Participate and share: Poster 
As the demographics of teachers and students change in American public education, teacher educators must find ways to prepare teachers to engage the increasingly diverse communities served by these schools. A key feature of teacher education must therefore be repeated, powerful experiences with the realities of both current and historical inequities experienced by members of the Black, indigenous, and persons of color (BIPOC) community in the United States.
In our teaching and research in social studies education and technology integration, we have developed a sequence of lessons that foreground issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion while also introducing teachers to geospatial tools. These activities have been used in both pre-service and in-service teacher education, and some teachers have adapted them for use in their own classrooms.
Within our sequence of geospatial instruction, teachers complete inquiry-driven lessons that both model and explain geospatial technologies (such as ArcGIS Online, a professional-grade tool freely available to K12 teachers and schools) and engage them as learners with issues of cultural erasure and school inequity. These lessons sequence the introduction of geospatial technologies and move from historical to current-day examinations of patterns in mapping, the built environment, and schooling. Each of these lessons is localized, engaging the teachers in examination of their personal geographic contexts–the schools, streets, and neighborhoods with which they are familiar.
The following lessons have been used successfully in social studies methods classes, diversity seminars, geospatial teacher professional development sessions, and technology integration workshops.
1. Whose Land?: Teachers reflect on their own personal geography, comparing their experience against the indigenous history that preceded it – in what ways was this preceding culture erased or remembered in the maps and other geographic presentations they encountered?
2. Whose Culture?: Teachers observe the historical markers in their area, identifying patterns of representation and omission–which communities are commemorated? Which are overlooked? What additional historical markers might be needed to provide a fuller accounting of the past and the people who have made up their community?
3. Which District?: Teachers review a GIS dataset of local school district demographics and student outcomes and engage in a version of John Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance thought experiment: If you could pick any district in which to be educated but would be randomly assigned to a demographic (race/ethnicity, identified learning need, language background, and so forth), which district would you choose? Would you choose the
Our evidence of success comes from the teacher actions following these lessons. One social studies teacher followed up the “Whose Land?” activity by designing her own geospatial inquiry for her students to investigate religious and cultural diversity in Philadelphia. Another social studies teacher was inspired by the “Whose Culture?” activity to adapt the lesson to his own classroom practice. A separate group of teachers, following the “Which District?” activity, engaged in an extended professional development process to develop a sequence of local geospatial investigations addressing issues of equity and sustainability in their local community.
Our work has been supported by a sequence of grants from the National Science Foundation (DRL-1614216, DRL-1949400).
If we are able to present in the face-to-face (20 minute) format, we will use the time as follows:
(3 minutes) Introductions, identifying technologies used, and displaying where teachers can obtain free access
(5 minutes) Explanation of GIS, using the "Which District?" map as the demonstration model
(4 minutes) Walk-through of a sample from the "Whose Land?" activity
(5 minutes) Explanation of "Whose Culture?" activity and display of teacher-created materials adapting this concept to a high school classroom
(3 minutes) Display of suggested sequencing of DEI lessons and scaffolding of geospatial tools use; distribution of handouts with links to further resources and contact information for follow-up
Publications
Hammond, T. (2016). A geospatial approach to teachers' diversity education. In G. Chamblee & L. Langub (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2016 (p. 1636). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advan`cement of Computing in Education (AACE).
Hammond, T.C., Bodzin, A., Anastasio, D., Holland, B., Popejoy, K., & Sahagian, D. (2018). “You know you can do this, right?”: Developing geospatial technological pedagogical content knowledge (GS-TPACK) and enhancing teachers’ cartographic behaviors with Socio-Environmental Science Investigations (SESI). Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 45, 305-318.
Hammond, T.C., Bodzin, A., Anastasio, D., Holland, B., Popejoy, K., & Sahagian, D. (2019). Shoulder-to-shoulder: Teacher professional development and curriculum design and development for geospatial technology integration with science and social studies teachers. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 19(2), 279-301.
Kangas, S., Hammond, T.C., & Bodzin, A. (2019). Using geospatial technology to teach language and content to English learners. TESOL Journal, 10(2), 1-12. DOI: 10.1002/tesj.422
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