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Teacher Stories from a PLC focused on Funds of Knowledge

Jun 11, 2024

Below are stories from a PLC with elementary and middle school teachers from Paso Robles Joint Unified School and Santa Maria-Bonita School Districts. They met monthly with facilitator Justin Ward to work on their practice and specifically worked on modeling, and eliciting students’ ideas with attention to students’ funds of knowledge. Each teacher shares important PLC learnings they took back to their classroom, and how they deepened their understanding of students’ funds of knowledge.

Lead Contamination Unit
Revising Water Cycle Models
Solar Eclipse Ideas
Home schooling
Helpful Prompts
Supporting Diverse Learners
School Home Connections
Initial and Revised Ideas

Equity

A critical question to ask is “Toward what end?” The practice of drawing on students’ funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992) is essential for involving students in learning. The question teachers and researchers need to ask is, “Toward what end”? Often FOK is used to hook students into lessons, but it is challenging to continue to build on students’ ideas and lived experiences and adapt the curriculum to the storylines students share. So if the goal is to draw on students’ FOK but ultimately teach the curriculum as it stands (which often presumes Western ways of thinking about and doing science), then students may feel like their knowledge and identities are not valued in the classroom. Yet, coupled with adapting instruction and orienting learning toward a more expansive and justice-centered content and approach to science teaching, fuels powerful learning.

Research

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This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Award #1907471 and #1315995