You made it through the heavy lifting of Stage 2 as you worked to close the “knowing-doing” gap. And here’s the secret that no one tells you in education: The first time you do a new thing, you aren’t good at it yet. And that’s normal.

Consider your first pass through Stages 1 and 2 as your first pancake. You probably are coming out of those stages with more questions than answers, regarding implementing new practices that move student learning! 

And that’s ok. Because now you know what you don’t know about moving a student from dependent learning toward cognitively independent learning — or getting a student to reject compliant learning for productive struggle.  You’ll get better as you move students further away from dependent learning. That comes with reflection.

In Stage 3, you will take a step back and do that reflection. We’ll focus on critical analysis of what you’ve tried, what worked and why, as well as what didn’t work and what needs tweaking as a result.

This critical analysis isn’t focused on student achievement. Instead, you are turning the lens on yourself as a cognitive mediator. This is about YOUR work and its impact on students. 

This reflection process is centered around what revolutionary educator Paulo Friere calls praxis. Freire defines praxis in Pedagogy of the Oppressed as “reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed” in the pursuit of liberatory education.  He says that through praxis, oppressed people can acquire a critical awareness of their own condition that allows them to develop agency in their struggle for liberation. In this case, the liberation we seek is through greater cognitive capacity for our students.

In the Culturally Responsive Education by Design Online PLC, we have been engaged in praxis from Day One as you’ve been guided to think, act, and engage differently when it comes to instruction and student learning, in order to increase students’ awareness of their agency as a learner.  

Here’s a big thing to note. This stage is set up differently. There are no lessons or videos or lots of PDFs to download. Instead, you get a single reflection journal and 10 checkpoints throughout, to highlight a few important things. Each module is a particular focus area for your critical self-analysis. 

Start wherever you like. The journal isn’t linear, just as the journey as a culturally responsive educator isn’t a straight line. But don’t skip anything.

The checkpoints come in the form of short audio clips from me, that offer some food for thought as you move through a particular section of the reflection journal. 

Remember – the audio clips aren’t new content. They’re just one last chance for me to get in your ear.