By:
Janelle M. Johnson, Ph.D., Professor, STEM Education, Metropolitan State University of Denver
Amanda Myers, English Teacher, Rise High School
When a teacher presents a lesson to their class, especially in a high-need school, some students are engaged while many others are not. Which students tend to get the greater support for learning? Which students get overlooked? How do these become patterns over time that shape the students’ perceptions of their own intelligence and self-efficacy? How does this shape who can see themselves in a STEM pathway and who gets the message that it’s not for them (Gentrup et al., 2020)?
This blog describes the use of focal students as an inclusive pedagogy that supports teacher planning and reflection, part of my own (Janelle’s) considerable effort to center social justice in teacher learning. This approach supports asset-based orientations grounded in student and community “funds of knowledge” (Moll et al. 1992), curriculum as windows and mirrors. Teachers’ development of a focal student lens serves to shift toward an asset-based view by asking the teachers which students they have struggled to engage (rather than naming those they perceive as low performing). And while they may begin the process with students who they may label as “at risk,” the design we share in this blog helps teachers to recognize their own implicit biases, to learn to revisit the source of those biases, and ideally to shift their mindsets. Teachers who have asset-based orientations tend to have higher expectations of students who have been historically underserved which can help them produce transformative learning outcomes (Gonzalez, 2023; Maddamsetti, 2024).
Teachers need specific strategies to help them close the opportunity gaps that shape student learning and achievement. Often, when educators plan instruction, we think of the needs of “average” students in terms of achievement since it seems to be the most inclusive approach. Most teachers typically plan for the middle or average student and may overlook the needs of students who have faced opportunity gaps (Friedlaender et al., 2014). However, this strategy tends to exclude the outliers—students perceived to be at the top and bottom of the group in achievement. While higher achieving students certainly merit attention, this group is statistically more academically successful than their classmates, and there is an extensive literature base on high achieving and gifted and talented education. Utilizing an asset-based approach with historically lower achieving students helps not only to counter any biases inherent in many commonly utilized pedagogical approaches but also in holding high expectations for all students and providing differentiation to support academic growth. These are what we refer to as focal students.
Roots of an Approach
Working with a team of instructors, I (Janelle) began using focal students as a tool for planning with preservice teachers (PSTs) in a multicultural education class. When we asked PSTs to generate descriptions of focal students, we noticed that stereotypes and deficit orientations were prevalent in the PSTs’ work. Our PI team saw similarly framed descriptions when we included focal students as a tool for reflection and planning with in-service teachers under a NSF ITEST grant (#1615193).
Our PSTs had learned about the near-peer mentorship concept, so we helped them set up meetings with novice Noyce teachers who became their mentors [1]. We asked the PST mentee and their near-peer mentor to jointly make observations on the level of engagement of the novice teacher’s focal students using the tool below.
As we continued to utilize this early version of the tool, we tweaked the wording of the prompt (“Focal students are…”) to “Think of two to three specific students who you have struggled to engage in STEM learning.” This slight shift places the onus on the teacher, rather than framing the student with a deficit lens (Garcia & Guerra, 2004). Our goal in professional learning is to help teachers shift their own practices to better serve their students, and this adjustment in the question better aligns to that goal. It better facilitates critical self-reflection and helps to embed that reflective lens into envisioning what engaging interdisciplinary STEM instruction could look like. We generated a word cloud based on what teachers told us they understood about focal students.
