Designing Online Professional Learning to Support Educators to Teach for Equity During COVID and Black Lives Matter

Abstract

The massive racial inequities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide protests in response to the killings of unarmed Black people forced a reckoning among many educators about racial injustice in the educational system. In March 2020, we launched a massive open online course designed to support teachers in adopting antiracist equity mind-sets and practices. We used a mixed-methods approach to describe how the participants experienced the online course between March and July 2020. Participants in immediate post- and follow-up surveys reported statistically significant shifts in their mind-sets and practices toward equitable teaching practices (effect size = 0.18–58 SD). In interviews, participants described how the course helped them change their practice through acquiring new language, reflecting collaboratively on practice, and engaging in calls to action. The findings provide insight to designers of online professional learning experiences focused on equity and open up new research areas on online professional learning for equity teaching mind-sets and practices.