VERONICA N. PARKER: All right. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining this session, Advancing Digital Equity and Social Justice in Adult Education. As Mandilee mentioned, my name is Veronica Parker, and I'm the coordinator with the SAP technical Assistance Project. And so before we get started, again, as she mentioned, this is part one of our three part series.

Today we'll be going over what social justice is, what digital equity is, what equity is and why it's important, as well as some historical context so on and so forth. But we do invite you to take a look at the descriptions for part two and part three and register for those as well because it will be a continuum of learning through this three part series. And Holly has posted the links to register in the chat.

So on the next slide before we get started, I see that there are individuals who are introducing themselves in the chat. Thank you so much for doing that. Please continue to do so. We will also use the chat for this part as well. We are interested in knowing, what interested you about this particular topic? Why did you decide to join us this afternoon? We're just curious about what interests you about this particular topic.

So if you can go ahead and utilize the chat to type in those responses, myself as well as manually will be looking at the chat to see what interests you about this topic. So I'm seeing more introductions in the chat. Let's see if we get some more information about what interests you about this particular topic.

All right. Not seeing anything yet. Oh, I see ways to improve the current climate from Holly. Thank you, Holly. And Erica says, I have not seen any other trainings on digital equity. So I'm interested to know more about it in general. OK, Erica. And then Laura says, access for individuals with disabilities, particularly visually impaired. God, thank you so much, Laura.

And Tanya says, ways to close digital equity gap. Laura says equity focus on adult learners. Anthony wanted to get a solid introduction to the topic and learn more about what to focus on. Thank you, Anthony. All right. Well, thank you all very much for partaking in that opening question. Again, we're interested in what it is you want to know more about the topic so that hopefully we will fulfill those interests. It looks like the vast majority, we will fulfill.

Laura, I will say that in this three part series, we are not focusing on disabilities, especially visually impaired in particular, but that is something for us to keep in mind as we continue to develop this particular topic. And thank you all. If you do have additional comments, please be sure to type them in the chat. And again, we will utilize this information to continue to further develop this particular topic.

All right. So we'll go on to the next slide. All right. So as Mandilee mentioned, my name is Dr. Veronica Parker, and I am the coordinator with the CAP Technical Assistance Project. And so for those of you who are not aware of SAP TAP, we are a entity as part of the SAP office, and we address the technical assistance professional development and capacity needs of SAP Mainly at the consortium level.

However, within our statewide priorities, we are able to address topics such as equity, learner transition, leadership, program development, program evaluation, technology and distance learning, as well as marketing. So today and for the rest of this series, we are covering the equity as well as the technology and distance learning components. And we utilize sources of information such as our evaluation results, we host the SAP summit, as well as the CAP departments event.

And so we take that information and see what are the needs of the field and how we can meet those needs, as well as listening to our consortium leadership, conducting these assessments, so on and so forth. And that's how we got to this part. Because as we know, three years ago when the pandemic first hit, we had to quickly pivot to distance education and distance learning.

And we know that that brought a host of opportunities for growth, and one of them being addressing not only distance education, but also digital equity and digital literacy, so on and so forth. And so that's where this particular topic stemmed from. So as part of my why, that is why I am engaged in this work.

If you all know me, you know that I am a social justice advocate across the spectrum and looking at topics in that area such as equity, digital equity, racial equity, so on and so forth are areas of focus for me. So that is my why for being here, and I will pass it off to Mandilee who will introduce herself again.

Mandilee Gonzales: OK. Thank you Dr. Parker. So again, my name is Mandilee Gonzalez. I'm a project specialist with SAP Technical Assistance Project. And really happy to be here today in this shared space. And my why for being here today is to share what I know and always to help where I can and to help build those bridges so everyone can benefit.

I've lived all around the nation. I have grown up from the East Coast, swung it all the way down all the way to the West Coast. I emigrated to the United States from Canada at a really young age, and I've seen inequities based on income, gender, race. I've personally experienced a lot of these same isms and biases.

So my big why for being here today is to be a part of the change and just to help educate and share my perspective as well as learn from others and really just move that needle on the metric as far as getting changed in all of the right places. So thank you guys for being here with us.

