WEBVTT 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:30.000 » Hello, everyone. It is my 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:34.000 honor to introduce our keynote 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:40.000 speaker. An assistant professor at the university of 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:45.000 San Diego. Dr. Mejia received his bachelors degree from the 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:50.000 university of New Mexico and continued the at Utah state 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:53.000 university. Followed by a doctorate in engineering 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:58.000 education. He is a Mexican- American working with Mexican 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:02.000 students in the border land. He is interested in approaches 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.000 in sociocultural context, the impact of critical 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:11.000 consciousness, engineering practice and the development 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:12.000 of culturally responsibilities in education. Please welcome 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:16.000 Dr. Alex Mejia. » ALEX MEJIA, Ph.D.: Hi, 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:22.000 everyone. Thank you for that intro. 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:27.000 I'm really honored to be here and talk to you about my 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:31.000 research on engineering education. And my plan is to 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:35.000 leave enough time at the end of the -- of the talk so that 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:42.000 we can have some time, you know, for some questions and a 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:49.000 nswers. Okay. So I will start by talking a little bit 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:55.000 about me as abeera mentioned I was born here in the U.S. but 00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:59.000 raised in chihuahua, Mexico. Very close to the U.S.-Mexico 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:05.000 border. This is actually what I call my hometown. It is a 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:09.000 small town in chihuahua Mexico in the copper canyon as a lot 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:14.000 of people know it in English. It is a very small town. When 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:19.000 I was 14, because of different things, my dad passed away 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:25.000 when I was very young. So I didn't have -- or the town 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:30.000 that we lived, I didn't have any -- any money to go to high 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:34.000 school. And so it was also the time when the NAFTA treaty 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:39.000 came into effect. So I come from a family of farmers. And 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:43.000 we didn't necessarily have -- we were not competitive 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:46.000 because the -- a lot of the Mexican -- the Mexican 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:50.000 government started to, you know, bring in a lot of corn 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:55.000 and beans from the United States at a cheaper rate. So 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:59.000 we couldn't necessarily -- we couldn't sell any of our p 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:03.000 roducts. So I guess due to the circumstances I saw myself 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:08.000 , you know, obligated to move to the -- to the U.S. where I 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:14.000 was born and try to get an education here in the U.S. I 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:23.000 came to El Paso with no -- knowing not a single word of 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:28.000 English. And when I was about to graduate from high school, 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:32.000 I asked my counselor, hey, I want to go to college. I want 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:38.000 to do engineering. What do I need to do? 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:43.000 And rather than providing me with some, you know, 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:47.000 applications or whatever, she gave me a pamphlet that was 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:52.000 for a vocational school. And there's absolutely nothing 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:56.000 wrong with going into a vocational school. That's 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:58.000 what I lot of people d o, the pathway for them. But I 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.000 wanted to do something different. And it start today 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:06.000 click to me that I was different than a lot of my 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:09.000 other classmates. I was not allowed to take AP courses in 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:12.000 Texas. I was not allowed to go into a lot of, you know, 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:15.000 different classes. I was actually -- if you look at the 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:18.000 transcript -- my 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:24.000 transcript from high school they say shelter classes. And 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:29.000 it was a surprise to me because in Mexico, I was -- 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:35.000 you know, I was going to like the 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:40.000 math olymipate in my home state. And here I was seen as 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:45.000 something, you know, as someone who couldn't do things 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:48.000 in g eneral. And I was placed in an ESL program. I started 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:53.000 to see other things, right, for example a lot of students 00:04:53.000 --> 00:05:00.000 in the ESL spoke more English than Spanish, yet they had 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:05.000 been there in the ESL track for so, so long. And so I 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:09.000 persevered. I went to college . colleague. I got my degree 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:11.000 in mechanical engineering. I worked as an engineer. As I 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:14.000 worked as an engineer on different projects, that's 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:18.000 when I started to see other things as well. The other 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:22.000 side of engineering, where engineers were not necessarily 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:25.000 paying too much attention to what we were doing to the 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:28.000 communities that we were working with. I was working 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:33.000 in the mining industry. I saw a lot of people who were 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:36.000 becoming displaced from their areas. I saw how a lost the 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:41.000 times we were taking advantage of some of the people that we 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:45.000 were working with. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:48.000 And it was a time that I came to this realization, what do I 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:53.000 d o, what am I doing as an engineer? What do I need to 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:56.000 do to change things? And one of my c ousins, she is a 00:05:56.000 --> 00:06:02.000 teacher in Mexico. And she said you should read this book 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:09.000 . And she gave me the book. And 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:13.000 since then Paula has been an inspiration to me. And his 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:19.000 concepts of pedogy inspired the type of work that I wanted 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:23.000 to do. I decided to get a PHD in engineering education and 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:27.000 figure out ways in which, one, we could help students develop 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:31.000 a more critical consciousness. Our future engineers to be 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:34.000 more critically conscious. And then the second -- the 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:39.000 second piece was 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:42.000 to understand what happened to me when I was in high school. