The SESAME Colloquium

A panel discussion to be kicked off by BSE Dean Michelle Young, with:

• Angela DeBarger (Program Officer),
• Linda Meyerson (Program Associate), and
• Nathan Warner (Program Officer)

of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Education Program

• Moderator: Elizabeth Gerard, Berkeley School of Education, UC Berkeley

Note that a UC Berkeley account will be necessary to view this session on Zoom.

Abstract

This session offers perspectives about philanthropy in education through the lens of the Education Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The panel discusses topics such as career pathways into philanthropy, how strategies evolve and guide grantmaking, and opportunities for the learning sciences to inform programmatic decisions at foundations.

About the speakers

Angela DeBarger is a program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She is committed to ensuring education is a public good and to democratizing knowledge and evidence. Her portfolio focuses on expanding access to open educational resources, ensuring every student has the information they need to learn and can see themselves in what they are learning.

Previously, Angela served as senior program officer for Lucas Education Research at the George Lucas Educational Foundation, where she developed project-based learning programs with practitioners and researchers. From 2002 to 2014, she worked as a researcher at SRI International, studying classroom pedagogy and assessment strategies to promote student learning and engagement.

Angela has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Stanford University, a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Michigan, and a doctorate in educational psychology from Stanford University. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she enjoys spending time with her two boys, hiking in the hills and at the beach, and practicing improv.

Nathan Warner is an Education Program Officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. His portfolio includes partnerships across the teaching and learning and open education strategies.

Previously, Nathan was a Program Officer at Lucas Education Research, where he managed a portfolio of researcher-practitioner partnerships and grants. He also worked as a Regional Director at an education nonprofit, where he led a team of instructional coaches in supporting schools and districts with implementing student-centered learning initiatives. Nathan started his career as a secondary social studies teacher and teacher educator.

Nathan has a bachelor’s degree in Social Relations and Public Policy, a master’s degree in Historical Studies, and a doctorate in the Sociology of Education. He enjoys spending time outdoors in the California sunshine with his family.

Linda Meyerson is an Education Program Associate at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She manages partnerships and strategy development across the program's portfolios in open education and teaching and learning.

Prior to working with Hewlett, Linda served as a project manager for the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of International Studies. There, she worked with students and faculty to expand international education and career opportunities for underserved student communities. Previously, she held a research position with the University of California, Berkeley's Department of Political Science, her alma mater, where she investigated the free and fair status of elections across the globe.

Linda is a longtime resident of the San Francisco Bay Area and enjoys reading, traveling, and taking her cat for walks.

Subtle Webs: How Local Organizations Shape US Education

Jose Eos Trinidad

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

Studies of research, philanthropic, and nonprofit organizations highlight their role in influencing local district policies and politics. This talk argues that in a decentralized system like US public education, local organizations can have national consequences as they create an invisible infrastructure to spread initiatives and practices.

Using the case of high school dropout prediction data systems, the two-part talk suggests a theory of organizational change that is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but outside-in. The first part on the “local” highlights how organizations in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City leveraged various institutional strategies to engage their respective school districts. The second part on the “national” suggests larger spatial dynamics of institutional change through inter-locally networked organizations, districts, and national agencies. The talk ends with exciting theoretical and methodological advancements in the study of organizations outside schools.

About the speaker

José Eos Trinidad is an Assistant Professor at the University of California Berkeley. He is a sociologist focused on the study of organizations outside schools and the study of schools as organizations.

Shaping the Future Through Early Science Education

María Esther Paños Martínez

University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

Abstract

There is a strong early connection between young children and science—yet, just a few years later, this interest in understanding how the world works often fades or even disappears. Providing high-quality science education in the early years is essential to reverse this trend. In this talk, I will share some of the science projects we are carrying out at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, in collaboration with local schools, that aim to shape future citizens equipped with the scientific literacy needed to make informed decisions and participate actively in society.