VERONICA N. PARKER: Thank you so much, Mandilee. And so we'll go on to discussing our outcomes. So by the end of this session, we want you all to leave with a deeper understanding of what social justice is and what digital equity is, and how they impact the digital divide, which is still present today.

Additionally, we want to provide an opportunity for you all to critically reflect on your own positionalities. We will present some current research, especially in part two of this webinar series, as well as identify strategies that we have researched and strategies that are being provided to you by practitioners in the field.

So we have three invited guests on Thursday during part two. We have a representative from Byte Back, which is a technology integration organization, and they are mainly focused on digital literacy as well as they have a digital navigator program. And then when we think about California as a whole, we'll have a representative from the San Diego consortium talking about their digital navigator program.

And then we have our colleague Anthony Burke from the outreach and technical assistance network, and he will be sharing information about OTAN, the Student Technology Intake Survey, as well as Northstar. So again, we want to present you with strategies that have been research, as well as strategies that are currently being utilized in the field. So if you have not registered for part two please be sure to do so. All right.

Mandilee Gonzales: And then so today's agenda-- just to give everyone a quick overview. We've already done our welcome. I've identified or we've identified our objectives. We'll go through some essential agreements that we ask-- that we all participate in, as well as creating a brave space. Like Dr. Parker mentioned, where we are going to go through a historical context of education, and then critically reflect and assess our position ability.

We're going to cover what is social justice and what is digital equity? We will have an activity of reflection in developing teachers agents of inclusion and social justice for today's session. So thank you, again, for being here. And as I mentioned, we're going to go through those essential agreements. So I will lead us with that.

So before we jump in, we really ask that everyone come together and participate also by agreeing to these essential agreements, so staying engaged. And by staying engaged, it's a refusal to let your heart and mind check out. So we ask that you are not only digitally or virtually present with us, but that you also are present with us in your heart and your mind as we talk about some of these subject and topics that can be uncomfortable.

We ask that you speak your truth, and we understand that that truth is your truth and your lived experience-- being authentic and coming to that table in this honor and respect each other's truth. Actively listen. We ask that you are listening to the words and to the intentions by whomever is speaking at that time, and not thinking about how you're going to respond. Just to really listen and to hear that person for whatever they are sharing with us.

Assume best intent. Again, that is assuming that everyone has the best intentions. And sometimes in communication, things don't always come out smoothly. It could be interpreted in a way that was not intended. So we are going to ask that you assume best intent. And sometimes that means pausing, perhaps asking a question if you are having a feeling or something is bubbling up for you, and just checking in to ensure that you receive that as it was intended.

Expect and accept nonclosure. So there are no quick fixes and there is no to do list or solution to some of these complex problems that are going to be posed by racism and inequity. So we are going-- we are definitely not going to solve racism, unfortunately, today in today's session, or within this organization or your organization. But we ask that you commit to this ongoing dialogue and this journey of growth together.

And then lastly, be open to experiencing some discomfort. So talking about race, racism, and inequity is often uncomfortable. Identifying and unpacking our own identity groups and these different levels of privilege associated within them is even more uncomfortable. So to engage in the conversations about race and inequity, we ask that you be honest and to do this in honest meaningful ways. We ask that you all today agree to experience a little bit of discomfort. And we really thank you all for participating with us today. Dr. Parker.

VERONICA N. PARKER: All right. Thank you so much, Mandilee for sharing those essential agreements. We hope that you all will partner with us on those. But next, we're going to go into our brave space. And so we'd like to present a this poem but also a moment of reflection for you all. Because when you think about digital equity, of course, we think about devices, we think about access to Wi-Fi, so on and so forth, but we really have to think about the bigger picture.

And knowing that things have happened. We're all continuing to grow and learn together, that's one of the reasons why we're here, and that this is an opportunity for us to create a brave space. So we have this poem and it's written by Nikki Scott Bay Jones, and she is a justice doula as well as a social justice advocate who wrote this poem as part of her work in bringing healing to others.

And so as we enter this base in this three part series, and then any work that we do together, we want to do our best to center our heart and our minds as well as set our intentions. And so with this, I ask that you pause with intention, wherever you are, whether you are in your office, in a classroom, you may be multitasking as I tend to do when I'm in webinars, but I just want you to pause and reflect for a moment. I'm going to recite this poem and then we will have some discussion.