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:47.000 How engineering knowledge is 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:51.000 constructed. How it is -- why is it that still in schools, 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:56.000 right, a lot of students who come from a different 00:06:56.000 --> 00:07:01.000 background are seen as less than. So I wanted to give you 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:08.000 kind of that -- kind of like m y -- my pathway through, you 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:12.000 know, engineering and why I'm doing what I'm doing now. So 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:15.000 just a quick question here. Okay. When you see these two 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:18.000 pictures, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:21.000 And you can type it on the chat if you want to. Okay. 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:27.000 What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:30.000 see these two -- these two pictures. Feel free to type 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:39.000 it in the chat. Okay. 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:47.000 I'm bringing this up because a lot of t imes, okay, when we 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:52.000 see this monument, right, or these places of, you know, 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:56.000 religious ceremonial places, right, yes, we think about 00:07:56.000 --> 00:08:00.000 beauty and we think about central and south American 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:05.000 history, amazingness and all of that stuff, right. But I 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:09.000 was watching one day my -- the history channel 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:15.000 with my niece. And it was -- you know, they were talking 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:18.000 about these pyramids. And before they went on to the 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:22.000 commercial break, should this is what they said. Could it 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:25.000 be. Right. And they leave you hanging with this, 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:28.000 wondering with this question, 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:31.000 could it be. Could it be possible and then they come 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:35.000 back from the commercial and guess what, they started 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:39.000 talking about aliens. Right. That's fine, right. If you 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:43.000 believe in aliens and all of that stuff, right. But what 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:50.000 it also does is it diminishes what people for centuries have 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:55.000 been doing. And so it made me realize that these deficit 00:08:55.000 --> 00:09:01.000 mind-sets are not just in schools, they 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:06.000 are defensive scheme diffused, right, they are in the 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:08.000 cultural narrative, our daily narratives where we try to 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:11.000 dismiss absolutely anything that comes from this knowledge 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:18.000 construction, this engineering work, right. And we say, 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:20.000 could it be? Could it be that aliens did this because it isn 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:22.000 't possible that these communities were able to do it 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:30.000 themselves. They didn't have the knowledge and the tools 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:33.000 and the skills. So I believe that in -- we need to 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:37.000 recognize engineering, design an engineering activity that 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:45.000 it is not necessarily a cognitive 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:48.000 process but it is part of the human relationships of 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:52.000 materiality, live cultures and we don't want to dismiss this 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:57.000 type of knowledge from our students, right. 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:03.000 Students have -- they have accumulated all kinds of 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:06.000 knowledge, skills, practices, right. That are historic 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:11.000 reand 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:14.000 -- historically and culturally grounded. When we say could 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:17.000 it be, we are saying it is impossible you that do this. 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:22.000 It is impossible that anybody in your community could have 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:25.000 done this, right. So my research primarily focused on 00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:26.000 acknowledging these forms of knowledge. And knowledge 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:31.000 construction. Because it is important for engineering. 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:39.000 And it is important to change the narrative in engineering. 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:44.000 if we want to provide better opportunity for participation 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:49.000 and inclusion of underrepresented and 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:51.000 minoritized populations, we need to expand how we value 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:54.000 engineering 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:57.000 knowledge, how knowledge has been g ained through complex 00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:01.000 processes in the community. Right. And we need to help 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:16.000 students see themselves reflected in the curriculum. 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:19.000 it is evidenced by the constructive forms of visible 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:24.000 monuments or technologies or artifacts that they have 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:28.000 created, right? The 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:32.000 master narrative marginalized communities and students as 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:35.000 lacking information and lacking knowledge and science 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:39.000 technology, educate, mathematics and art, right. 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:41.000 Another clear example of this deficit perspectives comes 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:49.000 from language, right. 00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:52.000 I was one affected because of my language barrier. I was 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:57.000 not able to do math or science . But in reality it was up to 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:01.000 the teachers to think about how can we integrate language 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:05.000 and content to provide these opportunities for these 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:10.000 students to -- you know, students like me to continue 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:13.000 to learn STEM. And I think that is something that is very 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:17.000 problematic because when -- when we think of STEM, a lot 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:19.000 of the times we think about content and language being 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:24.000 completely separate things, right. But we never think 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:31.000 about how to integrate those things. 