In May 2024, the Assessment for Learning Community gathered in Oakland, California, to continue our exploration of the question: How do assessment for learning practices contribute to learner belonging, equity, and liberation? During this convening, the community chose from two site visits to observe student defenses of learning at Envision Academy and Arise High School.
In preparation for the learning excursions, the community asked a range of questions about the relationship between performance assessment systems and learner belonging, equity, and liberation. Some questions included:
How do these schools provide daily instruction aligned to their graduate profiles? I am curious about how our host schools define "learning equity" as well as "liberation," specifically through the lens of day-by-day expectations in terms of culture and academic rigor.
How can we engage more of our school community to believe in the value and importance of student-led conferences, defenses of learning, and exhibitions of learning for student learning and honoring their identity and unique abilities?
What different forms of defenses can be used that will reflect learning and create equity? How do we create a sense of belonging while pushing rigor and critical thinking?
While we were not able to address every facet of these questions in our 1.5 day convening, we tried to create a structure that allowed participants to connect with each other around the content of these questions, both in the space of their site visits, and in the learning spaces in which the site visits were nested.
As part of the convening, we invited storytellers from our host schools (Envision and Arise), Oakland Unified School District, and the Assessment for Learning Community to share their learning and reflections after our convening. Many of our storytellers address the questions above, in addition to sharing their own thoughts and provocations in the ideas they share.
Our first Oakland is from Maria Kaimana of Envision Academy. Maria participated in the AFL community during our Aurora convening, and shared her thoughts about equitable grading through our Aurora stories. In our first story from Oakland, Maria asks us to consider the power of a defense, and removing the option for student failure, instead asking them to review and revise. She then zooms into the particulars of preparing her student, CJ, for her defense.
In this opening, we begin to see the potential for components of a system to come together and shift the mindsets and opportunities for both students and educators.
Written by Maria Kaimana | Reviewed by Cynthia Joseph
“No, Ms. Maria. I want to do this.”
I know my eyebrows are furrowed and my face says more than I want it to about the doubts and nerves I’m feeling. CJ's eyes are bright and I see the determination that I know well in her eyes.
“Okay, I trust you. I think you have a lot of revisions to make, but I know you can do it.”
CJ smiles at me.
“Ms. Maria, I’ve got this.”
Since the Covid Pandemic, Envision Academy has struggled to keep teachers, enroll students, and retain leaders. With nearly 30% of our teachers as long term subs, and a new principal every year for the last four years, it’s been hard to keep our portfolio and defense systems alive, but somehow we’ve persisted. Now, we are rebuilding it into something truly exceptional.
As a long time Envision teacher, and now instructional coach, our graduate profile is what has kept me at Envision over the last nine years. I remember the first defense season I ever experienced. It was the most powerful work I’ve ever seen students engage in. From that first year, I knew that student portfolios and defenses were one of the most incredible things we could ask young people to produce. While it might seem odd, one of my favorite parts is that students cannot fail. Yes, they might not pass the first time, but then they will get feedback, revise, and re-present until they demonstrate mastery. I think I love this part so much because it reminds me that the true purpose of education is to teach–and teaching and telling are not synonyms. To truly teach, we must become good listeners, we must ask students questions and let them grapple with their own answers and reflections, we must find ways to offer precise feedback without taking away a students agency to think for themselves; like teaching, preparing students for a defense is beautiful and incredibly difficult. And this year was no different.
CJ sat in my office for nearly three hours the day before her presentation. She blasted her favorite songs and revised her presentation. She practiced and took my feedback with grace and care. At the end of the day, I knew she was ready, but I also knew that wouldn’t squash either of our nerves. Because when done right, defenses are a showcase of the teachers skills to coach students to develop something powerful.
The next day CJ presented in front of nearly 20 AFL community members. Words cannot do justice to the beauty and power of her presentation. In the thirty minutes that I was listening to her and asking probing questions, I was reminded of the power of student defenses as a way to showcase students' whole selves. They are a chance for a student to show who they truly are, what they have learned, and why they are prepared for what comes next. CJ’s defense was just that: a statement of who she is as a leader in our community and the legacy she hopes to leave. In her response to one of our questions she said, “When we say that our kids can’t do it, we are dismissing the future.”
Whoever you are, wherever you are, I urge you to take CJ’s words to heart as you plan for another school year. Defenses remind me that our kids can do whatever we teach them to do and in CJ’s words “these kids are our future” and “you can be a leader wherever you are.”
Storyteller
Maria Kaimana
Instructional Coach
Maria Kaimana is a humanities instructional coach at Envision Academy in Oakland, California. She started her career teaching English in North Carolina, but moved to Oakland in 2015 to be back where her love of teaching began. Throughout college she was a tutor and college advisor at schools across Oakland. She is driven by her passion for social justice, her genuine curiosity, and a true love of learning. When she isn’t working, she can be found swimming in The Bay or hiking in the mountains.
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