So is everyone willing to partner with us to create this brave space? If you can just use the reactionary button or a yes in the chat, that will be very nice. All right. So I see some yeses there. So we'll go ahead and get started. Again, please pause with intention and really just reflect on the words that are mentioned in this particular poem.

So the poem reads, "Together, we will create brave space because there is no such thing as a safe space. We exist in the real world. We all carry scars, and we have all caused wounds. In this space, we seek to turn down the volume of the outside world. We amplify voices that fight to be heard elsewhere. We call each other to more truth and love. We have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow.

We will not be perfect." Excuse me. "We have the responsibility to examine what we think we know. We will not be perfect. This space will not be perfect. It will not always be what we wish it to be, but it will be our brave space together, and we will work on it side by side." So we will come back and just reflect on what this poem is saying as well as reflect on what this poem means to us. What is it that resonates with us? So on and so forth.

And so I invite you all to really reflect on this particular poem. And what we'll do now is we'll break out-- we'll go into breakout rooms. We have a little bit more time today. So we can do more intentional reflections. Again, it's not going to be very long and it's not going to be a lot of work, so please do not leave us. But I invite you to engage with your partners on the following questions. And we have a series of questions that you can use to reflect.

So you can pick any of the questions. But one thing that I would like you all to reflect on is, what's your intention for our time together as well as your intention for moving forward? Because again when we set our intentions and we're conscious about our intentions and that is what's propelling us forward, then we want to make sure that we remember what our intentions are and really, really reflect on our intentions.

And so right now, we will go into breakout rooms. We will spend about 5 minutes in our breakout rooms. Again, this is an opportunity for you all to reflect, and we'll come back and have some discussion. You do not have to answer all of the questions. I do understand that those are quite a few questions, But. You do have the opportunity to reflect on at least two. And I'm also going to post a link to the actual poem so that you will have that with you.

Mandilee Gonzales: --do that.

VERONICA N. PARKER: Say that again.

Mandilee Gonzales: I said, oh, I can pop that in.

VERONICA N. PARKER: OK, perfect. Yes. There is a link to the poem, and you will have that with you as you continue to reflect. So we will open up our breakout rooms now, and we'll come back in five minutes.

Mandilee Gonzales: All right. And everyone's back now.

VERONICA N. PARKER: All right, everyone's back. I see faces, yay. I'm glad you all turned on your cameras when you were in the breakout room. So we appreciate that. So welcome back, everyone, and thank you for engaging in that reflective activity. Hopefully, you all had some rich discussions about what this poem means to you, what resonated with you, as well as what your intentions are, so on and so forth.

Do I have a couple of volunteers who would like to share the discussion that took place? Or even if you don't want to share the discussion you had with your group, if you would like to share what your intention is for this particular session as well as what your intention will be moving forward, you can share that as well. So I'll stop talking and anyone can come off mute we have a pretty small group here. All right.

Tanya Praest: I'll talk.

VERONICA N. PARKER: OK, go ahead. I appreciate it.

Tanya Praest: We said in our group about how in our classrooms, we've made assumptions based on either who our students-- who we think our students are or what's happened in our lives, and we brought those into the classroom. So we discuss that.

VERONICA N. PARKER: Got it. So would you say maybe you've-- the discussion was based on bias that you may have brought into the classroom?

Tanya Praest: Mine, well, yes, I think so, yeah. Mine was definitely.

Carla Slowiczek: Yeah. So I was part of Tanya's group, and it was just an assumption we'd made. And it's funny, you carry it with you because you remind yourself of that mistake you made. But then in the poem, it says-- so one of the things is through the responsibility to examine what we think we know. So that's what triggered what we were sharing with Tanya and I were sharing. However, later in the poem, it says, we will not be perfect and that also ties into that we're going to make mistakes. And--

VERONICA N. PARKER: Absolutely.

Carla Slowiczek: --the goal is to not wear the hair shirt for too long-- for a little while, but to learn that-- remember you're human, you're going to make mistakes, and to strive to grow.

VERONICA N. PARKER: Absolutely. Absolutely. I wholeheartedly agree with both of those. Examining what we think we know, because we all have predetermined thoughts or ideas or experiences that we're bringing with us. But again, we always have the opportunity to continue to learn and grow.