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:35.000 Okay. This is a research call to action, right, about how 00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:37.000 to reframe how we do stem education. It is also 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:41.000 important to remember the knowledge construction doesn't 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:44.000 occur in a vacuum, right. It doesn't only happen in the 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:47.000 classroom. It is facilitated by a lot of the time 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:51.000 socialization processes that have either been in the 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:56.000 community or at home in informal spaces. It is not 00:12:56.000 --> 00:13:04.000 just a cognitive process but it is a social cultural 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:12.000 process. But in engineering, for example, which is my area 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:16.000 of expertise, if we can -- if we don't try to demiss at 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:20.000 what we're saying is only forms of knowledge are 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:25.000 valuable in this space. And anything outside of that space 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:33.000 has no place here in engineering. Okay. 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:36.000 So as I mentioned before, social cultural practices 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:46.000 a 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:52.000 -- we don't see any examples that talk about the numeric 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:55.000 system that was used by the mayans. We don't acknowledge 00:13:55.000 --> 00:13:58.000 what they contributed to the science. To the science, 00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:02.000 technology and engineering. And a lot of the t imes like I 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:05.000 said before, the curriculum or material don't portray 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:08.000 engineering in ways that are of interest to the students. 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:10.000 Right. They don't see themselves reflected in these 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:21.000 materials. 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:23.000 Dr. (name?) he referred to this as the -- it means in 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:28.000 Spanish kind 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:33.000 of poor little person. Poor little boy, poor little girl. 00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:36.000 These perspectives lead to the ideas that students need to be 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:41.000 fixed. Right. They have certain inadequacies that come 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:47.000 from the home, right. And how does that also portray the 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:52.000 home as being completely inadequate for the child. 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:56.000 Right. Rather than looking critically we need to analyze 00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:00.000 what we're doing wrong when it comes to increasing the 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.000 participation of minoritized populations. Right. With 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:07.000 this idea of the syndrome, right, a lot of times we have 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:10.000 teachers that are very well meaning, right, but they don't 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:16.000 expect a lot from their students. That happened to me 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:20.000 . Right. And even after I graduated high school in 2003. 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:25.000 So even after all this, almost 20 years, I continued to see 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:28.000 that in a lot of classrooms. There are still low 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:31.000 expectations for some of these students. Right. And a lot 00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:35.000 of the times there are lower expectations of the students 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:39.000 is in the form of sympathy. But we don't -- we need to be 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:43.000 more critical about what we're doing in our -- in our 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:48.000 classrooms and how we can change that narrative. 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:51.000 So again because my area is in engineering education, I 00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:54.000 believe that engineering practice is representative of 00:15:54.000 --> 00:16:00.000 a much larger engineering discourse that needs to 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:03.000 recognize and affirm the social, the cultural and the 00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:09.000 historical norms and tool that 's are situated in everyone -- 00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:13.000 in e veryday life. We need to change the conversation from 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:17.000 what knowledge do these students -- I'm primarily 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:21.000 focusing on Latino students, need to succeed in engineering 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:24.000 to what is it that these as lessents or these Latino 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:27.000 students offer to the construction of engineering 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:31.000 knowledge. We need to start recognizing students as 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:35.000 holders and creators of knowledge. Okay. So why 00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:40.000 should we care about this? Well, because it is going to 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:43.000 help us to confront our own deficit perception of 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:46.000 minoritized students. That is not just in the classroom but 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:50.000 even in the type of research that we do. How we frame the 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:54.000 questions that we're asking. And it is also going to -- we 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:57.000 need to care about this because we need to recognize 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:00.000 students as holders and 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:15.000 creators knowledge. 00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:17.000 So this brings me to m y -- you know, my main work which 00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:22.000 is 00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:26.000 on asset based approaches to engineering ed case. I want 00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:29.000 to talk about what we have observed in some of the 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:34.000 classrooms that we have worked with. We're currently working 00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:37.000 with a lot of teachers in the border land. Funds of 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:40.000 knowledge, maybe some of you are familiar with it. Funds 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:46.000 of knowledge is a research approach and also a framework 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:48.000 that looks into the assets of students while challenging the 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:54.000 deficit notions. 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:57.000 Funds of knowledge approach tries to recognize 00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:01.000 historically accumulated bodies of knowledge, skills, 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:04.000 practices and cultural ways of interacting and doing with 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:08.000 others. Primarily that emerged from community and the 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:12.000 household. The idea is to -- or the initial idea with funds 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:18.000 of knowledge was 00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:20.000 to think more positively about the households where the 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:28.000 students come from and the communities where they come 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:34.000 from. Them fa -- them fa sizes 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:36.000 -- this emphasizes folk medicine, agricultural 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:44.000 practices, from construction p ractices, et cetera, et cetera 00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:49.000 . Okay. And one thing that I want to point out from funds 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:51.000 of knowledge is that 00:18:51.000 --> 00:18:59.000 it extent 00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:05.000 -- it tries to highlight the good things that come from a - 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:10.000 - from working class families. And try to challenge this idea 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:15.000 that they are actually, you know, framed -- not framing 00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:18.000 this household as being disorganized socially or 00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:23.000 deficient. Okay. Another way that you can see this deficit 00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:26.000 model is in the -- I don't know if you've been to Barnes 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:31.000 and noble. Maybe not lately because we're in a pandemic. 