Teaching Equity through Assets-Based Journaling: Using Community Cultural Wealth to Guide Student Reflections

Gabriella Coloyan Fleming; Jessica Deters; Maya Denton

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Conference: 2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)
Location: Arlington, Virginia
Publication Date: February 25, 2024
Start Date: February 25, 2024
End Date: February 27, 2024
Conference Session: Track 6: Technical Session 3: Teaching Equity through Assets-Based Journaling: Using Community Cultural Wealth to Guide Student Reflections
Tagged Topics: Diversity and CoNECD Paper Sessions
Page Count: 46
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--45483
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/45483
Download Count: 17

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Paper Authors

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Gabriella Coloyan Fleming University of Texas at Austin orcid.org/0000-0002-6771-8741

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Dr. Gabriella Coloyan Fleming is the director of and a research associate in the Center for Equity in Engineering within the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She earned her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2012 and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from UT Austin in 2014 and 2018, respectively. In addition to leading research and practice in the Center for Equity, her research interests include teaching equity through assets-based learning and DEI topics in graduate education, faculty hiring, and the pathway to an academic career.

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Jessica Deters University of Nebraska - Lincoln orcid.org/0000-0001-8766-9548

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Dr. Jessica Deters is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and Discipline Based Education Researcher at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. She holds her Ph.D. in Engineering Education and M.S. in Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech.

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Maya Denton University of Oklahoma

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Dr. Maya Denton is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Pathways at the University of Oklahoma. She received her B.S. in chemical engineering from Purdue University, her M.S. in environmental and water resources engineering from the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin), and her PhD in STEM education from UT-Austin. Before graduate school, she worked for an industrial gas company in a variety of engineering roles. Her research in engineering and STEM education focuses on career pathways within engineering and issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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Abstract

Students from historically excluded groups at primarily White institutions (PWIs) are too often made to feel that their experiences put them at a disadvantage compared to their peers from majority groups. While faculty and administrators can be well-intentioned, thinking they are identifying barriers that they can then solve, this deficit-based mindset can have harmful effects on the students they seek to serve. Increasingly, scholars have begun to call for assets-based approaches that highlight the forms of capital that these students have.

Our research team developed a series of reflective prompts based on the Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) framework (i.e., aspirational, linguistic, familial, social, navigational, and resistant capital). In this study, 80 students were asked to complete reflections based on these prompts at the beginning of, during, and end of a four-week engineering study abroad program co-taught by one of the authors. Additionally, at the end of the program prior to the final reflection due date, the author gave a lecture and led a discussion explaining community cultural wealth and how the reflections tied into it, inviting students to share their experiences and what they learned about themselves. Fifty-six students (70%) identified as people of color, 25 (31%) as women, and many as low-income and/or first-generation college students.

This presentation will focus on our development of these CCW reflective prompts and present results from a thematic analysis of student responses to the questions “What did you learn from reflecting on these types of capital?”, “How has journaling helped you realize what assets you already have?”, and “How might you use these assets when you return home?” Preliminary analysis shows that by completing these reflections, students realized skills they didn’t know they had, increased their confidence in navigating the world, and came to understand that their lived experiences are assets rather than deficits. This presentation will also discuss how instructors can adapt the CCW reflective prompts for their own students.

Citation
Format

Fleming, G. C., & Deters, J., & Denton, M. (2024, February), Teaching Equity through Assets-Based Journaling: Using Community Cultural Wealth to Guide Student Reflections Paper presented at 2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD), Arlington, Virginia. 10.18260/1-2--45483

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Students from historically excluded groups at primarily White institutions (PWIs) are too often made to feel that their experiences put them at a disadvantage compared to their peers from majority groups. While faculty and administrators can be well-intentioned, thinking they are identifying barriers that they can then solve, this deficit-based mindset can have harmful effects on the students they seek to serve. Increasingly, scholars have begun to call for assets-based approaches that highlight the forms of capital that these students have.

	Our research team developed a series of reflective prompts based on the Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) framework (i.e., aspirational, linguistic, familial, social, navigational, and resistant capital). In this study, 80 students were asked to complete reflections based on these prompts at the beginning of, during, and end of a four-week engineering study abroad program co-taught by one of the authors. Additionally, at the end of the program prior to the final reflection due date, the author gave a lecture and led a discussion explaining community cultural wealth and how the reflections tied into it, inviting students to share their experiences and what they learned about themselves. Fifty-six students (70%) identified as people of color, 25 (31%) as women, and many as low-income and/or first-generation college students. 

	This presentation will focus on our development of these CCW reflective prompts and present results from a thematic analysis of student responses to the questions “What did you learn from reflecting on these types of capital?”, “How has journaling helped you realize what assets you already have?”, and “How might you use these assets when you return home?” Preliminary analysis shows that by completing these reflections, students realized skills they didn’t know they had, increased their confidence in navigating the world, and came to understand that their lived experiences are assets rather than deficits. This presentation will also discuss how instructors can adapt the CCW reflective prompts for their own students.
AU  - Gabriella Coloyan Fleming
AU  - Jessica Deters
AU  - Maya Denton
CY  - Arlington, Virginia
DA  - 2024/02/25
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Teaching Equity through Assets-Based Journaling: Using Community Cultural Wealth to Guide Student Reflections
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/45483
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--45483
ER  -