Juntos is a reflective tool specifically designed for Stanford students taking Spanish 11SL to step away from a dominant view of culture and empathize with latinx youth.
Collaborators: Sean Sutherland and Maya Sussman
Contribution: qualitative interviews/needfinding, ideations, prototyping, iterations
Tools: Google Forms, iMovie
Contribution: qualitative interviews/needfinding, ideations, prototyping, iterations
Tools: Google Forms, iMovie
Understanding Our Client
My team and I were matched with a Stanford Spanish Professor, Ali Miano, who wanted to raise cultural awareness amongst her students. The purpose of the course is not only for Stanford Students (SS) to be able to articulate in Spanish, but to gain awareness and clarity of the history, current events, and perspective of Spanish-speaking communities. And so, the course requires Stanford Students to visit a Boys and Girls Club site at Hoover Community School, where they practice their Spanish and collaborate with bilingual latinx youth in community art activities/exercises.
We conducted qualitative interviews with Professor Ali and members of BGCP in Redwood City to gain insight on their goals for our collaboration. We gained three insights regarding cultural awareness of Stanford Students (SS):
We also conducted site observations to view the current state of collaboration amongst SS and BGCP youth. A SS do not have time to build personal relationships with BGCP students.
We conducted qualitative interviews with Professor Ali and members of BGCP in Redwood City to gain insight on their goals for our collaboration. We gained three insights regarding cultural awareness of Stanford Students (SS):
- SS tend to have a euro-centric view of Spanish-speaking communities
- SS need to see themselves as co-learners and not mentors or (beings of better knowledge) to BGCP students
- While SS acknowledge the culture of BGCP students, Professor Ali wants them to develop a “heartfelt” appreciation of other cultures
We also conducted site observations to view the current state of collaboration amongst SS and BGCP youth. A SS do not have time to build personal relationships with BGCP students.
Defining the Challenge
Using research on Community Cultural Capital (Yosso, 2005) and empathy training as a framework for cultural awareness, we decided on three HMW's:
- HMW invite Stanford students to challenge their preconceived notions about relative cultural values?
- HMW empower Stanford students to identify examples of community cultural wealth in their experiences at the BGCP and beyond?
- HMW make the critical importance of cultural understanding more visible within the pursuit of language learning, including various registers and varieties of language?
Design, Build, and Test
Stanford already uses an online platform called Canvas for students to receive and submit assignments to the professor. When designing meaningful tools for educators, it is important to consider their technical knowledge and teaching process in order to minimize any negative disruption (Forssell, 2016). Therefore, our tool would ideally be easily implemented or added to this existing process for assignments.
We first focused on reflective practices that can address our challenges and decided to use Google Forms as a prototype to test the quality of reflection from our SS. Using Community Cultural Capital as a framework (see image below), our questions consisted of two parts that guided SS to the reflective process:
The professor gave our reflective questions as well as a feedback questionnaire to the class. Our results show that
(2) SS felt like the questions on cultural capital were hard to answer in general as they felt they had a general understanding of the theoretical concept, which can make finding concrete examples more challenging.
At the same time, the Professor would want to use this reflection as a way to have students practice their Spanish. If they are unable to write enough for these assignments, then it would defeat the purpose of the course. The Professor also expressed the need to customize and adapt to any suggesting questions we have.
For our second iteration, we realized that our reflective process would have to occur in stages:
We first focused on reflective practices that can address our challenges and decided to use Google Forms as a prototype to test the quality of reflection from our SS. Using Community Cultural Capital as a framework (see image below), our questions consisted of two parts that guided SS to the reflective process:
- A general question for SS to think about their visit to BGCP.
- A list of Community Cultural Capital and explanations for SS to practice identifying the capital they witnessed in their visit. This is meant as a supplement to a classroom discussion on the topic.
The professor gave our reflective questions as well as a feedback questionnaire to the class. Our results show that
- SS feel like they do not have a deep connection with students
(2) SS felt like the questions on cultural capital were hard to answer in general as they felt they had a general understanding of the theoretical concept, which can make finding concrete examples more challenging.
At the same time, the Professor would want to use this reflection as a way to have students practice their Spanish. If they are unable to write enough for these assignments, then it would defeat the purpose of the course. The Professor also expressed the need to customize and adapt to any suggesting questions we have.
For our second iteration, we realized that our reflective process would have to occur in stages:
- Introduce cultural capital as a reflective framework and analyze videos of individuals speaking about their lives to identify specific examples.
- As students begin to interact with BGCP students, they would be better equipped to analyze their individual experience through the lens of cultural capital
- Since the final project is a community art mural, SS would reflect on their experience as a whole through the lens of community cultural capital.