00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:36.000 But you go to this section where they sell these books 00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:42.000 about the 300,000 words that your kid needs to know before 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:47.000 they come to preschool, right. That is already, you know, 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:51.000 portraying the families that are bilingual as being 00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:55.000 inefficient in providing the tools for the kids to be 00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:58.000 successful at an early age like kindergarten. Right. 00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:01.000 Funds of knowledge, this is critical. And they try to 00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:04.000 challenge these ideas. Okay. So funds of knowledge are 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:09.000 primarily characterized by kinship, social networks and 00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:16.000 by exchange. As I mentioned before, one -- one example is, 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:19.000 you know, the folk medicine. Another example is the (word?) 00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:23.000 that we have in the southwest primarily. There's not a lot 00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:26.000 of water. So Mexican-American families try to collect the 00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:30.000 water and carry the water to places that they can actually 00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:37.000 engage in agriculture practices. So that is 00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:40.000 accumulated knowledge that is valuable. That helps the 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:43.000 family thrive. And that a lot of the times is very well 00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:48.000 aligned with engineering practices. So when I was 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:55.000 working on my -- on my dissertation, on my Ph.D. with 00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.000 support of an NSF grant under the direction of Dr. Amy 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:02.000 Wilson-Lopez at Utah state university, we started to look 00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:08.000 at how funds of knowledge align with engineering 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:13.000 practices. And we tried to -- the goal for this -- and my 00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:17.000 dissertation was to show that funds of knowledge can act as 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:20.000 a bridge to connect formal -- formal -- the formal learning 00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:23.000 space and then formal learning space. Right. So we looked 00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:28.000 at different engineering practices like the scientific 00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:31.000 and mathematical knowledge that the students gained from, 00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:34.000 for example, plant behavior and environmental observations 00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:38.000 to improve crop production. When it comes to systems 00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:41.000 thinking, right, so how they thought about local raw 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:45.000 materials and processes to build a stove, for example. 00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:50.000 When it came to the use of tools, they knew how to use a 00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:53.000 lot of tools. For example, for measurements, for 00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:56.000 carpentry, for agricultural purposes, like I said before. 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:59.000 There was also the ethical considerations and the empathy 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:02.000 that are so important that we' re trying to highlight in 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:08.000 engineering, right. And that was through providing like 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:11.000 affordable solutions to their communities. To vulnerable 00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:15.000 communities. And so as I was working on my dissertation, I 00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:17.000 also noticed though that the students were not necessarily 00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:21.000 appreciating these funds of knowledge, right. And one of 00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:24.000 the reasons is in the classroom we don't highlight 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:28.000 them. We don't say, that is great. You know. That is 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:34.000 important. That is good. We don't value it, right. We don 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:38.000 't know how to elicit those funds of knowledge. So once I 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:42.000 started to work on other projects I thought, okay, what 00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:44.000 can we do with the teachers to co-construct together with the 00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:48.000 teachers to help them see the value of the funds of 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:51.000 knowledge so they can bring it into their classroom and 00:22:51.000 --> 00:22:53.000 facilitate these conversations with the students when it 00:22:53.000 --> 00:22:57.000 comes 00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:02.000 to STEM practices. We came up with an asset based approach 00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:05.000 to engineering design. And we tried to provide a 00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:08.000 professional development to a cohort of teachers. And we 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:13.000 have to infuse it with engineering design, with funds 00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:15.000 of knowledge, and at the same time with some language 00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:21.000 practices, right. So we wanted for the teachers -- we 00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:25.000 are working with a school that is primarily emerging 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:27.000 bilinguals that they could integrate language with STEM 00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:40.000 content, right. 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.000 We told them, okay, we want to make sure that we're working 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:49.000 with primarily emerging bilinguals, right. And one of 00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:52.000 the reasons is that the children are not typically 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:55.000 assessed to their content of knowledge when e ntering U.S. 00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.000 schools. They are actually placed in classes depending on 00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:01.000 their English proficiency. We wanted to provide those 00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:04.000 student who's are emerging bilinguals with an opportunity 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:09.000 to continue to learn about STEM and not make it -- I mean 00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:12.000 , this is an issue of access and equity, r ight. To be 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:15.000 able to provide those 00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:21.000 opportunities for the students . So nine teachers were 00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:25.000 recruited for the project. Ands in Ands in -- and it is 00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:30.000 in a predominantly Latinx community in San Diego. It is 00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:36.000 a title 1 school where 88% of the students qualified for 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:40.000 free or reduced lunch. And I think 60% of the schools were 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.000 emerging bilingual. A large student pop lace. We worked 00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:46.000 to work with the teachers and co-construct with them. We 00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:50.000 don't know their classrooms. We wanted them to tell us what 00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.000 is happening in your classroom and how can we contribute with 00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:58.000 what you're doing. We saw how the teachers started to 00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:00.000 integrate more of this scientific and engineering 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.000 practices, particularly 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:07.000 related to the national standards to their curriculum. 