The ability of teachers and students to engage effectively in difficult conversations, across that gap or amongst peers is central to creating the kinds of opportunities we want for students. At a bare minimum, those skills are needed to offer and receive effective feedback on student’s work. They are even more important if we want to engage students (and teachers) on challenging topics or to drive change within their school or in the broader community. The centrality of those skills seemed like a good place to kick off our 9th season of Collab Labs.
On October 10th we gathered at UWM’s Lubar Entrepreneurship Center for Collab Lab 63 and a discussion focused on Empowering All Voices. Our work for the evening engaged participants to map factors that allow all voices to participate in brave conversations.
The maps shown here were captured and included here unedited. The primary two goals of creating this experience for the attendees were to:
- Discuss and reflect on what group members with different backgrounds but shared purpose consider relevant factors and how they relate and impact each other.
- Reflect on how you would apply the insights generated to your own ‘self-management’ in a group setting with familiar and unfamiliar participants.
We did not explicitly ask attendees to consider a K12 setting with teacher-student(s) and teacher-teacher interactions. We are in the process of integrating these maps into our larger model, and will share that work in a subsequent post.
- What do you see in the maps when you look a bit more closely? Are there commonalities that stand out to you?
- What would be a question you might ask (one of the teams) to help connect some dots or further complete the map?
Thanks again to our Featured Participants:
- Hannah Fox — Health Education Coordinator, Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers
Serina Jamison — Program Director, Future Urban Leaders
Yesi Pérez — Neighborhood Revitalization Project Manager, Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers - Chris Willey — Director of Technology, Islands of Brilliance
Thanks also to Ben Trager from UWM’s Center for Student Experience & Talent for hosting us at UWM, and to his Ed Policy students who were a great addition to the conversation.
Join us on November 14th for Collab Lab 64: Place Based Engagement