About the speaker

Esther Paños Martínez has a PhD in Educational Sciences from the University of Castilla-La Mancha and graduated in Early Childhood Education. She currently works as an Associate Professor at the School of Education, where she trains future teachers. Her teaching focuses on the didactics of the experimental sciences at the early childhood and elementary education levels. Her research explores teaching-learning methodologies, attitudes toward science, and education for sustainable development. She also leads projects in collaboration with preschool and primary schools that promote hands-on, contextualized science education, rooted in students’ everyday experiences. This work allows her to engage directly with young children, which she is truly passionate about.

Synergies between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Knowledge Integration (KI) Pedagogy for Science Learning

Marcia Linn

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

Rapid breakthroughs in AI along with advances in the learning sciences offer unprecedented opportunities for teaching and learning. Our partnership of local classroom teachers and secondary school students, AI experts and learning scientists at UC Berkeley and Educational Testing Service, and software designers at UC Berkeley began experimenting with AI tools in 2008, informed by Knowledge Integration pedagogy. This talk introduces some of the synergies that have emerged from exploring ways to merge AI and KI to score student explanations of scientific phenomena and guide design of instructional studies.

Graduate Spotlight: SESAME graduate Korah Wiley now at Digital Promise.

About the speaker

Marcia C. Linn is the Evelyn Lois Corey Professor of Instructional Science at the Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley. She specializes in science and technology.

She is a member of the National Academy of Education and the International Academy of Education. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association for Psychological Science (APS), the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS). She has served as President of the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS), Chair of the AAAS Education Section, and on the boards of the AAAS, the Educational Testing Service Graduate Record Examination, the McDonnell Foundation Cognitive Studies in Education Practice, and the National Science Foundation Education and Human Resources Directorate. Awards include the National Association for Research in Science Teaching Award for Lifelong Distinguished Contributions to Science Education, the American Educational Research Association Willystine Goodsell Award, and the Council of Scientific Society Presidents first award for Excellence in Educational Research.

Linn earned her Ph. D. at Stanford University, where she worked with Lee Cronbach. She spent a year in Geneva working with Jean Piaget, a year in Israel as a Fulbright Professor, and a year in London at University College. She has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences three times and a Bellagio Center Writing Resident twice.

Her books include Computers, Teachers, Peers (2000), Internet Environments for Science Education (2004), Designing Coherent Science Education (2008), WISE Science (2009), and Science Teaching and Learning: Taking Advantage of Technology to Promote Knowledge Integration (2011) [Chinese Translation, 2015]. She chairs the Technology, Education—Connections (TEC) series for Teachers College Press.

Identity is a Complicated and Multifaceted Construct

Frank Worrell

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

When asked to think about the question, “Who am I?” do you reference demographic groups that you belong to, such as your gender or your ethnic group membership, or do you describe personal characteristics, such as being shy and optimistic or tall, dark, and handsome? Whether we focus on personal or sociocultural identity variables, all of these identity characteristics constitute who we are and the lens through which we look at the world. Indeed, these characteristics are the basis for the notion of intersectionality. In this presentation, Dr. Worrell will showcase how both personal and sociocultural identities are multidimensional and affect our thoughts and behaviors in educational and other settings.

About the speaker

Frank C. Worrell, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he serves as Faculty Director of the School Psychology Program, the Academic Talent Development Program, and the California College Preparatory Academy.

A certified school psychologist and a licensed psychologist, his research interests include at-risk youth, cultural identities, scale development, talent development, teaching effectiveness, time perspective, and the translation of psychological research findings into practice.

Author of over 350 scholarly works, Dr. Worrell is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the American Psychological Association (APA), and an elected member of the Society for the Study of School Psychology and the National Academy of Education. He was the 2022 President of the American Psychological Association.

Planting Seeds for Critical Race Analyses in Education Research

Kourtney Kawano

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

This talk engages an Indigenous storytelling method and a critical race analysis to accomplish two goals. First, as a new faculty at BSE, I plant seeds of relationality with people and place using an Indigenous framework for transformation. Specifically, I map Dr. Taupōuri Tangarō’s Kaʻao Framework onto the core areas of my research program, and I explain this program’s significance to my identity as a critical race resistance scholar in education.