I (Janelle) took a different approach to this challenge of having PSTs shift their own practices to better serve their students. I revised the assignment, providing sample descriptions of focal students and workshopping the descriptions in class. In the workshops, we were explicit about several theoretical lenses: utilizing a growth mindset in the descriptions mindful of stereotype threat and expectancy theory in our discourse and using strength and deficit lenses (Garcia & Guerra, 2004). Stereotype threat theory highlights the importance of creating an inclusive and supportive environment that promotes a sense of belonging and reduces the impact of stereotypes on individuals’ performance (Smith & Hung, 2008). Expectancy theory emphasizes the significance of setting clear goals and providing feedback and support to help students achieve their goals (Vroom et al., 2015). These workshops allow us to normalize the fact that we all come to teaching with implicit biases and that there are actions we can take in our classrooms to counter those biases. We now ask the PSTs to work in groups to edit the sample descriptions and collaboratively generate asset-based descriptions with the following set of instructions [2], citing literature we have read in class:
- Avoid stereotypes/deficit language that locates problems with individual students and families and communities (think of systemic opportunity gaps).
- Consider the knowledge and abilities of local families and communities to offer more significant learning opportunities for children in schools (Moll et al, 1992).
- See students as “whole” people, rather than simply as students in classrooms. This facilitates educators’ engagement of students in developing more holistic abilities for contributing to diverse communities (González et al, 2005; Moll et al, 1992).
- View linguistic and cultural diversity as resources, and not problems, an important foundation of bilingual/intercultural education (Ruiz, 1984).
- Avoid generalizations and attributes as the source of the information. Was the information you included told to you by the student? By a teacher? By a family member? If you are making your own observations, be aware of assumptions. State what you observed, and use phrasing like “This makes me wonder if…” or “It appears that the student may…”
After design-based implementation research on the focal student approach, we revised and enacted this strategy in our second round of a Noyce Track 1 scholarship (Grant #2151027). We require Scholars to do at least two near-peer observations with novice in-service teachers who were Noyce Scholars. The observation protocol and reflection ask the Scholar and teacher to discuss who the teacher’s focal students are, responding to the same questions from the table above using the Likert scale, and how effective the lesson was in serving the focal students’ needs, recording their responses on an online form. They then think through what potential future lessons for both mentor and mentee could look like, based on that collaborative reflection.
Implications
The practice of teachers learning to utilize focal students in high-need schools can be transformative for learning goals that support all students. The students who teachers typically struggle to engage are those with the least access to high-quality STEM learning experiences–students of color, low-income students, students who receive special education services, English Learners, and/or students with gaps in their foundational STEM content knowledge. If we provide teachers with spaces where they feel welcome to engage in critical self-reflection, they can shift their mindsets about stereotyped students. When teachers raise their expectations of students, they are more likely to succeed academically.
The focal student tool is designed to support teachers’ understanding through modeling of what inclusive interdisciplinary STEM teaching and learning can look like [3]. While theoretically based strategies can be challenging for both preservice and in-service teachers to grasp and implement in their classrooms fully, the focal student lens offers a more concrete approach that can help educators imagine and implement more engaging instruction for learners who have often had the least access to high quality learning experiences. We have observed positive outcomes in novice teachers’ understanding of the importance of building trust with students and holding high expectations to increase student engagement and learning. Some examples of positive outcomes are provided at the end of the blog.
Teachers who are better able to facilitate student learning feel greater satisfaction in their role as educators and are far more likely to continue teaching. This is a simple tool, but it is essential that the environment where educators learn this approach feels safe for them to be equity learners. We want to support shifts in teachers’ thinking so that more inclusive pedagogies are embraced and normalized. When teachers (and their administrators) increase learning by students who have struggled in the past, there is no better argument for inclusive interdisciplinary STEM teaching. This is one small granito de arena toward closing opportunity gaps in STEM. Reiterating this tool over time has also been a source of critical self-reflection for me as a teacher educator. I am grateful for what engaging in this process has helped me understand about early career professional learning.
Notes
[1] While there are varying models of near peer mentorship (see the work of Freeman Hrabowski III), our context is a secondary science and math teacher preparation scholarship program (NSF Noyce grants #1660506, 1615193, and 2151027) refer to as STEM) designed in response to the fears and anxieties commonly expressed by preservice teachers (Scales et al., 2020). Strategies such as intentional community building and working with near peers are especially important for STEM students from underserved backgrounds since they help build self-efficacy, serving to counter some of the negative messaging students may have received during the course of their education (Carpi et al., 2017; Kunberger & Geiger, 2016; Sánchez, de Haro-Rodríguez, & Martínez, 2019); while these strategies are certainly promising in K-12 settings, in this case we are deploying them with preservice teachers.
