Update 6 – Learning Sciences in Urban Schools

Student rituals and culturally relevant analogies: Analogy and metaphor as a key to communal practice In this study, the research has discovered that heightened levels of emotional energy, synchrony, and student interest are achieved when analogies that are culturally relevant to students are enacted in the classroom. These culturally relevant analogies are a staple of student conversations when they try to explain chemistry and physics topics to each other. They are also present when students want to make sense of topics that they find challenging. As a result of this discovery, I echo the sentiment that “expressing an analogy orally and putting it into the public sphere in the classroom can serve as a basis for communication about the object or concept”

Irrespective of teacher credentials and subject specific concerns, in general teachers in high-poverty schools more often report having to work with outdated textbooks in short supply; outdated computers and other kinds of technology; and inadequate or nonexistent science equipment, materials and labs. As well, the amount and variety of college-preparatory or advanced placement offerings lag significantly behind schools serving more advantaged populations (Freel, 1998). Combined with deficient supplies, materials and opportunities to learn, deteriorating physical plants, often another characteristic of high-poverty urban schools, can diminish student engagement and achievement. More than a decade ago, physical conditions in urban schools predicted academic engagement and performance (Lewis et al., 1999) but basic materials — including textbooks, science equipment and desks — were generally in disrepair or absent. Thus, conditions in high-poverty schools too often render them sites of developmental risk rather than competent assets that would enhance student developmental outcomes.

Education psychology opens the door to understanding what the psyche of the minority child has to offer. We are at a point in our educational growth that allows us to take a deep dive into the inner workings of the thoughts of children of color, when in the not so distant past (and sometimes present) that wasn’t a priority. The Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, that is clearly aligned with Educational Psychology, was borne from the need for educators to connect on a more meaningful basis with their students. When educators can cultivate those genuine relationships, form lasting bonds, and having positive lasting impacts on students, the gaps that we see in our educational system starts to trend in the right direction.

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https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00461520.2017.1421466?scroll=top&needAccess=true

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/teachers-more-likely-to-label-black-students-as-troublemakers.html