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Towards critical dialogue: an action research project building an awareness of an administrative team member’s role, identity, and deficit thinking

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Towards critical dialogue: an action research project building an awareness of an administrative team member’s role, identity, and deficit thinking

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Content Towards Critical Dialogue: An Action Research Project Building an Awareness of an
Administrative Team Member’s Role, Identity, and Deficit Thinking
Alexis S. Okihara
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
A dissertation submitted to the faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education
August 2024

© Copyright by Alexis S. Okihara 2024
All Rights Reserved

The Committee for Alexis S. Okihara certifies the approval of this Dissertation
Dr. Julie Slayton
Dr. Akilah Lyons-Moore
Dr. Artineh Samkian, Committee Chair
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
2024

iv
Abstract
This action research examines my ability to lead and facilitate professional learning using adult
learning theory and adaptive leadership. My action research question was: How do I and the
Targeted Student Population (TSP) advisor engage in critical dialogue to work towards internal
accountability of our respective roles aligned with culturally responsive teaching? I developed a
3-month long action plan that consisted of 9 weekly 1-hour sessions where I engaged the
participant in learning that addressed her capacity to interrogate her actions that influenced her
perceived responsibilities as a TSP advisor. To answer my research question I used jottings,
fieldnotes, critical reflections, reflective memos, analytic memos and reflections with my
dissertation chair to better understand how my actions supported the participant’s progress
toward transformative learning. My findings show that I was unable to answer the research
question. First, I found that I assumed the participant and I had aligned ideological beliefs. As a
result, my action plan did not support the participant’s needs. Next, I found that I failed to create
positive learning conditions to foster a brave space to engage the participant in critical dialogue.
Lastly, I did not effectively enact the form of assistance of questioning. I tried to enact effective
modeling, however, I did not explicitly describe to the participant how modeling would support
her learning within the ZPTD. At the end of the study, I enacted a mid-course correction and
used reflection to drive the conversation rather than activities as prescribed in my action plan.

v
Dedication
To my grandma, Ruth Keiko Okihara. I am who I am because of you. Thank you for always
believing in me and showing me unconditional love. I will always be proud to call myself your
granddaughter.

vi
Acknowledgments
To my dissertation chair, Dr. Artineh Samkian. Thank you for your guidance and support
through this journey. Thank you for teaching me to think and lead critically and
compassionately. The dissertation process would not have been the same without you! I am
excited to see where our paths cross in the future.
To my dissertation committee members, Dr. Julie Slayton and Dr. Akilah Lyons-Moore,
thank you for your feedback and willingness to serve on my committee.
To Dr. Issaic Gates. Thank you for your mentorship throughout my time in the program. I
hope to use the findings from this research to inform my practice as an aspiring administrator!
To my partner, Bryson Iwasaki. Thank you for your patience and love. Thank you for
standing by my side. I appreciate you now, and always.
To Dad, Mom and Amanda. This dissertation is a testament to sacrifices you have made
to prioritize our family and education. Thank you, I love you.
To the Leading Instructional Change cohort. You are all magical and inspirational
educational leaders. I look forward to witnessing all the amazing work you will accomplish.
To Dr. Jeff, Dr. Kris and Cass. Thank you for your kind friendship and encouragement
throughout this dissertation journey. These three years have been memorable because of you.
To Dr. Jennifer Lopez. I could not have imagined this journey without you. I am so
thankful for your friendship. I will always cherish the endless hours of studying, reading and
writing. You are more than a friend, thank you for being my sister.
To my students, past and present. Thank you for allowing me to be your teacher. Of all
the roles I’ve held, being your teacher has been my most treasured gift.

vii
To my nieces, Bella and Brooke. I look forward to watching you two grow into strong,
independent women. You motivate me to be a better human, educator, and leader. I love you
infinitely.

viii
Table of Contents
Abstract.......................................................................................................................................... iv
Dedication....................................................................................................................................... v
Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... vi
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. xi
List of Figures............................................................................................................................... xii
Context and Background................................................................................................................. 2
Historically Entrenched Inequity ........................................................................................ 4
Context.............................................................................................................................. 10
Role................................................................................................................................... 14
Conceptual Framework..................................................................................................... 17
Internal Accountability ......................................................................................... 21
Building Internal Accountability of the Coordinators in an Administrative
Leadership Team................................................................................................... 21
Espoused Theories vs. Theories in Action............................................................ 23
Culturally Responsive Teaching and Meaningful Learning ................................. 25
Culturally Responsive Teaching ........................................................................... 25
Meaningful Learning ............................................................................................ 26
Critical Reflection................................................................................................. 27
Critical Dialogue and Learning Conditions.......................................................... 30
Critical Dialogue................................................................................................... 30
Learning Conditions.............................................................................................. 32
My Moves......................................................................................................................... 33

