ISLS 2023 Pre-Conference Workshop

Are you interested in engaging in collaborative educational research and have a passion for learning? Do you value equity, justice, and social change but face partnership constraints or struggle to make space for self-care or community care? In this half-day workshop, we will come together to name the tensions that arise when we center justice and equity in research and knowledge production processes, including the design and implementation of inclusive and equitable learning environments. Through individual storytelling and collective performances, we invite you to grapple with tensions inherent in existing academic conventions and ideologies. to imagine new possibilities that will allow us to center diverse ways of knowing in design research and expand our professional identities as learning scientists. We hope to generate new forms of learning and engineer social change processes that will build our collective capacity to address social justice and equity issues through collaborative education research within and beyond this community.  The workshop will be split into 3 phases:

• Phase 1 -  Build Community and Create a Sense of Belonging. In the beginning phase, we’ll create ground rules to build a safe space in the workshop.
• Phase 2 – Experience Tensions through Storytelling and Reflections  In this phase, performers and the audience will have a chance to observe and reflect on the consequences when rules are breached when engaged in collaborative education research.
• Phase 3 –  (Re-)Shape Future Directions. In this phase, the group will sit in tension once more to reinforce that leaning into the discomfort enables us to learn more about ourselves, our relationships, and our collaborations

In response to the theme of “Building knowledge and sustaining our community,” we invite all early scholars, practitioners, activists, artists, and professionals across disciplines to join our conversation and  help us reflect on these two big questions, “Who produces knowledge and knowledge for whom?” and “Whose voices are we missing in our community?” All are welcome to share what is learned, unlearned, and relearned through our collective performances. We will reflect and brainstorm possible tools and artifacts – such as vision statements, working documents, dialogue excerpts, and artwork, and publish them on RESHAPE website.

The workshop organizers are members of an inter-institutional network of early career education scholars & practitioners dedicated to enacting anti-racist, equitable, and transformative community-driven partnerships called Rising Educational Scholars Helping Advance Partnerships & Equity (RESHAPE). We have invited Dr. Indigo Esmonde (Daydreams and Associates) to co-create novel and creative ways to engage with tensions along the spectrum of activities involved in collaborative education research.

If you are interested in participating in this workshop, please fill out this form.