Professional Book Study Blog #5

For this blog, I was tasked with reading a book entitled Teach Boldly by Jennifer Williams. This was not my first choice for books, but I was interested in getting some ideas after reading the description. In my opinion, the book centered around the themes of social justice and equity in education. Williams goes into detail about how to achieve these things through using educational technology. I enjoyed the different examples of what she had been introduced to. In particular, Chapter 3 is titled The Human-Centered Learning Environment. This chapter described a plan created after Google did a diversity analysis within their own company. They realized that their company was not as diverse as they thought and they wanted to help change that. To tackle the problem, they decided that they needed to start at the beginning -- in schools. This was the birth of the Google Code Next lab in Oakland, California. It was centrally located in a diverse neighborhood and help students from local schools to begin using the lab. This idea is a great way to meet the students where they are. It has become all too noticeable with the current pandemic as to how many students across the country do not have the same opportunities due to socioeconomic status. 

I love this video about equity by an educator.  

With equity issue becoming more apparent, we are the ones that are going to have to start where we can in our own classrooms. I know that within my own district, we have tried to bridge some of the gap with devices and hotspots for those that do not have internet service at home. We still must rely on companies to make sure their service is available in all areas, including rural areas. That is a major issue in my local district. We have places that cannot receive services due to the rural location of their homes. 

Throughout my career, I hope that we can continue to close these gaps and make our education system better for all students. 

We can use systems such as described in Weiler and Hinnant-Crawford's article. This is what they say, "Integrated Comprehensive Systems for Equity builds collaborative equity capacity and guides leaders, teachers, staff, students, and families across a school system using a “four cornerstones” framework: (1) Focus on equity, (2) Align all students and staff, (3) Transform teaching and learning, and (4) Leverage policy and funding toward equity. (p. 3)" 

Overall, the book was not the easiest read and definitely not my favorite professional development resource. I did enjoy the parts in each chapter that included ideas to try in my own classroom. It will be fun to use these ideas with my own students and connect globally while helping all of society to come together.

Williams, J. (2020). Teach boldly: using Edtech for social good. Hawker Brownlow Education.

Weiler, J. R., & Hinnant-Crawford, B. (2021). School Leadership Team Competence for Implementing Equity Systems Change: An Exploratory Study. The Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Education, 1. https://doi-org.ezproxy.montevallo.edu/10.1007/s11256-021-00600-7