience? Welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, a podcast that lives at the intersection of marketing and you guessed it, education. Each week, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, highlights innovative social media marketing, community-building, and content marketing strategies that can significantly increase reach, relationships, and revenue.
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