Second, I plant seeds of inquiry that grew from critical race analyses of student and teacher discourses about belonging in science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM). Here, I analyze competing ideologies layered within two discourses about who and whose knowledge “belongs” in STEMM, and I invite collective sensemaking about potential implications of framing the teaching and learning of STEMM for “the way the world works” and “a world we can (re)make.”

About the speaker

Kourtney Kawano (she/her) is a wahine ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian woman) from the village community of Nānākuli on the island of Oʻahu. She is Acting Assistant Professor at the Berkeley School of Education. Her work centers place-based stories and histories to examine how culture, Indigeneity, and race/ethnicity shape teaching and learning across p–20 schooling contexts.

A critical race resistance scholar and a product of Native Hawaiian culture-based schooling, Dr. Kawano embraces the proverb “ʻAʻohe pau ka ʻike i ka hālau hoʻokahi (all knowledge is not taught in the same school)” by weaving a variety of worldviews, conceptual framings, and qualitative methodological techniques in her interdisciplinary scholarship.

Powerful, Equitable Mathematics through School-wide Lesson Study: The Journey to Teach Through Problem-solving

Catherine Lewis

Mills College at Northeastern University (Oakland, California campus)

Abstract

This presentation highlights the work of several urban elementary schools where teacher-led, school-wide lesson study supported dramatic changes in mathematics teaching and learning. We will examine the teacher-led development of school-wide lesson study and the "Teaching Through Problem-solving" approach teachers used to transform mathematics instruction.

School-wide lesson study is near-universal in Japanese schools; teacher teams conduct collaborative inquiry cycles centered on live "research lessons" observed and discussed by the whole faculty. Teaching Through Problem-solving (mondai kaiketsu gakushuu) also originated in Japan; each new mathematical concept/procedure in the curriculum is built through student-led problem-solving. Together, the approaches supported dramatic changes in teachers' routines of learning, in classroom instruction, and in SBAC mathematics scores (which grew from 15% proficiency to 56% proficiency in the first 3 years of work at one case site, supporting a very different trajectory for students from historically underserved groups within these schools versus their larger districts. We will take a close look at two lessons taught in Year 1 and Year 4 at this site to identify the instructional changes that supported learning.

Finally, we will think together about the strategies to sustain and spread work like this, which seeks changes in both teachers' learning and students' learning. The presentation draws on a book recently published by Teachers College Press, Teaching Powerful Problem-solving in Math: A Collaborative Approach Through Lesson Study, by Catherine Lewis, Akihiko Takahashi, Shelley Friedkin, Nora Houseman, and Sara Liebert.

About the speaker

Catherine Lewis, Ph.D. is a research scientist at Mills College at Northeastern University (Oakland, California campus) who has directed 10 major federal grants focused on instructional improvement. Her randomized trial of teacher-led lesson study with Japanese mathematical resources (Lewis & Perry, JRME, 2017, 48:3) was identified by a What Works Clearinghouse-criteria review as one of only two studies of mathematics professional learning (of 643 reviewed) to improve students’ mathematical proficiency.

A developmental psychologist fluent in Japanese, she has makes Japanese elementary education practices and materials available to U.S. educators, including lesson study (teacher-led, classroom-based professional learning), and Mathematics Teaching Through Problem-solving (an approach in which students build each newmathematical idea in the curriculum). Lesson study can support school-wide transformation of mathematics learning and dramatically improve mathematics achievement in urban schools.

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Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

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Maura McDonaugh

Department of Neuroscience, University of California, Berkeley

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Laura Sterponi

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

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Amal Ibourk

Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, Florida State University 

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(Doctoral seminar)

Kelly Billings

Berkeley School of Education, University of California, Berkeley

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Joseph Jay Williams

Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto

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