ix
Adaptive Leader.................................................................................................... 33
Andragogy............................................................................................................. 35
Actions.............................................................................................................................. 38
Research Methods............................................................................................................. 47
Participants and Setting(s) .................................................................................... 47
Participants................................................................................................ 47
Setting(s) of Action(s)............................................................................... 48
Data Collection ..................................................................................................... 48
Documents and/or Artifacts...................................................................... 49
Observations ............................................................................................. 51
Data Analysis........................................................................................................ 52
Limitations............................................................................................................ 55
Delimitations......................................................................................................... 56
Credibility and Trustworthiness............................................................................ 56
Ethics..................................................................................................................... 58
Findings............................................................................................................................. 60
Action Plan Did Not Support the Participant’s Needs.......................................... 61
Assuming Alignment Led to an Ineffective Action Plan.......................... 62
Bella’s Deficit Orientation........................................................................ 69
Need to Regulate My Distress .............................................................................. 77
Lack of Presence ................................................................................................... 85
Lack of Presence to Support Positive Learning Conditions ..................... 86
Not Slowing Down Enough to Support Critical Dialogue........................ 94

x
The Use of Forms of Assistance ......................................................................... 100
Closed-ended Questions.......................................................................... 101
An Attempt to Support Bella’s ZPTD Through Modeling ..................... 106
Moving From Compliance Activities to Dialogue.................................. 108
Afterword........................................................................................................................ 113
Realizing the Importance of Dialogue ................................................................ 113
Changing My Facilitation as a Result of My Action Research .......................... 116
Co-creating Discussion Norms............................................................... 116
Use of Cognitive Structures.................................................................... 117
Working Toward Developing Reflection-In-Action as an Aspiring Assistant
Principal .............................................................................................................. 119
References................................................................................................................................... 121

xi
List of Tables
Table 1: Intended Topic(s) of Each Session 37
Table 2: Actual Topic (s) of Each Session 38
Table 3: Action Plan 44–46
Table 4: List of Topics in Action Plan 68
Table 5: Lack of Presence: Political Positioning 87
Table 6: Questions I Asked During the Study 101

xii
List of Figures
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework 21

1
Towards Critical Dialogue: An Action Research Project Building an Awareness of the
Intersection of an Administrative Team Member’s Role, Identity, and Deficit Thinking
I have always been a proud classroom teacher. In 2013 I began my teaching career in
Hawaii, where I served as an elementary school teacher in rural West-Oahu. In 2017, I became a
middle school teacher in suburban Honolulu, Hawaii. In 2020 I moved to Los Angeles,
California to become a middle school teacher. Most recently, in 2022, I transitioned from a
classroom teacher to an out-of-classroom position (intervention coordinator) at Prospect
Elementary School. My role was created and funded by the School Site Council through their
desire to produce higher test scores on standardized assessments. Given my position, I was
provided the opportunity to become a member of the administrative leadership team. As a
member of the administrative leadership team, I was interested in investigating how each
member supported classroom instruction. However, I quickly learned that the administrative
team at Prospect Elementary School did not prioritize supporting high-quality first-teach
instruction, particularly one grounded in culturally responsive teaching. Given the demographics
of Prospect Elementary School, I argued that diverse classrooms needed a first-teach approach
rooted in culturally responsive teaching to prevent students, who are most commonly placed in
intervention, from requiring remedial instruction. This dissertation is about my efforts to
examine the role of school site administrators in more effectively supporting teachers to support
their students’ learning. In the remainder of this section, I will introduce how my meritocratic
ideology has shaped my teaching practice in ways that reinforced hegemonic assumptions about
academic success, introduce the historically entrenched inequity I wished to address in this
action research, describe the context and background of my school site and how the inequity
plays out in this context, and to explain my role in the process.

2
Context and Background
Academic performance has always been the vessel through which I received love. As a
child, I was always expected to do well in school. The expectation to reach academic excellence
was repeatedly reinforced through the way my parents displayed praise, affirmation, and
recognition. Moreover, as a child I believed that I recieved love when I showecased success
through performance, especially in academics. Making my parents proud created a sense of
fulfillment, because I craved their attention and approval. My parents often measured my
academic achievement through report card letter grades, and later through standardized forms of
assessment. As a result, I interpreted the attention and approval as them showing their love
toward me.
My desire to perform evolved from childhood to adulthood. Thus, as an adult, I always
expected perfection from myself. Over time, my perceptions of smartness became synonymous
with how I valued my worth. Performance, in my childhood and adulthood, has been measured
through evaluation. The way I perceived failure was solely based on my executed performance,
as a student, and as a professional. Throughout my career as a teacher all the way through my
doctoral journey, I continuously engaged with various forms of measurement to gauge my level
of success. These include performance evaluations, assignment grades, and even feedback from
professors and colleagues. Performing well on various evaluations offers me a sense of relief and
satisfaction. However, when obstacles create barriers to reaching optimal academic and/or
professional performance, I become paralyzed from the fear of failing. My fear of failure often
results in negative self-talk, shame and embarrassment. My past experiences with performance
measures and evaluations shape the way I teach and lead. My belief in the hegemonic

