Integrating Students Interests

The funds of knowledge and funds of identity frameworks have been shown to be powerful tools for understanding and valuing minoritized students in the classroom. Teachers face two perennial challenges as they build on students’ FoI for classroom activities: 1) students have widely varied experiences and interests, and 1) it’s difficult and time consuming to get to know all of one’s students deeply enough to inform instruction with that knowledge. Data visualization provides a possible solution to this dilemma, which we will explore through our design and implementation cycles. Visualizations such as Net.Create may allow teachers and students to visualize their Collective FoI and more easily identify and explore topics of interest to them. Our project explores how network visualization can help resolve these persistent tensions in new ways that were not previously possible by supporting the whole classroom in collaboratively developing a shared, collective visualization which depicts both individual interests (FoI) and the resulting Collective FoI of the entire classroom.