00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:13.000 And then they started to integrate also the language 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:17.000 piece. Wes we noticed how the s tudents liked to create 00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:20.000 their own scientific experiments, for example. 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:23.000 They also worked on engineering projects, right. 00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:26.000 So identifying a problem, going to their community and 00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:29.000 looking at what is out in their community. Thinking 00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:33.000 about their own funds of knowledge, right. So thinking 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:36.000 about how do I recycle my own materials. This was a project 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:39.000 on an engineering project on creating a more efficient 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:42.000 recycling process. And so they thought about how do we 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:45.000 recycle things? What are some of the practices that we bring 00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.000 from home? How do we make it more efficient. Right. So 00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:54.000 they walk through the whole process. And another thing 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:57.000 that we noticed was that the teachers, they started to 00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:00.000 appreciate a little 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:05.000 more the trans language that happened in their classrooms. 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.000 They were using trans languaging themselves to make 00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:13.000 sense of what engineering is. These are teachers not 00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:16.000 training in engineering but they are asked by the state or 00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:19.000 the district to integrate engineering into their classes 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:25.000 , right. And so we started to see how in order to make sense 00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:27.000 of things, they started to draw from those linguistic 00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:30.000 practices to actually make sense of what they were -- 00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.000 what they were doing in the classroom and how they were 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:39.000 preparing this -- these materials, right. So 00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:43.000 translanguaging allowed teachers to want to engage in 00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:49.000 sense-making for unknown concepts. To expand a 00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:51.000 vocabulary, provide context, provide descriptions. And 00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:57.000 also transmit that information for the -- for the students, 00:26:57.000 --> 00:26:59.000 right. It also helped them to gather synthesize and analyze 00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:02.000 information. And these are things that we do in 00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:05.000 engineering. So if we start to appreciate more the 00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.000 translanguage and practices that happen in the classroom, 00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:14.000 maybe we're allowing -- we're opening a door for a lost the 00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:21.000 students to engage in stem education. Right. And also 00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:23.000 it Hetched them to further solidify ideas. They did 00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:26.000 research on sustainability and engineering models, right. 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:31.000 And a lot of that came from, you know, Spanish, you know. 00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:35.000 Finding that information in Spanish. So teachers I think 00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:38.000 that something that happened here is that they did not feel 00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:41.000 restricted by the classroom, social and political 00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:43.000 boundaries. They created their own space to engage in 00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:47.000 practices like this. And something that the teachers 00:27:47.000 --> 00:27:51.000 reflected on was that in their own classrooms a lot of the 00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:56.000 times they are required to speak in English to the -- to 00:27:56.000 --> 00:27:59.000 the kids, even -- even if their language proficiency is 00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:03.000 not, you know, to that -- to that level. But they're 00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:07.000 required by state to talk to the students in English. And 00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:12.000 so they start to reflect more on some of the constraints of 00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:16.000 the classroom itself. The political boundaries created 00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:21.000 by the classroom. And one of the 00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:24.000 teachers rocio mentioned if it helps the teacher gather their 00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:29.000 thoughts and communicate clearly their ideas, it 00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:33.000 certainly helps the students. They started to, again, get 00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:39.000 rid of some of those deficit mind-sets. Because I want to 00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:41.000 leave enough time to talk about this, some other 00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:46.000 findings that we -- I'm going to go through it quickly so we 00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:51.000 have time for our conversation . But when the -- some of the 00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:56.000 things that the teachers reflected on as well was how 00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:59.000 funds of knowledge can help students feel more comfortable 00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:03.000 talking about doing STEM related activities. Right. 00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:06.000 Rebecca who was one of our teachers she said that I made 00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:10.000 the students engaging in ughs a sks because the classroom 00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:15.000 content was designed around topics they were more familiar 00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:18.000 with. R ight. She said that, you know, we are building more 00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:23.000 on what they already know and they can bring more ideas from 00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:27.000 the things that they have done . And we had another teacher 00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:33.000 that said, you 00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:36.000 know, STEM related subjects, right, can -- can definitely 00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:40.000 start to feel more comfortable for a lot of the students 00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:43.000 because some of the ideas are more attainable for -- you 00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:48.000 know, they see it as more tangible, right. They're more 00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:50.000 connected to things that they already know. Right. Another 00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.000 teacher 00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:58.000 talked about how they play a major role in the 00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:00.000 establishment of -- of the classroom culture. And in 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:06.000 allowing this -- these conversations to happen. 