3
assumption of high performance leading to success has positioned me to uphold the status quo of
narrowly defining success.
As a classroom teacher, I practiced and was complicit in the myth of meritocracy. In my
teaching career, I used my power as a teacher to determine a child’s level of understanding by
assigning a letter grade on a report card. As a teacher, I was conditioned to analyze my students’
standardized assessments as the only valid form of academic measurement. Despite my personal
battle with assessment (e.g., letter grades), I continually reinforced the hegemonic assumption
that higher grades, or academic performance relate to the level of a child’s understanding of
content. As an intervention coordinator I found myself experiencing a disorienting dilemma. The
creation of my role reinforced deficit ideology: students who were considered low performing
were thought to need intervention support, not better first teaching. The way in which my role
was created, and operated, was grounded in students’ deficits. As a school leader, I have found it
extremely difficult to honestly challenge myself and meritocratic ideology.
The intervention program emphasized its targeted support for children who were
considered low performing, and was disproportionately made up of Black/African American
students and English language learners (primarily Latino students).
1
“Low performance” was
subjective and determined by the teacher based on the results of a standardized assessment.
Below, I will describe the test used to place students in intervention programming.
My disorienting dilemma and the realization that the intervention program was
disproportionately made up of Black/African American and Latino students also helped me see
that as an intervention coordinator I was in a unique position to work alongside the school’s
leaders and to envision a different role. Rather than seeing our students in deficit terms, I
1 The category “Black/African American” and “English language learner” are used on the California Dashboard. To
be consistent with language, I am using these labels here.

4
theorized that building internal accountability of culturally responsive teaching practices would
better position us as leaders to support the teachers to engage in more effective first-teaching
practices.
Historically Entrenched Inequity
As K–12 school systems create urgency to produce higher achievement scores through
standardized testing, national, state, and local data continually demonstrate disproportionate
outcomes for marginalized groups of students.2 The achievement gap represented in standardized
test scores does not consider the gaps in opportunities for marginalized students (LadsonBillings, 2006). Structures implemented through policy reinforce hegemonic assumptions3
of
what student achievement should look like in a meritocratic society (Oakes et al., 2018).
Education policies reinforce hegemonic assumptions that shape the public’s expectations of
public schools (Oakes et al., 2018). Standardized tests, used as an accountability measure,
reinforce meritocratic ideology that benefit certain groups of students over others.
Marginalized students’ “low” performance has been rationalized under the assumption
that White students’ privileges are deserved, merited, and indicative of indisputable superiority
(Oakes et al., 2018). Accepting the accumulated cultural and environmental deficit models has
excused scholars and policy makers from addressing real issues of inequity (Valencia, 2010).
Valencia (2010) described deficit thinking in which marginalized students, poor students,
students of color, and their families are responsible for academic failure due to their limited
intellectual abilities, linguistic shortcomings, lack of motivation to learn and immoral behavior.
2 Marginalized student groups may be based on race, class, gender, language status, and/or sexual orientation
(Valencia, 2010).
3 Brookfield (2017) described a hegemonic assumption as something that is accepted as common truth, viewed to
support people’s best interest, and create harm to keep irrational systems intact.

5
In the 1960s scholars identified cultural deficit theories to suggest that children of color
were victims of pathological lifestyles that hindered their ability to benefit from schooling
(Ladson-Billings, 2006). This narrative has continually reinforced stereotypes of marginalized
groups of students, resulting in short-term solutions in education that focus on the achievement
gap while ignoring the structural inequities that have produced an education debt (LadsonBillings, 2006). The historical, economic, sociopolitical, and moral decisions and policies that
shape our society have created an education debt (Ladson-Billings, 2006). The achievement gap
does not recognize the ongoing, hegemonic, meritocratic structures that limit marginalized
groups of students (Ladson-Billings, 2006). Taking this view, it is not surprising to see the
underperformance of marginalized groups of students at the national, state, and local level as
described below. Ladson-Billings (2006) stated that the focus on the achievement gap is
misplaced and argued that instead of focusing on the achievement gap, there must be a shift to
focus on existing structures of education debt.
Below are data generated from the National Assessment for Educational Progress
(NAEP) and the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP). The
analysis of these two data sources will help generate a greater understanding of what types of
accountability assessments are created to measure student outcomes. Accountability
(standardized) assessments, as described below, have become pervasive in the field of K–12 as a
valid proficiency scale used to track academic progress. The hegemonic validity that
accountability assessments have created has resulted in implications for how districts and schools
respond to reach student academic outcome goals. It is necessary that I provide a thorough
review of what and how assessments like NAEP and CAASPP measure student achievement,
given that standardized assessments are the primary means to demonstrate inequities in

