Due to the nature of the current state of the world and online learning, we discovered that each of our classrooms faced a low turnout of participation and collaboration that includes: turning on video, audio functionality, and chat communication.  Upon further research and analysis, the team agreed that our equity goal should revolve around students’ development of academic language and confidence to share out. The lesson study team sought to add a variety of low-stakes participatory activities that would help our classrooms increase participation through the sharing of knowledge, engagement of concepts, and building upon those ideas. In our research, we found that by incorporating student heritage and funds of knowledge, students will feel important enough to share whilst promoting comfort and empowerment (Gérman 2020).

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In our lesson study, our opening sequence was our first attempt at implementing low-stakes participation that would enable students to share knowledge and build comfort with the concepts we would review. Our opening question included a question that asked students which locally-based fast-food joints that all our students had at least heard of or been to once had the best fries.  The opening question also included a variety of pictures and allowed a variety of voices to be expressed: via chat, unmuting, video, and direct private messages.  The students were also prompted to practice their knowledge of rhetorical persuasive techniques to defend their choice of ‘favorite fries’. This activity included no judgment for the responses, welcoming all students to share.  This contributed to the opportunity for a lot of participation from students to get warmed up and activate their minds. While rapport was obvious I do think that providing some sentence frames would have increased participation across a wider spectrum of students.  For example, the prompt could have included modeling my own response in using one of these sentence frames, then asking them to chime in.  

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To amplify these opportunities for student insight around their own internal bias or perspectives, we identified important concepts of action, identity, diversity, and justice within the issues and organizations we researched together prior to the lesson study. In the lesson, I modeled the concept map they would be working on by personalizing my own map based on my volunteer work with a social activist group (Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities). This informative map amplified the rapport I have with my students by reflecting on what specific details in my map meant and inviting my students to be comfortable in the work they were about to commence. Inviting students to create these mind-maps  and analyzing rhetoric within them in a reflective, and structured environment, opened up opportunities for students to  develop their own critical voice.  Some areas of growth could have included a separation of issues into different jamboards to allow for more organized participation and closer to the main objective of the lesson. In their own maps the students were able to dissect elements of past and contemporary social justice movements, and the ways they use rhetorical techniques to showcase a particular, often marginalized point of view. Our intention with this lesson was to amplify an already developing community of activists aspiring for equity. 

Students will choose academic success if we provide culturally relevant content and universally design learning for all students in our classroom. This was evident in how invested students were in choosing a social activist issue and organization to create an action plan for.  Our content goal also cultivated an environment for students to be able to choose academic success: Students will use their knowledge of persuasive arguing to understand the three elements of rhetoric (ethos, pathos,logos) to become a more effective writer and passionate community member

In the future I hope to craft similar lessons in which we are able to invite students to see the importance of a subject and see themselves in the content.  The collaborative experience greatly expanded my understanding of several areas I still struggle with, and allowed for growth.  I hope to create meaningful and thoughtful work that students can build alongside me, providing intentional feedback and allowing for multiple means of demonstrating learning.  This lesson cycle really pushed the boundaries of what we can accomplish.