Thoughts and Reflections on WestEd’s LCoP (Leadership Community of Practice) Desmond Narain Doulatram in Collaboration with LAChair Oyinade
JiTDam Kapeel (Skillful Inquiry) "Curious makes clever." Similar to the Greek Proverb "Wonder is the beginning of wisdom."
LCoP and the Role of Inquiry Participants will learn to: • Engage colleagues in collaborative inquiry into the Reading Apprenticeship instructional framework, disciplinary reading processes, and metacognitive conversation • Guide colleagues in making the complex, invisible processes they use as expert readers in their disciplines visible and accessible to students • Support colleagues in transforming their classroom practice to build on students’ strengths as readers and learners • Evolve Reading Apprenticeship implementation through the discovery of colleagues’ work in their classrooms and institutions • Create communities of practice that sustain a campus-wide student-centered culture of high-level literacy • Deepen Reading Apprenticeship classroom practices
Student Learning Outcomes and the Role of Inquiry when Applying the RA (Reading Apprenticeship) FRAMEWORK as stated in academic Literature Zaretta Hammond's "Ready for Rigor" Framework • •
Culturally responsive teaching is a powerful tool to help dependent learners develop the cognitive skills for higher order thinking. Culturally responsive teaching uses the brain principles from neuroscience to mediate learning effectively.
The Role of Inquiry in Reading Apprenticeship Professional Learning • •
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Inquiries also support teachers in understanding the ways social environments have shaped their own literacy capacities and identities over time and, by extension, play weighty roles in their students' relationships to reading, writing, and learning in school. By definition, inquiry cannot be passive. It is an active, intentional process animated by questions and observations. The inquirer actively engages in constructing new understandings by building theories, finding patterns, and making meaning. Inquiry experiences are therefore potentially transformative in their impact on knowledge and practices...Engaging in inquiries would therefore provide teachers with an experiential knowledge base of literacy routines and strategies, as well as a set of tools that would support them to implement these practices. Just as language practices are socially and culturally shaped and may not be shared across people— resulting, perhaps, in miscommunication and misinterpretation—readers who do not share the interpretive practices and conventions relied upon by writers may have difficulty understanding authorial intent.
Promoting College of the Marshall Islands (CMI’s) Excellence Synergies and Tension • •
Main synergy I see within these two readings is the need to contextualize the learning environment to meet students where they are at whether it be through culturally responsive teaching or using inquiry to understand social environments. Main tension I see with these two readings is that sometimes promoting culturally responsive teaching might limit inquiry because in some cultures there is a "culture of silence" as a sign of respect so using a culturally responsive lens might inhibit more engaging inquiry due to the nature of a students culture as in the case of the Pacific where it is evident even in the Marshall Islands. This is especially true when Teachers in the College of the Marshall Islands are often viewed as elders because of our roles in training and teaching students.
"In ancient days in the Marshall Islands and today, taciturnity seemly characterized the mode of life and affairs of the people and state under a dominion. Although normal trends of conversing within the members of families prevailed, at times it is inhibited by the presence of the elders, the heads of the clans and more so when a sense of no confidence is felt by the common membership.The untrained and inexperienced segments of the families would turn silent for the reason of their limited purview, particularly when the exchange of views would turn into a discussion of substantive and important matters and issues." (Kabua 1992) Culture of Silence in the Marshall Islands "In the Pacific, most decisions are arrived at through communal consensus; however, community agreement does not necessarily mean that all members of the community have had their views heard. The “culture of silence” — where people usually do not speak unless spoken to or asked a question, where people respect the views of elders and do not contradict what has been agreed to — is rife in many Pacific Island cultures. This culture of silence means the views of certain community members are not heard, and this usually includes the views of women and young people." (Secretariat of the Pacific Community 2008)
Culture of Silence in the Pacific Region To accommodate this cultural barrier, some College of the Marshall Islands Instructors have to indigenize academic climate in an effort to contextualize by utilizing an indigenous Marshallese way of intimate inquiry called "JiTDam Kapeel" literally translated Skillful Inquiry which is CMI's motto. This is to accommodate students to help create for them an academic space. Some instructors utilize the Marshallese Language Arts in their Fine Arts classes via Bilingual instruction. (Bojos 2020; Willson 2020) Bojos, Rosalie F. Designing the Jitdam Kapeel Andragogy: Rationale and Step, Faculty, College of the Marshall Islands September 2020 (Links to an external site.) Willson, Nicolas. “Waween Katak ko an Aelon Kein: Marshallese Learning Styles”. Speech Teachers, College of the Marshall Islands, September
Presentation. In-Service Training for
Continuation Both sample cases above showcase teacher commitment by non indigenous instructors to the Marshallese community thus fulfilling its Mission. Mission of the College of the Marshall Islands (Links to an external site.) Other Examples of Leadership in Accommodating Cultural and Social Circumstances of Marshallese by Admin and Instructors Introduction to the Marshall Islands and the College of the Marshall Islands (CMI) (Links to an external site.) Auto-Ethnography and LA Exhibit College of the Marshall Islands JILEL Volume 4, Issue 3, 2021. external site.) College of the Marshall Islands JILEL Volume 4, Issue 4, 2021.
(Links to an
Contextualizing RA (Reading Apprenticeship) Framework using the role of Inquiry for Culturally Empathetic Learning via JiTDam Kapeel (Skillful Inquiry) for Curious Makes Clever as Wonder is the Beginning of Wisdom
Personal Dimension:Personally, after watching the videos or reading the article, is there anything you can relate to in terms of your own personal life?
Social Dimension:Do you see any similarities with the issues you see with your own community (e.g. Family, Marshallese Community, Home, etc)?
Cognitive Dimension:What possible solutions do you think can be done to alleviate the issues?
Knowledge Building Dimension:What do you know NOW that you did not know THEN when watching the video(s) and reading the article?
Ien Kamolol to express Gratitude for engaging Collaborative Inquiry My success with applying RA Framework for High Quality Assessment would not have been possible without the support of LA Chair Oyinade, the LA Department, Dean of Academic Affairs Va, Institutional Research Director Cheryl, VPASA Dr. Elizabeth, and the CMI students who participated in the assessment process for it is they that ultimately dictate my success in incorporating the RA Framework in the classroom with their active participation.