6
education. I decided to analyze data generated by NAEP and CAASPP because my district
analyzes these standardized assessments to measure academic student growth and achievement.
Students across the country are annually assessed in reading and mathematics. The four
levels of performance indicated on the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP)4
are: below basic, basic, proficient and advanced (National Assessment for Educational Progress,
2022). The NAEP Basic level is described as the partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and
skills that are fundamental for performance at the NAEP Proficient level (National Assessment
for Educational Progress, 2022). NAEP reading achievement-level descriptors indicate the
presence of student performance in relation to a range of text types and text difficulty and in
response to a variety of assessment questions intended to elicit different cognitive processes and
reading behaviors (National Assessment for Educational Progress, 2022). In 2022, NAEP
reported that 37% of fourth grade students nationally performed below the NAEP Basic level in
reading (National Assessment for Educational Progress, 2022). NAEP reported national data that
showed Black students and American Indian/Alaska Native students performing the lowest
receiving below basic levels of performance, while White and Asian students were amongst the
highest, receiving proficient and advanced levels of performance (National Assessment of
Educational Progress, 2022).
NAEP mathematics achievement-level descriptors indicate the presence of student
performance in mathematical knowledge and the ability to apply mathematical knowledge to
problem solving situations (National Assessment for Educational Progress, 2022). Overall, in
4 NAEP is a congressionally mandated project administered by the Nation Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
within the U.S Department of Education and is the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of
what our nation’s students know and can do in select subjects. NAEP achievement- level setting is based on the
judgments of a broadly representative panel of teachers, education specialists, and members of the public (National
Assessment for Educational Progress, 2022).

7
2022, NAEP reported that 25% of fourth grade students performed below the NAEP Basic level
in mathematics (National Assessment for Educational Progress, 2022). NAEP reported national
data that showed Black students performing amongst the lowest, receiving below basic levels of
performance, while White and Asian students were amongst the highest, receiving proficient and
advanced levels of performance (National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2022).
In California, the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP)
tests students every year starting in Grades 3–8 and Grade 11. CAASPP designates four levels of
achievement: exceed (level 4), standard met (level 3), standard nearly met (level 2) and standard
not met (level 1) (California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, 2022). According
to CAASPP (2022) 22.62% of students in Grades 3–8 and Grade 11 “nearly met” (level 2) the
English Language Arts Standard. According to CAASPP (2022) 30.33% of students in grades 3–
8 and Grade 11 “did not meet” (level 1) the English Language Arts Standard (California
Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, 2022). According to CAASPP (2022) 24.66%
of students in grade 3–8 and Grade 11 “nearly met” (level 2) the Mathematics Standard and
41.95% of students in all grades “did not meet” (level 1) the Mathematics Standard (California
Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, 2022). According to CAASPP, students who
score in the “standards not met level” indicate a substantial need for improvement in future
coursework (California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, 2022).
The California Dashboard (2022) and CAASPP (2022) reported that students with
disabilities (15.61% proficiency) and foster youth (20.64% proficiency) scored the lowest in
English language arts performance. The California Dashboard is a tool that represents how
districts, schools, and groups of students in California are performing in state measures which
include chronic absenteeism, graduation rate, suspension rate, English learner progress, and

