Chaison Shuart
Research Mentor(s): Maria Hamdani
Mentor Department: Center for Measurement Justice
Authors: Maria Hamdani, Chaison Shuart, Vishnu Chinni
Session: Session 5 (2:00pm – 2:50pm)
Presentation Type: Poster 84
Abstract
Many children grow up with their cultural identities being overshadowed by the dominant culture, often leading to a disconnect between their lived experiences and the content they engage with in school. While strides have been made in various fields to embrace cultural diversity, the learning environment, especially math, still lags behind. The first question we posed was: “How can we create an assessment that centers the experiences, cultures, and knowledge systems of Black, Brown, and Indigenous students?†The answer was simple. First, we created brainstorming sessions of Black, Brown and Indigenous students and interviewed them on their culture and social injustices they would like to change. Next, we attempted to align their answers to cultural tenets and Mathematical Standards to create culturally responsive and anti-racist assessment questions. We provided Open-AI with specific scenarios derived from the brainstorming sessions, Tenets, and Standards to allow it to help us with the frameworks of the assessments, and finally fine-tuned them with human intervention. After the assessment items have been created, students and mathematicians will review the questions and give feedback on how we can fine-tune them. The current results have allowed us to conclude that justice-oriented assessments engage students from marginalized communities to feel validated, affirmed, and empowered in our modern-day society. Through this work, we can work toward a more inclusive and equitable educational system where all students feel valued and empowered in school.
