How to be Critical when Reflecting on Your Teaching - UCD - CTAG
OER_Pedagogy of Hope Conscientization Guide
Section 1 Activity 1_ Identity Charts Protocol Final
SEL Integration Approach
SEL Integration Approach
SEL-Integration-Approach-Teacher-Self-Check-Tool_vF2
SEL-Integration-Approach-Teacher-Self-Check-Tool_vF2
six elements of a pedagogy of hope
Some Critical Thinking on Paulo Freire's Critical Pedagogy and Its Educational Implications
The Whole Teacher: Practicing Self Care
A Pedagogy of Hope
Overview
This course has been created by Tiffany D. Pogue with support from Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity to provide an introduction to learners on A Pedagogy of Hope (PoH). By the end of the course's completion, learners will be able to discuss the development of a PoH, describe the basic characteristics of the pedagogy, use it to plan a lesson, and reflect critically upon their experiences.
Introduction to the Course
Introduction to the unit:
This goal of this course is to introduce learners to A Pedagogy of Hope. The course is intended to supplement an existing course or professional development workshop.
Audience:
The intended audience of this course is adults, instructors and educators who work with adults, particularly in higher education with specific attention given to teacher education.
Length of course:
This resource has been designed to supplement a teacher education pedagogy course.
Unit-level outcomes:
Upon completion of this course, learners will be able to
- identify the role of Paulo Freire in the creation of A Pedagogy of Hope text and approach to teaching and learning;
- describe the characteristics of A Pedagogy of Hope (as a strategy) to shape a lesson and associated assessments;
- explore how Social Emotional Learning (SEL) strategies can be employed to enhance their work with A Pedagogy of Hope;
- reflect on how their plans for implementing A Pedagogy of Hope may shape their educational practices; and
- reflect on the role of their own agency as well as that of the broader community in shaping students' approaches to teaching and learning.
Technology requirements:
Students will need access to this module via computer, smart phone, or tablet as well as internet access to successfully complete the lesson. Because there are videos embedded in this course, you may also need speakers and/or transcription service.
(From EFL Lesson Plan Template: https://www.oercommons.org/authoring/52181-efl-lesson-plan-template/view)
Unit 1: Understanding A Pedagogy of Hope From its Roots Up
The Birth of A Pedagogy
Paulo Freire image credit: By Slobodan Dimitrov - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5326164
Brazilian educator Paulo Freire originally introduced his text Pedagogy of the Oppressed in 1968. Brazil, like many other countries of the period, was in a period of social and political tension. Shaped by that context, Freire opined that hope was a human, ontological need. He believed that societal troubles could not be addressed without first believing that one was capable of addressing them. As such, his Pedagogy of Hope (PoH) sought to provide solutions to some of the issues he identified in his critical work Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
According to Freire, upon his completion of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he was moved to write what he thought was the next logical step in the work: Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Published in 1992, PoH was a consideration of the same themes as his earlier works with a lens toward hope. According to Freire, it was important to him that his work was one of tolerance and empowerment full of possibility. What he offered in the book A Pedagogy of Hope was a pedagogical approach that centered dialogic education, community, critical reflection, agency, and democracy.
As a pedagogical approach, Freire emphasized A PoH as a critical approach to teaching based on a need for hope and a desire to confront forces of domination that were disruptive to people.
Freire’s work was felt in many places experiencing political change including, but not limited to, his native Brazil, Cuba, and Guinea-Bissau. Interestingly, his pedagogical approach had lasting effects on the literacy rates of these modern nation-states.
Consider watching Seeing Through Paulo’s Glasses: Political Clarity, Courage, and Humility here.
As can be seen in this interview, Freire focused primarily on the relationships between education, literacy, and the broader society as a means of exchange that was community-oriented and collaboratively driven.
In his PoH, Freire proposed that teaching should happen in a critical fashion. He stressed the importance of a mutual exchange of ideas rather than the traditional banking of model of education that situated the student as a relatively powerless vessel waiting to receive information from a teacher. In his estimation, education was about collaborative problem-solving.
In keeping with his ideology that even teachers had to be students in the teacher-learner relationship, Freire answered criticisms against his earlier work (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) for what had been identified as sexist language. He did not defend his earlier work, but instead admited that such language is in misalignment with efforts towards democratization. This emphasis on language is a critical element of PoH that was also argued by scholar bell hooks. In hooks’ Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, she takes up Freire’s emphasis on language by stating silences, parts of speech, languages, and dialects are all important pieces of a struggle for liberation. To that end, teachers working through a PoH must remain vigilant in their reflections and observations of language use, tolerance, and acceptance.
In addition to the work carried forth by bell hooks (1994; ), others have helped extend more contemporary understandings of PoH including, but not limited to, Diversi and Moreira (2016), Stranger (2018),Webb (2013), and others.