8
academic performance (California Dashboard, 2022). The California dashboard is a public
platform and is traditionally accessed for school site data retrieval. Students who do not meet the
achievement standard need substantial improvement to demonstrate the knowledge and skills in
English language arts and Mathematics for likely success in future coursework (CAASPP, 2022).
According to CAASPP (2022), other student groups that did not meet the English language arts
standards were: Black/African American (30.33% proficiency), American Indian (33.25%
proficiency), English learner (12.47% proficiency), Hispanic (36.4% proficiency), homeless
students (27.79% proficiency), Pacific Islander (39.68% proficiency), socioeconomically
disadvantaged (35.24% proficiency).5
The California Dashboard (2022) and CAASPP (2022) reported that Black/African
American students (15.93% proficiency), foster youth (10.3% proficiency), homeless students
(15.9% proficiency) and students with disabilities (11.4% proficiency) scored the lowest in
Mathematics performance. According to CAASPP (2022), other student groups that did not meet
the Mathematics standards were: English learners (9.7% proficiency), Hispanic (21.24%
proficiency), Pacific Islander (24.59% proficiency), homeless students (27.79% proficiency),
Pacific Islander (39.68% proficiency), socioeconomically disadvantaged (21.23% proficiency).
The California Dashboard (2022) and CAASPP (2022) reported that Asian students
(75.27% proficiency in English language arts and 69.46% proficiency in Mathematics) scored
the highest in English language arts and Mathematics. According to CAASPP (2022), other
student groups that met and exceeded the English language arts standards were: Filipino (70.02%
proficiency) and White (61.36% proficiency). According to CAASPP (2022), other student
groups that met and exceeded the Mathematics standards were: Filipino (54.16% proficiency).
5
I labeled student groups using the language represented on the California Dashboard (2022) for English language
arts and Mathematics.

9
Students who exceed the achievement standard demonstrate advanced progress towards the
mastery and skills in English language arts and Mathematics needed for likely success in future
coursework (CAASPP, 2022).
Hegemonic structures of what student success should “look like” reinforce the deficit
ideology of marginalized students because of accountability tests like the Smarter Balance
Assessment Consortium (SBAC). According to CAASPP, SBAC is the assessment used to
measure academic student proficiency. As mentioned above, standardized test data addresses an
achievement gap. As a result, differential outcomes as prescribed by accountability tests,
influence historically marginalized groups of students. For example, students at Prospect
Elementary School were placed in an (out-of-classroom) intervention setting to receive remedial
support based on the results of CAASPP. As stated above, most of the students considered “low
performing” of accountability tests reflected the same students being placed in the intervention
program. Standardized tests reinforce the myth of meritocracy and influence the way in which
educators are conditioned to reproduce the status quo of student achievement. For example, there
was an overrepresentation of African American/Black students and students with disabilities
placed in the intervention program at my school site.
Urban administrative school leaders may contribute to the myth of meritocracy and
deficit thinking of families and students through systemic compliance, without even knowing it.
This ultimately reproduces the historically entrenched inequity discussed above. Valencia (2010)
described deficit thinking as a behavior referring to deficits, limitations or shortcomings of
individuals, families or cultures. In some cases, deficit thinking offers a prescription in its
approach to support people from targeted populations (Valencia, 2010). For example, the
intervention program at Prospect Elementary School was developed as a response to students’

10
low-test scores on the CAASPP assessment. While the intervention program was created to
support students, it relied on an assumption that they had deficits, without an examination of the
classroom instructional practices. In the next section I will describe how my school site used
standardized tests to measure student achievement, and as a result, enacted compensatory
strategies to address perceived students’ deficits.
Context
Prospect Elementary School was in West Los Angeles and operated within the Los
Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). LAUSD recommends that school site administrators
use the California Dashboard when creating the annual School Plan for Academic Success
(SPSA). For the purposes of this study, I used data from the California Dashboard to represent
inequities of academic performance for targeted populations of students. The connection between
the score report as shown by the California Dashboard is consistent with the targeted groups of
students placed in the intervention program that I operate and oversee. As I describe below, the
intervention program reflects the same trends as shown on the California Dashboard.
At the time of this study, the demographics of the school population were as follows:
66.1% Latino, 11.7% White, 9.7% Black/African American, 7.7% Asian, 0.8% Filipino, 0.8%
Two or more races, 0.4% Indigenous/Native American (California Dashboard, 2022). In
addition, a breakdown of other groups were as follows: 31.9% English language learner, 77.8%
Socioeconomically disadvantaged, 23% Students with disabilities (California Dashboard, 2022).
Urban schools, urban students, and urban families are often described as “inner city” and
represent large districts located in metropolitan areas that evoke images of low-income students
and families of color (Gadsden & Dixon-Román, 2017). Milner (2015) described urban intensive
schools as being concentrated in large metropolitan cities like Los Angeles (1,000,000+