And by engaging in discussions such as these, participating in sessions such as these, these are our opportunities to learn new tools and to reframe our ways of being, including our thinking, practices, so on and so forth. So thank you both, Tanya and Carla, for sharing. Appreciate it. Anyone else want to share? And you can also share in the chat as well and we can make sure everyone understands what was shared in the chat. Let's see. I'm not seeing anything.

Burr Guthrie: I'm happy to share out--

VERONICA N. PARKER: Go ahead.

Burr Guthrie: --our group talked about. I think all three of us, the first two lines of the poem resonated with us-- brave space. I think for at least two of us, that was a new term. And we liked it, and we thought about it and agreed that there really isn't a brave space. But we liked the brave space.

And I suggested what it meant to me was a place to be vulnerable without being judged or to be able to say your piece. So we all thought about that, and I think we could have gone further with a little more time. But really the brave space was what resonated with us, and we spent most of our time talking about that.

VERONICA N. PARKER: I appreciate that, Burr. Again, that's an opportunity for us to examine what we think we know because we've been used to and introduced to this idea of a safe space. And even when I was introduced to this particular poem, thinking more about safe space versus brave space. And what you said, of course, makes a lot of sense.

And I also think about the second part that you mentioned where being vulnerable and so on and so forth. The stance that we call each other to more truth and love, that's the part of the brave space where we do get the opportunity to be vulnerable and share our experiences, share our beliefs, values, so on and so forth.

But then we also get the opportunity to connect with one another and to experience more love in this space that we're creating together. So thank you so much for sharing. And again, if you want to share in the chat, we offer the opportunity to do so. It's not necessarily about sharing, but we'll hope that you found in this particular poem is you have an intention now or something that's going to prepare you for and you had an opportunity to reflect.

So we will move forward with the next section of our presentation, which will be the historical context. And so we-- as part of this presentation and almost pretty much every session I do that's equity centered, I always like to bring it back to the historical context so that we all understand how we got to this place.

As we know, there are things that have happened in our history before we were even thought of that still is present today. And so it's an opportunity for us to examine, how do we get here? So we examine the historical context of education not just to present a deficit narrative, but to understand how we got to where we are now.

So we have three links-- and we will share this PowerPoint presentation with you all so that you'll have access to the actual links, which is the historical timeline of public education in the US that was provided to us by the National Equity Project, as well as oppression education in the lens of systemic oppression.

And so for the historical timeline of public education, again, this is an opportunity for you to just sit and reflect on our history and points in time that have created systems of inequity, but then also there are a couple of opportunities in here where we have overcome certain challenges or certain policies, laws, legislation that were presented as an inequity but now has been reframed into something that everyone has access to.

So I will start with back in time, in 1779, Thomas Jefferson proposes a two track educational system with different tracks for, in his words, the laboring and the learned. Scholarship would allow a very few of the laboring class to advance. Jefferson says, by waking a few geniuses from the rubbish.

In the 1830s, by this time, most Southern states had laws forbidding teaching in slavery to read-- by teaching people, excuse me, in slavery to read. Even so, around 5% became literate at great personal risk. 1820 to 1860, the percentage of people working in agriculture plummets as family farms are gobbled up by larger agricultural businesses, and people are forced to look for work in towns and cities.

At the same time, cities grow tremendously fueled by new manufacturing industries, the influx of people from the rural areas and many immigrants from Europe. During the 10 years from 1846 to 1856, 3.1 immigrants arrive, a number equal to one eighth of the entire US population. Owners of industry needed a docile obedient workforce, and looked to public schools to provide it.

In 1852, two years after California became a state, the legislature passed a bill barring African-American children from schools. The first state convention of colored citizens of the color state of California met in 1854, and in a public pronouncement, shaved against this discriminatory measure. 1864, Congress makes it illegal for Native Americans to be taught in their native languages.

Native children as young as four years old are taken from their parents and sent to the Bureau of Indian Affairs off reservation boarding schools whose goal, as one BIA official put it, is to kill the Indian to save the man. By 1870, California had devise a formula of 10 when African-Americans, Asian-Americans, or American-Indians number 10 students, each school district was empowered to create separate schools for whites and non-white children.