00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:12.000 Right. That they started to think about, you know, the 00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:14.000 times when a simple comment, right, can become a whole 00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:17.000 revelation for the students. And that was very important 00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:21.000 for them. And another thing that the teachers also 00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:27.000 reflected on was that they do a lot of the times capitalize 00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:30.000 on their backgrounds and on their personal anecdotes to 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:35.000 establish that classroom culture. We had a lot of 00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.000 students from the same region. And they said that those 00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:46.000 experiences was really helpful for the students. So that is 00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:50.000 another call to action to make sure that the -- the teacher - 00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.000 - the teachers that are teaching our students in our 00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:57.000 classrooms also, you know, that we start to bring in more 00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:02.000 different perspectives into the classrooms. We need to 00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:04.000 bring more teachers diversity in that sense is very, very 00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:09.000 important. Okay. 00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:12.000 Now, teachers talked about funds of knowledge as being 00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:18.000 really important and providing a lot of e mpowerment for the 00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:23.000 students. And recognizing the students' backgrounds, right, 00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:28.000 that there is -- you know, importance in recognizing that 00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:31.000 . To make STEM more relatable . But there is also still s 00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:38.000 ome -- some things that we need to work a little bit more 00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:41.000 , right. We started to think about maybe working with -- in 00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:44.000 service teachers, it is already too late. Maybe we 00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:48.000 need to work with our preservice teachers to bring 00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:51.000 in these ideas at an earlier point. Because the teachers 00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:54.000 are already embedded in this structure and they can see 00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:58.000 there is a lot of institutional obstacles and a 00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:02.000 lot of challenges that they need to overcome. For example 00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:10.000 , that there is a particular curriculum that they are 00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:13.000 dictated by -- by law to, you know, provide to the students. 00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:17.000 Right. They felt like they wanted to do a lot of these 00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:23.000 things in their classroom, but they are constricted by the 00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:26.000 classroom itself. Right. And there's definitely still a lot 00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:32.000 of more work that needs to be done when it comes to working 00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:37.000 with the teachers. A lot of the teachers saw 00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:40.000 spanglish as something to be avoided. It contradicted the 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:42.000 empowerment and the recognition of the students' 00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:45.000 backgrounds that they were highlighted, you know, 00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.000 throughout our p roject. There is definitely a lot of 00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:53.000 things that we still need to talk about. Because even 00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:59.000 though they recognize the value of funds of knowledge, 00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:01.000 they were -- there were times when, you know, they ended up 00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:04.000 talking about some contradictions, right. And 00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:10.000 then the most important thing that I think we need to 00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.000 continue to work on is how we as researchers are positioning 00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:17.000 the teachers. How the district itself 00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:20.000 positioning the teacher. How the school itself is also 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:25.000 positioning the teacher. Because it is important for 00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:30.000 the -- for the teacher to decide how am I going to 00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:32.000 position myself based on 00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:38.000 how these other different entities are trying to 00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:41.000 position me. I'm not an engineer. My background is in 00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:46.000 science or math or language arts. How do I do that, right 00:33:46.000 --> 00:33:50.000 . So there is still a lot of work that needs to be done in 00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:55.000 terms of how -- how can we make this effective for 00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.000 everyone. So just to close this up, asset-based practices 00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:02.000 can be used as a vehicle to the world of engineering. And 00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:05.000 it can be you knowed also as a vehicle to the world of 00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:10.000 chemistry and biology and mathematics. Right. 00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.000 Particularly in engineering an asset-based approach can help 00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:20.000 students think about how they frame problems, how they solve 00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:21.000 problems, how they ideate problems and implement 00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:25.000 solutions into their communities. We need to stop 00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.000 in engineering to think about how we frame success for a lot 00:34:29.000 --> 00:34:32.000 of our students. A lot of the times in order for you to be 00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:36.000 successful, you need to leave your community and go get a 00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:40.000 job at Exxon or get a job with BP or Lockheed Martin. And a 00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:43.000 lot of the students actually want to contribute to their 00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:46.000 communities and we're not allowing them to develop that 00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:51.000 healthy engineering identity a lot of the times. 00:34:51.000 --> 00:34:54.000 So some of the significance of this -- of this work I think 00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:57.000 that it's -- I already talked about some of the significance 00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:02.000 . But I think that the primary significance of this 00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:07.000 project is that we have an opportunity to conceptualize 00:35:07.000 --> 00:35:10.000 engineering in different ways, in different -- and let the 00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:13.000 students conceptualize it in their own terms. But also for 00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:17.000 us to change the engineering discourse. And how we talk 00:35:17.000 --> 00:35:21.000 about engineering in our classrooms. So I obviously 00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:24.000 want to thank the national science foundation. This 00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:27.000 comes from different grants that I've been working on. I 00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:34.000 want to thank you all for listening to me ranting for 30 00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:37.000 minutes. [Laughter] And I will open the floor for any -- 00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:39.000 any questions or any -- anything that you want to talk 00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:43.000 about. 