Fellowship Application Extended until Monday, September 18

Agency by Design Teacher Fellowship, 2017 - 2018

2016-2017 Fellowship Cohort

Agency by Design Oakland is gathering a cohort of Oakland educators to participate in a professional learning community focused on maker-centered learning and teacher-led classroom inquiry. This fellowship will take place from October 2017 - May 2018. Program details and the application form are below. All applications should be submitted by September 18; accepted applicants will be notified by early October.

Agency by Design Oakland is the Bay Area-based component of the Agency by Design research project. Agency by Design explores the promises, practices, and pedagogies of maker-centered learning developed by  Project Zero, a research center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Agency by Design Oakland participates in action research and dissemination of research findings through professional development and grants for educators, with a focus on equity and sustainable change.  Our priority is to serve underserved student populations and communities of color.

Throughout the year, Agency by Design Fellows will delve deeply into the pedagogical framework and instructional strategies of maker-centered learning, experimenting in their classroom practice and reflecting within the learning cohort. Inquiries will focus on an area of practice the fellow identifies as core to their own next steps in deepening their practice.

Agency by Design Fellows will commit to:

• Attend three full day study group sessions throughout the school year. A substitute stipend for all three days will be made available to Title I schools. Full day sessions: Monday, November 6, 2017, Monday, December 4, 2017, and Friday, January 12, 2018. 

• Attend eight Tuesday after school sessions, 4:30-6:30: October 10, November 14, December 12, January 9, February 13, March 13, April 10, and May 8.

• Participate in and attend a culminating event showcasing our inquiry work on Saturday, May 5, from 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.

• Engage in inquiry related to maker-centered learning, experiment within their classroom practice, and reflect and share with the fellows cohort.  

• Create “Pictures of Practice” documenting inquiry work, with the goal of sharing research with a broader audience. Possibilities include: writing a blog post, hosting a Maker Educator Meet-up, or recording a podcast.

In addition, teachers who participate in the fellowship will have access to one‐on‐one coaching and school site professional development. All Fellows will receive a minimum of $500* in additional teacher pay/stipend.

Please read through the Agency by Design Oakland and Agency by Design websites to learn about our work before completing the application.

The application questions, listed below, are designed to allow you the opportunity to think through what you hope to gain from this experience. Should you wish to apply for the Fellowship,  please submit your answers via google form using these links:

• Returning Fellows

• Prospective Fellows

For returning fellows:

1. What impact did last-year’s fellowship have on you and/or your students?

2. What ideas or inquiries regarding maker-centered learning are you interested in exploring?

3. What are your personal leadership goals within the maker-centered learning landscape? What support might help you reach those goals?

For prospective fellows:

1.  Please describe your teaching and learning context, including population demographics, learning needs, community culture, etc.

2.  How do you currently incorporate maker‐centered learning into your practice?

3.  How might your learners benefit from your participation as an Agency by Design Oakland Fellow?

4.  What would you hope to gain from the Agency by Design Oakland Fellowship experience?

5.  In your opinion, why is maker‐centered learning valuable?

6.  It is important that participants understand the time commitment involved with this experience. How do you see this fellowship integrating into your current schedule and workload?

*We are continuing to pursue funding to be able to provide a larger stipend.

The 2016-2017 Agency by Design Oakland Fellowship

Now that the school year has begun, and our research into documentation and assessment practices is off and running, we’re excited to welcome the 2016-2017 Agency by Design Oakland Fellowship cohort, a group of 28 educators from around the San Francisco Bay Area. This group will grow into a professional learning community together, engaging in ongoing inquiry around the project’s current research questions. In turn, we hope to learn from these educators, as well as their students and contexts, to inform how pedagogical ideas work in practice.

When designing a research project, it’s not just nice to have multiple voices in the room—it’s essential to learn from various perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. Who we are impacts what we will create. The AbD Oakland Fellowship cohort is a diverse group of educators serving a variety of student populations, and from the beginning we’ve focused in on what this means for our work. To begin, we’ve taken a values-based approach to this research journey to best outline our own individual perspectives and values as they relate to documentation and assessment.