[2] We are grateful for the insightful comments from our editor, Paulo Tan, who asked if these instructions included prompts specific to students receiving special education services. This class is currently under curricular revision, and prompts of that nature will be included.
[3] For our Noyce Scholars’ academic commitments under their promissory note, they are required to do a minimum of two near peer observations each semester—one in mathematics and one in science. Many Scholars appreciate the experience so much that they choose to schedule additional near peer visits.
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Paulo Tan for serving as an editor for the 2024 ARISE blog series and for working with Janelle on her blog. Read Paulo’s blog, “Abolitionist Approaches to Transform STEM Classrooms to Equitable, Just, and Democratic Places of Learning Necessitates Disrupting the Center.”
Positive Outcomes from Near-Peer Mentorships
“(The near peer mentor) and I also connected on more than just teaching, especially in the debrief. I had a ton of extra takeaways including: 1) Balance of technology, notebooks, and teaching; 2) Ask with leading questions rather than answers; 3) Being explicit; 4) Asking for help from other teachers, especially in my first year; [and] 5) Welcoming students even if they are late.”
“As a student teacher, he had good control and direction. He hardly had to redirect students if they became unfocused. When he did ask for them to re-engage, they did so in a respectful manner. I could see the background connections that he has made to connect with students, and it shows. He was and is very authentic in his approach when relating to his students. He doesn’t present himself ‘above’ them and doesn’t try to act or be anything more. He is their teacher, period. He makes time to hear what they have to say and really listen to indirect language and messages that are being conveyed, which is an art form in itself. I am grateful that I had a chance to observe him.”
“[The near peer mentor] does a great job at pushing students further even when the work is done, this is something I need to work on in my lessons on having students always be thinking for the entire period regardless of skill. He also does a great job at not letting kids opt out of work, even when they want to. He does a good job at going around the class and making time of the 1 on 1 positive feedback sessions for the students. He has a great student-teacher relationship. The students know that failure is an option, and they seem okay with it. They say wrong answers without critique, they participate when called on without being scared or nervous. He has authority, but it’s a warm authority.”
![](https://aaas-arise.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/J-Johnson-head-shot.png")
Janelle M. Johnson, Ph.D., Professor, STEM Education, Metropolitan State University of Denver
jjohn428@msudenver.edu
Janelle M. Johnson is the Director of the Colorado STEM Ecosystem and Professor of STEM Education at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She has been the PI on four NSF grants and is the co-editor of STEM21: Equity in Teaching and Learning to Meet Global Challenges of Standards, Engagement, and Transformation (2018). Her professional development with educators and STEM providers helps develop non-deficit lenses while centering the needs of learners who have been less engaged with STEM. She taught Math and Earth Science to students in Guatemala and in Arizona for eight years and her dissertation research with Indigenous teachers in Guatemala and Mexico examined the outcomes of US-based professional development.
![](https://aaas-arise.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/thumbnail_AmandaMyersProfile-e1737567923507.jpg")
Amanda Myers, English Teacher, Rise High School
amyers@rockymountainprep.org
Amanda Myers recently graduated from Metropolitan State University of Denver with a degree in English Secondary Education. She was the first ever undergraduate research assistant for the university’s Noyce program, supporting the team’s writing efforts, serving as a writing tutor in the STEM Learning Center, and collaborating with the Noyce undergraduate research group. She now teaches sophomore English at Rise High School. Amanda believes that incorporating culturally relevant pedagogy, funds of knowledge, and cross-curricular work in teaching practices is crucial for creating an inclusive and equitable learning environment where all students can thrive.
