The Role of Learning City “Smart Teams” in Promoting, Supporting, and Extending the Community School Model

Abstract

Systemic and structural inequities and disparities in social, health, economic, and educational opportunities result in pervasive, complex challenges which impede social, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive development. This exploratory paper considers practices which perpetuate inequity and offers a framework for thinking about and addressing these inequities by convening learning city “Smart Teams” comprised of representative community members working collaboratively in visioning, problem solving, decision-making, action taking, and policy development to promote, support, and extend the community school model into the fabric of the community. This paper draws on a theoretical framework consisting of self-determination theory and conceptual frameworks for communities of networked expertise and activity theory with the goals of (1) reimagining and helping students to actualize new identities as learners and contributors to society; (2) designing motivating learning environments which offer new options for collaboration with peers, educators, and community mentors; (3) implementing new approaches for students to systematically, yet imaginatively, and creatively interpret, tackle and propose, incubate, and/or prototype solutions to real-world problems; and (4) constructing environments and activity models which mitigate impediments to learning and teaching.