1930s, the lemon Grove California School Board decided to build a separate school for children of Mexican heritage without giving notice to their parents. In 1945, the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, lawyers implement such a category-- such a strategy to try to challenge school segregation in California filed by Mexican-American parents in Orange County, California.

NAACP lawyers follow the Mendez versus Westminster case closely and modeled the strategy in Brown versus Board of Education in 1954. And in 1994, proposition 187 passes in California, making it illegal for children of undocumented immigrants to attend public school. Federal courts uphold-- excuse me, federal courts hold proposition 187 unconstitutional, but anti-immigrant feelings spread across the country.

So again, these are just a few points in history. This timeline, of course, is way more expansive, but provides you with more of a exhaustive historical context of public education just so you can understand the points in history that have gotten us to where we are today. So we offer you the opportunity to take a look at this particular document, and we can post a link to the actual document in the chat. And again, keep this in mind as we continue to talk about the digital equity divide and how we got to where we are present day. So we'll go on to the next slide.

Mandilee Gonzales: OK. So that's me. Sorry, I was trying to drop links for you. [laughs] So as we-- WE really just processed a lot of the information that either you read or that Dr. Parker went over. It does provide us the opportunity to really be rooted in our reality today and where we are. And to become grounded in now what our action is and what is social justice and what is equity?

So we are going to spend some time examining the definitions and principles. So we are going to start with social justice. And I will ask if someone would like to come off of mute, either raising their hand or just popping off of mute, and reading the definition that we have on the screen.

Laura Dutch: I can go.

Mandilee Gonzales: OK.

Laura Dutch: Social justice is about distributing resources fairly and treating all students equitably so that they feel safe and secure physically and psychologically. National Education Association 2019.

Mandilee Gonzales: Thank you, Laura. And so now understanding-- well, listening to the definition, here are some social justice principles on the screen. And we want to ground ourselves in starting, as Veronica did, with the historic patterns of injustice and truly holding ourselves accountable for our actions in perpetuating and disrupting all of those patterns.

So as we covered up into this point, it starts with the understanding of the historical context of education and our position and our biases. So we want to celebrate and acknowledge the diversity of all people and not just a particular group of people. So we want to continue to take positive actions and to eliminate the discrimination and the oppression by constantly learning, critically reflecting, and then reframing our actions.

I know that personally, daily learning and daily realizing we're-- just the poem said, there might be times where I've wounded other people, and I take responsibility for that and accountability, and I try to move forward knowing that I am not perfect. So these social justice principles allow us to continue to stay grounded in the work that we do. What is equity. So I'm going to ask if somebody else would like to volunteer and come off of mute to read this definition for us, please.

Patricia: I can go.

Mandilee Gonzales: Thank you.

Patricia: Equity means that every learner receives what they need to develop their full and societal potential.

Mandilee Gonzales: Thank you, Patricia. Appreciate you. So I'll quote, "Issues of educational equity are critical to our learners both because many are parents and because these issues are connected to other political and economic inequities impacting their lives." And this was from [inaudible] in 2020.

So some of the equitable practices adopted-- sorry, adapted from the National Equity Project include understanding which communities, students, and our families are least served by the programs and services that are offered, and developing targeted programs that are tested and monitored to see that impact.

Routinely engaging in equity analysis. So determine the extent to which internal policies and practices and culture are reproducing those inequities, and contributing to that greater equity. Using the analysis to articulate our internal equity goals. And ways in which an organization can do this are by engaging in ongoing self exploration, identifying those blind spots, and to seek out learning and supports to grow leadership for equity.

The other part that we can do is using an explicit equity and inclusion lens when designing and assessing programs and interventions. So really being intentional about our work and how we design all of our programs. Creating structures and engaging in processes that ensure those experiences, those that are experiencing the inequity are informing the problem statement. So co-designing, solutions, and assessing those impacts. All right. And now digital equity. So what is digital equity? I will ask for one more volunteer to please come off of mute and read this definition, please.

Burr Guthrie: Good afternoon. Digital equity is a condition in which all individuals and communities have the information, technology, capacity needed for full participation in our society, democracy, and economy. Digital equity is necessary for civic and cultural participation and employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services.