Together, these scholars have helped us understand the PoH as having the following characteristics:
- An unapologetic emphasis on democratization of schooling;
- Dialogic educational practices;
- Critical reflection and analysis of the broader society;
- Community engaged learning;
- Egalitarian approaches to teaching and learning where there is no hierarchy of power;
- A conscious, deliberate use of language as a tool for inclusion; and
- The belief that hope (and belief) are nothing without action—that is praxis.
As Giroux and Flippakou (2020) have asserted, the current world circumstances warrant a resurrection of “the social imagination in order to affirm a politics of hope…” (p. 1). Hope, in this way, “is educational” and is undertaken to “dream of a radical democratic society” (p. 2). You can read their article in full here.
Unit 1 Assessment
Unit 1 Assessment
Assessment options to address Unit Objectives:
Be prepared to discuss Paulo Freire's motivation for creating a Pedagogy of Hope.
Be prepared to list and identify on a map at least two countries within which Freire's work on litearcy was implemented.
Unit 2: Applying A Pedagogy of the Oppressed and A Pedagogy of Hope To Shape a Lesson and Associated Assessment
Introduction to Unit 2
When theorized by Paulo Freire, a PoH necessarily includes conscientization—that is the need to be continually reflective by reflecting on questions like:
- Why am I or my students using the language we are using? Why?
- What definition of these concepts am I using? Why?
- For, or against whom am I working? Why?
This unit is designed to help you think about how to use a PoH approach in planning your lessons with conscientization.
The following video provides more information on this important element of a PoH.
As explained, PoH approach requires teachers to be thoughtful and sincere in their approach to their own behaviors as well as the thought processes and possible hegemony driving those behaviors as a first step in planning instruction.
You can read more about Freire’s critical approach to pedagogy here.
PoH lesson planning, as point out above, includes consideration of several elements: societal context, relevance of the content to students' lived experiences, deliberate attention on language and its use, support of dialogue and collaboration, and critical reflection.
Because you are likely already familiar with creating lesson plans, we've simply included a document to assist you by thinking critically about what your lesson needs to include. You will find that document under the Unit 2 Activities tab.
Once you begin to use a PoH approach to teaching and learning, you may desire to use it beyond the classroom as well. To see how PoH has been used in other educational settings beyond the classroom by reading the articles listed here:
In the next section, you will complete one or more activities to help support your lesson planning.
Unit 2 Activities
Unit 2 Activities
Activity 1
Before we begin this activity, please locate a standard for which you will plan a lesson. Once you’ve found that lesson, use the PoH Conscientization Guide to reflect before beginning the remainder of your planning process.
Once you have a completely planned lesson move to create at least one accompanying assessment. Use the same guide to help you think deeply about the assessment, its design, and its language.
Activity 2
Once you have generated a lesson and associated assessment, review the materials on Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Feel free to add SEL elements to your lesson to support your students’ and your own well-being.
Unit 2 Assessment
Unit 2 Assessment
As a point of assessment, consider the SEL strategies shared and choose one or more to incorporate into your designed lesson. Be prepared to share and discuss why the selected strategies are appropriate for the lesson.
Create a presentation that can be used to explain the use of SEL to support a PoH in practice.
Unit 3: Self-Work and Reflection
About this Unit
While Unit 2 placed its emphasis on how conscientization (sometimes called critical pedagogy) helps us understand power and structural supports and uses of power. It is not enough without teachers reflecting upon the teaching and learning process often. In this section, we will complete activities to support that collaborative and individual reflection.
The following article will explain how this kind of critical reflection can work. How to be Critical when Reflecting on Your Teaching
Thinking about Our Roles
Some of us may feel uncomfortable knowing that the PoH demands that we think critically about the world around us and our roles in it. Nonetheless, scholars associated with the PoH all agree on one point: teaching is political. The video below helps us think about reflection and practice.
Self Care for Teachers
To address the discomfort we may feel, it is important that we use some of the SEL strategies covered in Unit 2 to address ourselves and to help us understand our feelings around our work. The article below can be used to help you think about how you can address your discomforts and engage in self-care.
The activities listed in the next section are designed to support your reflective process.
Unit 3 Activities
Unit 3 Activities
Activity 1:
SCALE has developed a reflection activity that is a good starting point for this unit. You can visit the worksheet associated with the video.
Use this worksheet to reflect on who you are.
Activity 2:
Once you have completed the worksheet, find a buddy to share your answers with. After chatting with them, you may wish to journal about the process using the following prompts:
- Did I learn anything about myself from this activity? If so, what did I learn?
- How did it feel to reflect on my identity in this way?
- How might my identity impact the way I understand the course content?
- In what ways might my feelings impact how I choose (or not) to implement the PoH approach in my teaching and/or learning?
- What resources exist within the community to support my implementation of a PoH?
Unit 3 Assessment
Unit 3 Assessment
1. Create a journal entry detailing your experience with this course and how useful you believe a Pedagogy of Hope to be for your current teaching/learning context. You can input your answer here.
2. Revist your lesson plan from Unit 2 and schedule a discussion with someone else to share it with for peer feedback. Be prepared to describe why you made the decision you did.