Valuing Urban Middle School Student Perspectives about Science Lessons: Formative Assessments to Inform Instructional Adjustments

The tendency in urban schools is that teachers hold incomplete understandings about their students (by virtue of difference in cultural, race, language, and social class) is a lingering challenge since "Brown v. Board of Education" desegregated students in schools while also casting out large numbers of Black educators (Walker, 2013). The mismatches between urban school teacher and student backgrounds translate into inadequate instructional practices. It has been wisely proposed that many teachers fail to notice opportunities to foster equity in their classrooms and that without the ability to witness those moments changing their teaching practices fall short of elevating equitable engagement (Patterson Williams et al., 2020). This paper describes ongoing collaborative efforts between university faculty and practicing teachers to collect information and interpret data in ways that advance more equity-centered education. Research-practice partnerships, which describes this study's structure, are used to address educational inequities (Welsh, 2021) even though critics suggest equity is not always inherent to those designs (Gutiérrez & Jurow, 2016). For all the promise of data-driven decision-making there is little guidance about how teachers might collaborate to implement culturally-responsive pedagogy despite the frequency with which assessments are administered. This study seeks to navigate between accountability and instruction in urban middle schools.