Mandilee Gonzales: Thank you, Burr. So I believe we all have a good understanding of what digital equity is. But we also want to ensure that that responsibility is making sure that our teachers can deliver instruction and instructional materials in an equitable way, being cognizant of our student population, understanding where they are and how they understand the ability to use that digital pieces. So can they access the internet? Do they have broadband? Do they actually have a device? And so it's all of those tangible aspects.

And then there's the other piece, which is also that digital literacy piece. Once they might-- once they have it, do they then know how to engage with that equipment or how to access the internet and really utilize the internet to maybe look for a job or get additional social services that might be there to help lift them?

So digital equity is something that is very relevant today because as we live in this technological society, it's becoming very apparent that even our essential jobs-- even our essential-- jobs working in a factory, stocking shelves, are now incorporating more and more technology and those digital skills, and digital equity is necessary to do that. So teacher agency in our position will now-- I'm going to hand it off to Dr. Parker.

VERONICA N. PARKER: Great. Thank you so much, Mandilee. So one of these-- well, two of these strategies that we have researched as it relates to helping to close the digital divide are teacher agency and position ability. And so we examine both of these because we want to make sure that when it comes to learning environments in particular and the implementation of cultural responsive classroom practices and strategies, oftentimes, the onus is on the administrator and then more so than not the actual classroom instructor.

And so again, we want to examine who we are, where we come from, what our experiences have been, what our values and beliefs are in order to continue to, as poem examine what we think we know, but then also to critically reflect on our own practices in order to make sure that we are being inclusive in our delivery of instruction and creating equitable, inclusive, learning spaces.

So we have grounded ourselves in what social justice is and what equity is. And so now we'll spend some time on these two particular topics. So in this section, we'll explore teacher agency as an theorized concept as well as position. So positionality is-- my controller's-- positionality is how one fits in based on gender, race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, culture, language and other social factors.

So when we're thinking about our own personality, again, it's an opportunity for us to critically reflect. And so the next slide, we have some reasons why we would do that in order to gain more self awareness and to inform our positionality. So we critically reflect, again, to identify the ways that we perceive and process differences, as well as understand how we have been shaped by the world around us and how, in turn, others have shaped have been shaped by the world around them.

Also to make sense of the things we say we do and what we believe, as well as become more aware of our perceptions as well as our interactions with others, including learners, those in which we are in community with, those in which we work with, the actual community, partners, so on and so forth.

And then to better understand ourselves, what motivates us, what values we hold, and then how those values, motivations, beliefs, so on and so forth, impact how we engage with those whose backgrounds may differ from our own? And so again, we want to examine who we are in our positionality. So we invite you all to pause with intention, again, to critically reflect.

So on the next slide, we'll spend some time doing just that. So we have five questions that we would like to invite you all to, A, answer and to share out. And we will go back into breakout rooms for this particular exercise. And it will be in the same breakout room, so you'll be with the individuals that you started out with.

But we want to pose these five questions to you, which one being, what identities and roles, occupations included, do you hold? What privileges do you hold and when did you become aware of those? When did you first recognize your ethnicity or race? How have you been marginalized? And thinking about your life's choices, what do you-- why do you make the decisions that you make in your particular organization?

Again, it's an opportunity for us to continue to ground ourselves in who we are and how we show up in our educational space and what our positionality is-- experiences, values, beliefs, so on and so forth. And so we will pose these five questions in the chat, and then we will also go into breakout rooms. And we will spend 7 minutes here. And so, Holly, if you could open up those breakout rooms. But before you do so--

Mandilee Gonzales: I opened them.

VERONICA N. PARKER: OK, great. Great. Great. So it looks like people may already be going into their breakout rooms. And this-- yes. So you have these five questions in your breakout room. If you could, just take a picture and have that for you so that you can continue to reflect on these questions.

Mandilee Gonzales: Hello everyone.

VERONICA N. PARKER: All right. Welcome back, every-- welcome back, everyone. And thank you for joining us back in the lager room. We hope that the discussion you had with your partners was fruitful, and you learn something about yourself. You may have had something that surprised you during that discussion. So we want to do a share out and then we'll go to the next slide.

So we do want to know, did you discover something about yourself or was there something about what you learned about yourself through those five questions that actually surprised you? So we invite you to come off mute. You can also feel free to type in the chat. The chat is always our friend if you do not want to come off mute. And again, we're thinking about those five reflection questions that you all had. Anyone want to share?

