Cultural Well-Being in Classroom Communities in Australia

Well-being is an increasingly important topic of schooling policy and research internationally. While the concept of well-being is understood in various ways, little attention has been given to its cultural aspects. The convergence between culture, well-being, and learning is being realized, and the concept of cultural well-being presents new insights relevant to ongoing school reform efforts. Cultural well-being is a nascent concept in education considered to relate to students’ sense of connection to school, people, places, and cultures. A typology of cultural well-being produced from an Australian study of teachers’ perceptions depicts three prominent interpretations of culture: (a) school culture, (b) processes of recognition, and (c) cultural participation and production. The typology of cultural well-being enables the interrogation of complex power relations, revealing some of the ways that schools continue to reproduce social and cultural inequalities. The application of a typology of cultural well-being illustrates the interplay between school culture, recognition, and cultural participation and can support international initiatives to reform schooling with a greater emphasis on the well-being of all students, potentially addressing and reducing inequalities.

Addressing Student Isolation During the Pandemic: An Inquiry into Renewing Relationships and Reimagining Classroom Communities on Remote Instruction Platforms

We began this pandemic cycle of inquiry by acknowledging that we all viewed relationships with our students as foundational to the teaching and learning process (i.e., Elmore, 2004; Fullan, 2007; Noddings, 2014; Rimm-Kaufman, et al., 2014). While we had well-established strategies for creating caring classroom communities in our face-to-face classrooms prior to the pandemic, we were all searching for new online strategies for keeping relationships vital when faced with the abrupt transition to remote instruction and the isolating effects of the Spring 2020 lockdown, both for ourselves and for our students. Hence, we committed to documenting and sharing with one another, the innovative strategies we were employing across our elementary and secondary school contexts. Through the use of informal sharing time and Zoom breakout rooms, we were able to connect personally with our students and to revitalize teacher-to-student and student-to-student relationships in our virtual classroom space.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Inquiring Into, About, and During Covid-19

One of the most pervasive ways the inquiry movement has needed to be reshaped since its inception is as a mechanism to respond to a global pandemic. As COVID-19 necessitated an abrupt transition to remote delivery of instruction, teachers needed a powerful form of professional learning to understand and respond with changes to serve their students during this challenging time. At P. K. Yonge Developmental Research School, a K-12 school, the leadership team designed a Canvas website devoted to teacher inquiry, enabling teachers to share experiences, collaborate, and address issues regarding the abrupt transition to emergency remote instruction. In this issue, five pandemic inquiry teams present their reflective essays, to describe their collaborations to re-imagine classroom communities; empower students to express their views of the pandemic; re-construct curricula to capture essential learnings; modify for struggling students, and bridge the opportunity gap for students of color.

The Student Teaching Equity Project: Exploring Teacher Candidates’ Knowledge, Skills, and Beliefs

A quasi-experimental mixed-methods study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of an equity intervention on teacher candidates’ abilities to articulate equity-based beliefs, and demonstrate and apply equity-based skills and knowledge. Three pre/post instruments were utilized. Treatment participants ( N = 35) were exposed to curricular modifications made to the traditional curriculum, including a workshop, panel event, online learning modules, and reflective postconferences. Quantitative findings showed a statistically significant treatment effect for treatment participants compared with candidates in the control group ( N = 83). Qualitative analyses showed that treatment participants articulated more equity-based language when describing their beliefs and intentions for their future classroom communities. Implications for practice and research are provided.

Being and becoming online teachers

In this paper, we retell the process of our collective autobiographical narrative inquiry into our experiences of teaching online. Our research wonders come from two questions, What is online teaching? and, Who are we in this space? Early in our time together we came to understand how our individual backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives have influenced the ways we see, create, and navigate our place, and our students’ place, in online classroom communities. We also came to understand how the stories to live by that we carried of becoming “teacher” shaped the ways we live and experience online teaching. From this collective experience we see the potential and value of autobiographical narrative inquiry for all those being and becoming online teachers.

Catholic Classroom Communities During Remote Teaching

In this COVID-era study, Catholic school teachers report the challenges that they experienced in supporting classroom communities during remote instruction, as well as the strategies that they enacted to address such challenges and make robust relationships with and among remote students. While teachers engaged in remote teaching, they were also studying in a Catholic Master of Arts in Teaching program, where they participated in weekly Freirian culture circles — structured dialogues designed to help teachers identify problems of equity and collectively devise appropriate responses. The teachers found that classroom community was hindered by a lack of in-person affordances, socioemotional stressors related to the pandemic, struggles to engage students, and structures of hybrid teaching. In response, teachers used the culture circles to create and/or share strategies for supporting remote classroom communities, such as classroom meetings and smallgroup collaboration. Teachers recognized that efforts to develop classroom communities were intimately connected to commitments to equity.

Building Community in Online Learning Environments

This self-study assesses the impact on classroom communities using distance learning activities. Five activities used in the author's high school science classes during the COVID-19 pandemic are analyzed based on a bilateral framework interweaving transactional distance (student-teacher interactions) and social interaction (student-student interaction). A reflective narration of activity development leads to a discussion of the effects of activity design on student-teacher and student-student interactions. The intersection between these interactions serves as a foundation for analyzing their impact on the classroom community. A predominant theme is the psychological separation students face when learning remotely and how activity design can intensify or diminish this perceived detachment. This chapter provides an exemplar for other educators to consider how transactional distance and social interaction play a role in the development of their own classroom communities.

Modeling a Culturally Responsive Mindset

To address the rapidly changing cultural demographic of the United States, educator preparation programs must guide future teachers to create welcoming and equitable classroom communities that establish diverse cultural contexts as the norm and address culture not as an add-on but infused in natural, authentic ways throughout the school year. This chapter provides a rationale for implementing culturally responsive pedagogy by addressing the concept of cultural competence and then offering strategies for creating a welcoming classroom that recognizes and values the whole child and creates an overall positive school culture that promotes inclusion and fosters success for all. Moreover, the chapter addresses the importance of modeling dispositions at the EPP level for normalizing culturally responsive practices so that preservice and beginning teachers will naturally and routinely recognize and employ strategies that make all students feel seen, embraced, and worthy.