By partnering with these educators, 93% of whom work in or with California public schools, we hope to shift mainstream ideas about what maker-centered learning looks like, who it’s for, and how to document and assess it. The maker movement has seen a large number of makerspaces in independent and charter schools, which is why it’s noteworthy that 72% of the fellows work in or with district-run public schools. Furthermore, 68% of the fellows work in district-run schools in the Oakland Unified School District.

The geographic distribution of the 2016-2017 Agency by Design Oakland Fellows.

The cohort represents 19 different schools and organizations mostly based in the East Bay, including Project H, ACOE’s Integrated Learning, and the Oakland Public Library. Only 3 of the 28 educators work in informal learning environments; most work in formal classroom settings.

Our cohort of fellows is predominately based in Oakland, a city of more than 400,000 people that is known for its racial diversity but also its income inequality; for example, 71% of the student body in Oakland public schools qualifies for free or reduced-priced lunch.

The socioeconomic distribution of students in the learning environments served by the 2016-2017 Agency by Design Oakland Fellows.

Consistent with the interests of the Abundance Foundation, a major focus of our work is serving students of color in under-resourced public schools. Our AbD fellows work in schools that serve more than 5,000 students, who come from a range of backgrounds and learning needs, but who are predominantly high-needs and students of color. One notable data point: In the schools at which our fellows work 70% of the students are socioeconomically disadvantaged. Additionally, 33% of the students in these schools are classified as English Language Learners, and 11% are classified with a disability.*

The racial distribution of students served by the 2016-2017 Agency by Design Oakland Fellows.

As we embark on this second phase of research, we know that having a balance of grade levels and content areas will be important in getting a full view of what documentation and assessment in maker-centered learning looks like. To that end, approximately one-third of the cohort works at the elementary school level, one-third in middle, and one-third in high school.

The distribution of grade levels taught by the 2016-2017 Agency by Design Oakland Fellows.

Additionally, the cohort has a range of content diversity, including:

• 8 educators who consider themselves maker, art, or design instructors
• 5 math/science educators
• 5 humanities and social sciences educators
• 3 educators who teach technology courses
• 2 librarians
• 1 educator who teaches in a bilingual English/Spanish setting
• 2 special education teachers

The AbD Oakland Fellowship cohort is led by the AbD Oakland Leadership Team, which comprises four educators working in a variety of settings. This team collaboratively guides the fellows in their inquiry with the AbD framework, and their exploration of documentation and assessment strategies for maker-centered learning.

Ilya Pratt

Ilya Pratt is the Design + Make + Engage Program Director at Park Day School, the sole independent school represented in the cohort. Ilya has been a part of the Agency by Design project from its inception and has helped to shape the questions and research along the way, both as a teacher-researcher and project coordinator.

Aaron Vanderwerff

Aaron Vanderwerff is the Creativity Lab Director at Lighthouse Community Public Schools. He is particularly excited about collaborating with educators interested in adopting the Agency by Design framework to turn learning over to students in meaningful ways. Aaron has been integrating making into his teaching and school programs for the past 15 years. He joined the AbD Oakland team in 2015.
 

Brooke Toczylowski

Brooke Toczylowski is an Art/Maker Specialist and Coach in the Oakland Unified School District. She was a teacher-researcher in the first phase of the Agency by Design project, in which she experimented with AbD ideas in her art class at Oakland International High School. In the second phase of AbD research, Brooke is the lead coordinator and coach for the AbD Oakland fellows.

Wendy Donner

Wendy Donner is the Education Program Director for the Abundance Foundation, the funder of Agency by Design. A former teacher and school administrator, Wendy has been overseeing the Bay Area based parts of AbD since its formation in 2012.

This project represents a strong collaboration between public school teachers, education coaches, and researchers. Both the Oakland Leadership Team and the Project Zero researchers are thrilled to kick off this year of thinking with such a diverse and engaged group of fellows, and we look forward to the work ahead.

For more information about this local group, check out Who We Are. 

* These numbers are based on School Accountability Report Cards from the 2014-15 year, filed with the California Departments of Education.