11
population) with limited resources. Based on the data and the definition of urban conditions
provided by Milner (2015), Prospect Elementary School was an urban intensive school at the
time of this study.
California state trends in standardized test scores was reflected in my current school and
district. The data collected through NAEP, CAASPP, and the California Dashboard show
familiar trends between marginalized student outcomes and standardized performance
assessments. Overall, student performance at Prospect Elementary School in 2022 for English
language arts represented “low performance” (California Dashboard, 2022). Overall, in 2022,
CAASPP and the California Dashboard reported English language arts data for Prospect
Elementary School and showed Socioeconomically disadvantaged (58.17%) students,
Black/African American students (59.64%), English learner students (72.92%), Latino students
(80.0%) and Students with disabilities (88.68%), did not meet English language arts standards.
Student performance at Prospect Elementary School in 2022 for Mathematics represented “low
performance” (California Dashboard, 2022). Overall, in 2022, CAASPP and the California
Dashboard reported Mathematics data for Prospect Elementary School that showed
Socioeconomically disadvantaged students (57.14%), Black/African American students
(68.52%), Latino students (67.03%), English learner students (70.21%) and Students with
disabilities (90.39%) did not meet Mathematics standards.
The prescription of intervention, in the context of my school site, was a response steeped
in deficit thinking about our students and their families. I witnessed an overrepresentation of
marginalized students receiving pull out services for literacy intervention. K–12 students that
received literacy intervention during the study are as follows; 62% Latino (as compared with the
school demographic 66.1%), 20% African American/Black (as compared with the school

12
demographic 9.7%), 42% Socioeconomically disadvantaged (as compared with the school
demographic 77.8%), and 46% English learner (as compared with the school demographic
31.9%). To be consistent, I used the same categories (labeling) of students as listed by the
California Dashboard.
Comments that I heard in faculty meetings, or in grade level meetings included, “There is
no support at home, that’s why we (teachers) need intervention for students during the school
day” or “Students’ DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) scores are so
low, and they haven’t showed improvement all year, they need a SSPT (Student Support and
Progress Team) referral.” Delpit (1992) stated that teachers in urban schools are compelled to
demonstrate that students can achieve literacy and numeracy (mostly justified through
meritocracy). The socialized pressure to produce high test scores drove teacher deficit ideology
in my own school site. Further, the comments provided above reinforce one of the characteristics
of deficit thinking, blaming the victim. Blaming the victim is the ideological base of deficit
thinking where the more powerful blame the innocent. The ideology of “blaming the victim” is
rationalized through action. In my context, the intervention program is used to “fix” the
individual student rather than a responsive approach to support them (Valencia, 2010).
Teachers at Prospect Elementary School used mandated curriculum that is perceived to
produce desired standardized test scores. This formalized approach was theorized to lead to
desired meritocratic outcomes. During the study, I examined an inequitable and disproportionate
placement of Black students and English language learner students in the intervention program,
as compared to the student population at Prospect Elementary School. Noguera and Wells (2011)
stated that several millions of dollars in funds to support urban schools have done very little to
transform academic success of students in high poverty schools. As a member of the

13
administrative leadership team, I’ve witnessed the mandated expectations to use such curriculum
to “raise test scores”. However, I believed (and still believe) that members of the administrative
leadership team must build internal accountability of our roles (shared understanding), to support
instruction such that our students can be more successful academically. One pedagogical
approach that has been shown to be asset-based is culturally responsive teaching (CRT). My
initial plan for my action research was to build internal accountability within the leadership team
for how we can collectively support teachers to enact CRT as a first-teach approach.
According to Prospect Elementary School’s vision, the school embodied inquiry-based
pedagogy. However, as explained above, Prospect Elementary School’s teachers displayed
evidence that reinforced compensatory deficit thinking. In addition, at the time of the study, I
also witnessed deficit thinking on the part of my colleague who became the sole participant in
this study. While my plan had been to work with the entire leadership team, circumstances I
describe below, meant that only one colleague participated. I will refer to the participant as Bella.
The historically entrenched inequity of differential outcomes on standardized assessments at
Prospect Elementary School reinforced the development of programs, like the one I oversaw, to
compensate for students’ perceived deficits. As described below, Bella was the colleague who
wrote the job description for my position.
Before and during the study, I continued to uphold my compensatory role as an
intervention coordinator where I used standardized tools to determine students’ placement in
intervention programming based on their perceived academic deficits. Before the study, and
during the study, the TSP advisor did not tend to her thoughts about how to better support
teachers to enact inclusive, culturally responsive teaching. I contended (and still do) that it is the
responsibility of the administrative leadership team to build internal accountability of our roles