00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:46.000 » ABEERA REHMAT: Thank you Dr. 00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:50.000 Mejia for an interesting and reflective talk. I will read 00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.000 a comment from Emily. And if I pronounce your name 00:35:54.000 --> 00:35:57.000 incorrectly I apologize in advance. This is a really 00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:01.000 great point in physics I remember learning about 00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:04.000 contributions through the ancient Greeks which was 00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:08.000 valuable but it never extended beyond Greek history. It gave 00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:10.000 the idea that the ancient Greeks were the only 00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.000 civilization engaged in this type of work. 00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:17.000 » ALEX MEJIA, Ph.D.: Correct. Yes. I agree with that. 00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:21.000 » ABEERA REHMAT: Kim stated 00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:24.000 that many are perhaps deeper research studies that deal 00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:28.000 with STEM skills and understanding as opposed to 00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:33.000 attributes do not report findings broken down by race 00:36:33.000 --> 00:36:35.000 or ethnicity. Do you think it would be helpful or harmful to 00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:37.000 encourage such data to be collected and reported. 00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:40.000 » ALEX MEJIA, Ph.D.: I think it depends on how it is 00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.000 collected and reported, right. Let's say, for example, I want 00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:50.000 to do funds of knowledge research in a quantitative 00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:53.000 form. Most of my work is in qualitative. But if I want to 00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:56.000 do it in quantitative form, it is tricky because you're 00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:00.000 providing a hierarchy of knowledge. And then you start 00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:07.000 to provide value to certain types of knowledge as opposed 00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:11.000 to exploring how funds of knowledge are not necessarily 00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:14.000 bounded to, you k now, by culture. They actually evolve 00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:18.000 throughout time, right. And there's a lot of the time also 00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:22.000 when some funds of knowledge people have learned how not to 00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:27.000 use those certain funds -- funds of knowledge in specific 00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:30.000 places. So I that I this it really depends on how it is 00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:36.000 reported and done. As long as it is done in a critical form, 00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:40.000 in a critical way where you're -- not necessarily 00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:45.000 essentializing culture but trying to think more broadly 00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.000 about how social culture practices can serve as a -- as 00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:52.000 a bridge to connect formal and informal spaces. And then I 00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:56.000 think that is a completely different story than trying to 00:37:56.000 --> 00:37:59.000 become the funds of knowledge seeker, for example. 00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:04.000 » ABEERA REHMAT: So Clarissa 00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:12.000 states, amazing t alk. A few questions. As a 00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:17.000 White mono-lingual speaking teacher. Are there other ways 00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:21.000 to integrate in an authentic and appropriate way? 00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:25.000 » ALEX MEJIA, Ph.D.: I think that there 00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:28.000 are different ways to do this. 00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:31.000 You can collaborate -- well, first of all, don't do 00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:35.000 everything at once, right. Like that is what we told our 00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:37.000 teachers that we were working with. Right. Don't try to do 00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:40.000 everything at once. Start with a little m odule. Start 00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:43.000 with a little activity. Something that becomes 00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:46.000 important for the -- for the s tudents. It could be even in 00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:51.000 the form of an extra credit, right. And then you can start 00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:55.000 building up on that. And then create kind of like your own 00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:58.000 repertoire of what you're doing. I think that is also 00:38:58.000 --> 00:39:06.000 important to do it in a respectful way, right. I 00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:10.000 would say try to collaborate w ith -- maybe you have other 00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.000 colleagues in -- maybe like in the Spanish or the French or 00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:16.000 whatever, right. I would say collaborate with them. Talk 00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:20.000 about your 00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.000 ideas. The project that we're doing with the teachers we're 00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:29.000 not imposing on the teachers what to do. We see it as a co 00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:33.000 -construction. We bring our expertise in engineering and 00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:37.000 language integration with STEM and let the teachers explore 00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:40.000 the ways that they can do it in little incremental steps. 00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.000 I think that co-construction, co-collaboration is very, very 00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:48.000 important if you want to do this in your c lassroom. And 00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:53.000 it is something that everybody c an -- can do, right. It is 00:39:53.000 --> 00:39:57.000 going to take time. You have to embrace that ambiguity that 00:39:57.000 --> 00:39:58.000 may come with it. But it definitely is doable. 00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:02.000 » ABEERA REHMAT: So her second 00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:05.000 question is, I have considered having visiting lecturers but 00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:07.000 ideally that would be compensated. Does anyone have 00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:09.000 experience gaining funds of this type of curriculum reform 00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:13.000 ? 