BCNM at AERA 2023
Each year, the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting is the world's largest gathering of education researchers and a showcase for groundbreaking, innovative studies in an array of areas. The 2023 Annual Meeting is a dual-component conference. The place-based component was held in Chicago, IL, April 13-16, the virtual component online May 4-5.
BCNM is happy to announce that the following UC Berkeley and BCNM researchers will be featured in this year's American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting
Morgan Ames' paper "The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child" will be included at the AERA's Sorting Machines: Technology and Inequality in Education event.
Sun, April 16, 9:50 to 11:20am CDT (7:50 to 9:20am PDT), Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk, Floor: Lobby - Level 3, Streeterville
Abstract
The Charisma Machine chronicles the life and legacy of the One Laptop per Child project and explains why—despite its failures—the same utopian visions that inspired OLPC still motivate other projects trying to use technology to “disrupt” education and development.
Announced in 2005 by MIT Media Lab cofounder Nicholas Negroponte, One Laptop per Child promised to transform the lives of children across the Global South with a small, sturdy, and cheap laptop computer, powered by a hand crank. In reality, the project fell short in many ways—starting with the hand crank, which never materialized. Yet the project remained charismatic to many who were captivated by its claims of access to educational opportunities previously out of reach. Behind its promises, OLPC, like many technology projects that make similarly grand claims, had a fundamentally flawed vision of who the computer was made for and what role technology should play in learning.
Drawing on fifty years of history and a seven-month study of a model OLPC project in Paraguay, The Charisma Machine reveals that the laptops were not only frustrating to use, easy to break, and hard to repair, they were designed for “technically precocious boys”—idealized younger versions of the developers themselves—rather than the children who were actually using them. The book offers a cautionary tale about the allure of technology hype and the problems that result when utopian dreams drive technology development.
John Scott will feature as a presenting author along with Lihil Rosenthal for their work "Embodiment for Praxis: Social Justice Leaders Preparing for "Good Trouble" as part of the Stories of Arts, Embodiment, and Praxis in PreK-20 Leader Preparation.
Sat, April 15, 8:00 to 9:30am CDT (6:00 to 7:30am PDT), Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk, Floor: Level 2, Colorado
Abstract
Einstein is quoted to have said, “The significant problems we face today cannot be solved with the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” Given the need for such new and novel thinking, it’s unsurprising that a full 44% of superintendents have doctoral degrees (Tienken & Domenech, 2021), a statistic that has remained true for decades (Glass, et. al, 2000; Kowalski, et. al, 2010). After all, educational systems are complex, as is the work of leading them (Corcoran, et. al, 2001; Datnow, 2005; Honig, et. al, 2010).
While high numbers of aspiring educational system leaders recognize a need for continued growth, the education system itself is growing in unfamiliar ways. School systems and leaders must now negotiate everything from book bans and laws meant to censor teachers, to the climate catastrophe and the need to prepare youth for a future we cannot yet envision. Education is changing, and leadership preparation must stretch to meet these new needs. Returning to Einstein, this study shares one EdD program’s attempt at providing learning experiences capable of eliciting the sort of thinking necessary to solve our most significant problems.
Jennifer Higgs from the University of California, Davis will be featured at four different events at the 2023 AERA:
In Structured Poster Session: Computational Thinking in Humanities will be on the session paper, "Teachers' Perspectives on Integrating Sociotechnical Awareness in English and Social Studies Classrooms (poster 5)" on Thursday, April 13th, 2023.
Higgs will also be part of the in-paper session: Supporting Students Through Learning Sciences Research on the paper, "Considerations for the Learning Sciences at the Intersection of Equitable Learning Environments and Scale", and then in the poster session: Early Career Scholars and Their Work on the poster presentation, "Metaphors We Tweet By: Designing for Sociotechnical Awareness and Disciplinary Relevance in a Secondary English Classroom" on Saturday, April 15th, 2023.
As well as the in-paper session: Teacher Knowledge and Cognition on the paper, "Understanding What Kind of Teacher Noticing Lead to Disciplined Improvisation" that will be taking place on Sunday, April 16, 2023.
Kiera Chase will be featured in the virtual paper session: Professional Development School Research on the virtual paper, "Shifts in Mathematics Teacher "Noticing": Video Club as Tool for Supporting Attention to Student Language".
Thu, May 4, 11:30am to 1:00pm CDT (9:30 to 11:00am PDT), SIG Virtual Rooms, Professional Development School Research SIG Virtual Paper Room
Abstract
This project identifies patterns among mathematics educators’ attention to students’ use of language to express their ideas. Given the need for students and teachers to communicate across increasingly divergent cultural and linguistic norms, the ultimate objective of this work is to enhance the context, conditions, design and efficacy of professional learning for math teachers expected to integrate language learning into their professional practice. This paper emerges from data gathered in a larger research study addressing persistent gaps in Algebra 1 pass rates and scores, in particular for multilingual learners. We use “Video Club” (Jilk, 2016), a structured protocol used by groups of teachers to analyze and tag video clips of their own classroom instruction, with a focus on language-supportive instruction.