14
so that we may be better positioned to support faculty and staff to disrupt their deficit thinking
and work to enact asset-based pedagogies.
Role
My role was funded through approval of the district (LAUSD), through the SPSA. The
SPSA was approved by the School Site Council (SSC) at Prospect Elementary School. The SSC
approved the funding of an intervention coordinator position in hopes of raising CAASPP scores.
As an intervention coordinator, at the time of the study, I primarily supported K-3 students in
targeted literacy small group instruction. I instructed a small group of students in a separate
classroom for approximately 20-30 minutes. As mentioned above, intervention programming
was based on remedial support, through the recommendation of the classroom teacher. Teachers
used standardized data from DIBELS to base their recommendations for intervention
programming. I reinforced the process of student referral when I adhered to the status quo of
focusing on standardized student achievement. My assumption was that the instruction in
intervention was scaffolded instruction that supported the first-teach in the classroom. I assumed
this because my previous principal had advised me to create an intervention schedule that does
not interfere with teachers’ English language arts instruction. During my study, the district hired
a new principal. Similarly, she requested that the intervention schedule not interfere with ELA or
Math instructional blocks.
Just as the prior principal believed that my position would improve achievement test
scores, at the time of the study, the incumbent principal shared a similar sentiment. The
incumbent principal, Mrs. Morgan, began her principalship during the last week of September
2023. My study began in the second week of October 2023. As a result, I was not able to ask the
new principal to join the study, as intended. However, during the study, I was able to learn about

15
Mrs. Morgan’s instructional vision through our informal conversations during leadership
meetings. Mrs. Morgan showed signs of being invested in CRT, however, she maintained the
status quo through compliance mandates to measure student achievement through standardized,
accountability tests. When a school scores “low” they move towards short term solutions and are
unlikely to address long-term underlying problems, ignoring the reality that there must be a
reduction of education debt to close the achievement gap (Ladson-Billings, 2006). The system in
which the intervention program operated was not critical in the analysis of who (and by whom)
was placed in intervention, why specific students were placed in intervention, and what the
implications were for students placed in intervention. As leaders, I believed (and still believe),
that it was our responsibility to challenge our own hegemonic assumptions that produce actions
that reinforce the status quo.
Before the study, I was rarely asked to share student academic progress during
administrative team meetings. Student progress at Prospect Elementary School was measured
through DIBELS test scores and progress monitoring check-ins. The progress monitoring tool
assessed students on their ability to produce letter names/sounds, read nonsense words, and a
timed one–minute fluency test. The missed opportunities to engage in consistent dialogue during
the administrative team meetings served as a barrier to challenge the way in which the current
structure of intervention programming had been targeting a group of students disproportionately.
At the time of the study, Mrs. Morgan implemented consistent weekly administrative
team meetings, and Bella and I were both invited to attend. While Mrs. Morgan’s instructional
vision was driven by compliance she exemplified moments where she shared her sentiment of
desired student excellence through characteristics of meaningful learning (ML) and CRT. Below,
I will define ML in detail. Something Mrs. Morgan said that reinforced my belief that she was

16
grounded in CRT was, “The teachers are not meeting the needs of our diverse student
population, what professional learning have you all had in the past to support this?” She also
created a survey and developed opportunities to engage teachers in opportunities to grow their
practice in culturally and linguistically responsive teaching practices. At the time of the study,
the change of administrative leadership was difficult for Bella to adjust to. Bella showed
evidence of entrenched complicity of rules and policies as prescribed by her job description as a
TSP advisor. During the study, Bella and Mrs. Morgan engaged in tense conflict, which
ultimately had implications for my study to build internal accountability among the leadership
team. This will be further described in the findings section.
Given the demographics of my school site, I theorized that Bella and I would work
toward building internal accountability if we engaged in critical dialogue about the intersection
of our roles (as out-of-classroom staff members) and supporting teachers to enact CRT. I
reference culturally responsive teaching more than meaningful learning throughout the
dissertation because I believe that meaningful learning can be achieved when administrators and
teachers model pedagogy aligned with culturally responsive teaching practices.However, before
supporting teachers, I believed we needed to develop internal accountability of our roles and
responsibilities to build our capacity to support teachers to do the same.
While I believed my study would support the development of internal accountability of
our administrative leadership team, the changes in leadership at my school site prompted me to
enact my study with only the Targeted Student Population (TSP advisor), Bella. However, I
believed (and still believe) that CRT is an antidote to meritocratic ideology and deficit thinking,
and as such, requires the participation of an entire administrative leadership team. CRT pushes
against the historically entrenched inequity of formal, standardized outcomes of student