00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:16.000 » ALEX MEJIA, Ph.D.: I'm also 00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:20.000 letting anybody speak. [ Laughter] Because I don't 00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:23.000 have all of the answers. But if anybody has done that in 00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:25.000 the past, I mean, it would be great if you could also share 00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:26.000 that. 00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:31.000 » ABEERA REHMAT: I'm going to 00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:36.000 go on to Matthew. Great talk. I have a question. Discussing 00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:39.000 deficit mind-sets entails a lot of vulnerable. How do you 00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:43.000 go about establishing norms that would encourage teachers 00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:45.000 to critically control and reflect on potential deficit 00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:46.000 mind-sets? 00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:56.000 » ALEX MEJIA, Ph.D.: Oh. That 00:40:56.000 --> 00:41:02.000 's -- that's a difficult one. And I think that one of the -- 00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:06.000 one of the reasons is because they're also wearing a lot of 00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:11.000 hats at the same time. You know. In trying to confront 00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:16.000 those deficit mind-sets in the classroom 00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:18.000 is -- a lot of times with our teachers they see it as going 00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:24.000 against the norm of the school or what the school is asking 00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:28.000 them to do. Right. The example that I provided about 00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:33.000 s panglish. Using it in the classroom. I think what has 00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:37.000 helped a lot of the teachers to be more reflective on what 00:41:37.000 --> 00:41:39.000 they're doing, in the professional development that 00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:44.000 we gave to the 00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:48.000 teachers, we tried to allow them to think about their own 00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:54.000 funds of knowledge and how they bring that into their own 00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:57.000 classroom. Because then t hat -- that helps them to reflect 00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:04.000 on other types of knowledge that they also bring into the 00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:08.000 classroom and how it can help mediate some conversations. I 00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:12.000 think that allowing them to engage in those difficult 00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:16.000 discussions and, you know, safe spaces is very important. 00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:20.000 A lot of the times the teachers have to, like I said, 00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:27.000 navigate the system. They don 't know how to navigate the 00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:31.000 system. And allowing them to express their own doubts 00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:36.000 and how they want to, you know , do better, I think that it's 00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:41.000 important. And I hope that different schools throughout 00:42:41.000 --> 00:42:43.000 the nation can actually allow for these conversations to 00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:47.000 happen. 00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:52.000 » ABEERA REHMAT: So Paul asked 00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:55.000 -- oh, one second. Okay. So has there been any funds of 00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:00.000 knowledge approach with scientific text in the 00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:01.000 classroom, specifically within secondary and adopted primary 00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:07.000 literature? » ALEX MEJIA, Ph.D.: Yes. 00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:14.000 There -- I believe that there has been some people doing 00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:17.000 this kind of work. I know that Elizabeth moji has done 00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:27.000 some of this research. 00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:32.000 Calabrese Barton and tan. Martha civil from Arizona, I 00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:38.000 think she was in Arizona the last time I checked. But yes, 00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:44.000 there's definitely other researchers that have tried 00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:49.000 to infuse funds of knowledge with scientific texts in the 00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:56.000 classroom. Primarily if you' re going to -- if you look for 00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:58.000 literature on literacy in secondary education or science 00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:02.000 education, you will find definitely a lot of ways in 00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:05.000 which people have done this. I also have -- have done it 00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:08.000 with teachers. Not necessarily in secondary 00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:17.000 schools but primary 00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:19.000 schools. We take like books, regular books they're reading 00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:26.000 about it. We try to find a problem that is being 00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:29.000 discussed in the book i tself. And then we -- we stop reading 00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:32.000 at the point where the main character is supposed to solve 00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:34.000 the problem, we ask the students to then think about 00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:39.000 how they could solve the problem and then we read the 00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:41.000 rest of the book to kind of like see what was the approach 00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:44.000 that the main character in the book took and the approach 00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:48.000 that we took. We start to discuss conversation. You 00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:51.000 know, we start to have conversations about how 00:44:51.000 --> 00:44:53.000 engineering look at that time differently but they also 00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:58.000 fulfill the same purpose, trade-offs and things like 00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:01.000 that. Some and And some of that work has been done in 00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:04.000 science education. There are a lot of resources. I'll be 00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:06.000 happy to provide them. Those are the ones that come to my 00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:10.000 mind. » ABEERA REHMAT: I'm going to 00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:13.000 take one last question. How do you incore rate this in a 00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:15.000 practical way, both from a policy perspective and a 00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:20.000 procedural perspective. » ALEX MEJIA, Ph.D.: Okay. So 00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:23.000 we have done it already at the undergraduate level. 00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:25.000 Obviously our teachers are doing it in the middle schools 00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:30.000 . 00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.000 But at the undergraduate level we developed a new course to 00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:37.000 talk about thermodynamics concept through a more 00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:39.000 culturally responsive lens. And by bringing different 00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:43.000 funds of knowledge from the community. We have 00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:48.000 conversations with our Native-Americans 00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:50.000 liaison at the -- on campus. Tried to bring some indigenous 00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:56.000 perspectives into the classroom. And then, you know 00:45:56.000 --> 00:45:59.000 , we just have conversations about, you know, like I said 00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:01.000 valuing these different forms of knowledge into the 00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:04.000 classroom and into the knowledge construction in 00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:09.000 engineering. And I'll be happy to share that with you 00:46:09.000 --> 00:46:10.000 if you -- if you're interested . I know that we're limited 00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:15.000 on time. » ABEERA REHMAT: All right. 00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:18.000 Thank you, Dr. M ejia. Thank you for attending. There's a 00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:21.000 15-minute break. After which you have the option to join 00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:23.000 three concurrent sessions on diversity, inclusion and