Jaemi Naish: I'll share. I'm sorry, I don't want to cut anyone off. OK.

VERONICA N. PARKER: No, go ahead.

Jaemi Naish: Jaemi Naish, Tam Adult School. Hi, everybody. I will share-- not so much a surprise, but just a reminder that I grew up in Berkeley, which is a very diverse, multicultural environment. And when I went off to college in Santa Barbara, it was like starkly opposite. And I was telling Tanya, who was in my breakout, well, I look like everybody that's in Santa Barbara. I did not think like everybody in Santa Barbara.

And I actually haven't thought about that in a while. And so it was just a reminder like, oh, yeah, that's really when you first were like, bam, this is different than where you grew up and how you were raised.

VERONICA N. PARKER: Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that reminder. Anyone else want to share?

All right. I will take the opportunity actually to share. I remember in my doctoral program, I took a class called the foundations of urban education, and we talked about privilege and what privilege meant? Who holds privilege? What to do if you do have privilege and how privilege should not be perceived as a negative thing but using your privilege to impact others and to be of service to others actually could be a very good thing.

And so when it came to it, of course, when we're thinking about race in particular and how individuals within-- even my family have been marginalized to some capacity. Thinking about me holding privilege, I was like, no, I don't have any privilege. But then when we started to unpack and we started to reflect, I had to think about even being in that doctoral program was a privilege.

Although I worked very, very hard to become a part of that cohort, I understand that even being in that program was a privilege. And that I do get the opportunity to share what I've learned to continue to critically reflect and continue to be in service to others as part of me being a part of the doctoral program. So that was very interesting because, again, I don't-- I didn't resonate with privilege. But now I do understand. So anyone else want to share.

Linda Bernabe: Veronica, I wanted to echo what you were mentioning. I also had an activity where-- I'm a mentor. So we did something similar. And same thing. For the longest time, I didn't think of myself in terms of privilege. I had been a student, low income, broke, and first generation of those things. And then I had to realize, oh, I have all of this privilege now.

I moved along the spectrum in a lot of ways. But I really like what you-- I appreciate what you said. Privilege doesn't have to be a bad thing. Because when I left that workshop, I was like, Oh my god. I'm part of the system now. I view myself in a negative light, so I really appreciate you mentioning that.

VERONICA N. PARKER: You're welcome, yeah. Yeah, it was definitely a shock, and also an opportunity to reframe and be grounded in that. , Thank you so much for sharing your experience Linda. All right. Well, in the chat, please feel free to share. I hope you all again had a fruitful conversation with those you were working with. And we'll transition into the next part of our webinar, which is on teacher agencies.

So as we mentioned before, we focus on teacher agency because we do know that most times than not, the individuals who are leading the classroom, the instructors, the onus is on them to ensure that A, they are creating inclusive educational environments within the classroom. But then when it comes to the digital literacy component and teaching online or making sure students have access to be able to do their homework, take a test, so on and so forth, teachers in particular are charged with that.

And so again, we focus on teacher agency, but also knowing that the theory of teacher agency has been or is under theorized. Inclusive education starts with the purpose, and then development is the how to beyond just tradition? And so we will unpack this a little bit more. This is provided to us by Min et al of 2021. And so now that, of course, we've become more grounded, we will focus on this.

So we'll go on to the next slide. So teacher agency ecological model, and this is provided to us by the same authors. And so there are four components of this ecological model. And so again, as I mentioned, teacher agency is underexplored and under theorized in comparison to human agency.

Human agencies is ones intentionality influenced by competence and reflexivity, and argue that people mobilize themselves within social structures. Teacher agency is critical in supporting student learners, teachers, professional development, school improvements, and the success of innovations and reform policies. So this slide, again, is-- excuse me, it's Priestley et al 2015.

And iterational is one's professional histories including their teacher education experiences, so their experiences within their own educational programs to become a teacher. Projective includes visions of professional work around inclusive education. Then we have practical evaluative as part of this ecological model, and that is where iteration and project meets.

So this most discussed-- excuse me, this most discussed factors in this dimension of the ecological model include the cultural, structural, and material aspects as it relates to the official purposes and mechanisms of public education, the societal understanding of abilities, and other social cultural differences, and the distribution of intellectual human and material resources.

The achievement of agency is always informed by past experiences, which is why we do our reflective activity because we want to reflect on where we came from, what our past experiences are, and where we are present day. And so in teacher agency, in particular, this concerns both professional and personal experience. And is always oriented towards the future in some combination of shorter term and longer term objectives and values.

So again, that's why we bring in some of those personal experiences along with our professional experiences because that is what's going to propel us forward. So teacher agency is achieved by the interplay of individual and group collective perceptions and intentions and the conditions provided by the school, the district contexts, and surrounding community.

So on the next slide, we do share some inclusive education practices. Again, I do understand that this may be hard to read. We will send the PowerPoint to everyone so that you have access to it. But this is provided to us by Kozelski et al 2014. And it says by definition, inclusive education aims to enhance access, participation, and outcomes for all diverse student populations who have been traditionally excluded from formal education.

So again, these are some inclusive education practices. And as on this chart, the left hand column starts with aspects of teacher agency. So that includes teacher identity, so professional roles, moral roles, and motivation, as well as professional competence. So that's the knowledge and practice of inclusive pedagogy with social equity as its core.

Inclusive professional philosophy. So attitudes and perceptions towards teaching, learning, and ability. Autonomy, so individual and collective efficacy, decision making power, and active collaboration with others. And then reflexivity is the other aspect of teacher agency. So constant reflection, monitoring and regulation of one owns' actions, and social contexts.

So under, let's say, inclusive teacher identity, some practices includes, promoting equal status and collaborative teaching partnership, embracing ambiguity in the role of inclusive education activities or activists, acting as a school system developer and decision maker. And then if we scroll down to autonomy, some practices includes constructing a supportive ecology within schools, collaborating with neighboring schools, communities, and families.

So that's where we get our neighboring schools. It could be like a professional learning community, or within your communities, you have your school site councils. And then with families, engaging families and what's going on within the school. Co-planning and deciding curricula, committing to building trustworthy relationships with students. So we know that education equals relationships.

And so we want to make sure that we are very intentional about building relationships with our students, as well as colleagues, the community, partners, so on and so forth. So again, we'll provide this PowerPoint to you all with these practices and all of the other resources that we have research as part of this presentation.

On the next slide, we have-- provided to us by links is an inclusive classroom self-assessment for educators. And we will pop this link in the chat. I will grab it for you all. But the purpose of this assessment is to help you identify your inclusive classroom practices and areas of growth, and the results are indicators for future learning and not as a-- excuse me, for future learning and not as a failure if you score or neutral or unaware.

Because again, we have the opportunity to examine what we think we know, and we have the opportunity to continue to grow and learn together. So let me before-- we move forward, I'm going to find this links self-assessment because it's not included in the PowerPoint. One second.

Mandilee Gonzales: I think I have it.

VERONICA N. PARKER: OK, perfect. Thank you so much Mandilee. Oh actually, you sent this to just me.

Mandilee Gonzales: I got it. Sorry. There we go.

VERONICA N. PARKER: [laughs] All right. So LINCS. Last fall, they came out with a new DEI course, and this is also in partnership with the American Institutes for Research. They came out with a DEI self-paced course. And so if you create a LINCS account and you go to the self-paced courses, you'll see the DEI courses, and this is a part of the DEI course.

And that's taken-- this inclusive classroom self-assessment so that you can understand where you are when it comes to your inclusive classroom practices, and then where you can go by examining where you may be neutral or unaware. But again, that's not an opportunity for it to be viewed as a failure, but again, an opportunity to continue to learn and grow. So on the next slide, teacher development. So by engaging in some of these strategies and practices that we have just mentioned, there is an opportunity, again, to grow.

So there's an opportunity to nurture a commitment to social justice as part of the teacher's sense of purpose, developing competencies and inclusive pedagogical approaches, including working with others, as well as developing relational agency for transforming the conditions of the workplaces, and a capacity to reflect on practices and environments when seeking to support learning of all students.

So again, this is an opportunity to continue to grow and develop. So before we move forward, I want to know, based on what has been shared throughout this presentation but then also what you are currently doing, what are some ways in which your agency has promoted teacher agency development to create and sustain inclusive learning environments? So you can answer in the chat, or you can come off mute. Anyone?