17
performance (Gay, 2002). Meaningful learning (ML) additionally has components that push
against traditional forms of teaching and learning (Mayer, 2002). I argued, and still do, that CRT
and ML have the potential to create responsive spaces and exceptional first-teach opportunities
for students. However, to support our teachers to enact CRT and ML, I contended that the
administration team first needed to build internal accountability around these approaches.
While my initial intent was to work with Bella to establish a shared language of CRT
through critical dialogue and work to build internal accountability around our roles in supporting
our teachers to enact CRT, the findings will show that I made assumptions about where Bella
was developmentally. In fact, I found that she had entrenched deficit thinking about our students
and families and realized it would take me much longer than the time I had allotted to support
her in unearthing her biases before we could discuss CRT. Furthermore, part way through this
action research, Bella quit her job and moved to another position in another school. So, building
internal accountability as a leadership team became a moot point. Nonetheless, this dissertation
will present how I still believe in the power of educational leaders to build internal accountability
to encourage CRT and will demonstrate what I learned as a leader and adult educator.
Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework in Figure 1 represents my theory of change and shows how I
intended to conduct my study to answer the research question: How do I and the Targeted
Student Population advisor engage in critical dialogue to work towards internal accountability of
our respective roles aligned with culturally responsive teaching?
In my study, I ultimately wished to facilitate transformative learning (Mezirow, 1991,
2000; Wergin, 2020) through adaptive leadership (Northouse, 2022) moves. In the conceptual
framework, I positioned myself in the box labeled: self. I planned to use adaptive leadership

18
behaviors and critical reflection to foster conditions necessary for learning by enacting
appropriate andragogical moves. As the facilitator of learning, I believed that I would engage in
andragogical moves through means of assistance (Tharp & Gallimore, 1989); modeling, giving
feedback and questioning. However, in my study I did not effectively enact andragogy to support
the participant’s learning. I struggled the most to ask effective open-ended questions. As
described below, my findings show how my questioning inhibited our ability to reach critical
dialogue. Additionally, there was not enough evidence to show that I effectively used feedback
to support Bella’s learning. As explained in the findings, I attempted to model various activities,
however, there was not substantial evidence to show that my modeling supported Bella within
her zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). While I believed, and still believe, that
andragogy is a necessary component of effective facilitation my findings show the missed
opportunities that I encountered which ultimately inhibited the participant’s ability to reach
critical dialogue and ultimately transformative learning.
I positioned critical reflection as a tool to help me interrogate my hegemonic assumptions
(as it related to the intersectionality of power and positionality) of myself and the participant. I
contended that critical reflection paired with appropriate means of assistance (contextualized for
the participant within my study) would better position me to guide my participant and me toward
internal accountability (Elmore, 2002) about CRT. I planned for us to identify our espoused
theories and theories in use (Argyris et al., 1985) as it related to CRT as theorized by Gay
(2002). I believed, and still believe, that to reach internal accountability leadership teams must
co-construct the alignment of their roles to support the enactment of the school’s larger vision.
To do this, I had originally planned for Bella to write a critical reflection. I positioned myself and
the participant to write a critical reflection to begin the process of transformative learning, this is

19
represented by the two pairs of curved arrows. Each pair of circular arrows represents our use
(respectively) of critical reflection to guide our participation in critical dialogue. I theorized that
participating in critical dialogue (Marchel, 2007; Schein, 1993) about our respective roles would
better position us as administrative leadership team members to build internal accountability so
that we could (eventually) support the pedagogy of CRT. Unforteunately, I was not able to
suppot Bella to critically reflect in this study. However, I still believe in the power of critical
reflection as a tool to engage learners in critical dialogue.
I theorized that learning conditions had to be in place to support the participation and
engagement of myself and the participant during critical dialogue. Learning conditions (labeled
in the large oval) that I wished to foster during the study included cultivating a brave space (Arao
& Clemens, 2013). I believed that fostering positive learning conditions would support us to take
risks by challenging our current frames of reference. I theorized that critical dialogue would only
occur if conditions fostered a brave space. However, during the study, I did not foster learning
conditions that contributed to a brave space. In fact, as the findings section will show, I skipped
foundational steps necessary to build safe learning conditions. “Conditions” are placed in the
large oval in the space between myself and the TSP advisor because I believed, and I still
believe, that we both needed to uphold the conditions of the learning environment, even if that is
not what I did in my enactment of the study.
I believed that critical dialogue would enable the participant and me to develop our
capacity to redefine our roles as members of the administrative leadership team. However, I
inhibited necessary conditions to foster critical dialogue. As a result, the participant and I did not
reach the point of the study where we were able to reimagine how our roles could better support
other adults enact CRT.

20
In my study, I wished to enhance CRT by emphasizing first-teach experiences that
embody ML. I believed, and still believe, that Bella and I would be better equipped to support
the enactment of CRT in classrooms if we used my theory of change as shown in my conceptual
framework. As mentioned, the participant and I did not build internal accountability of our
respective roles so that we would be better positioned to support teachers to do the same.
I acknowledged that the 12-week time frame was too short to expect the participant and
me to build internal accountability of our respective roles about culturally responsive teaching,
especially given the leadership changes and missed opportunities I will present in the findings
section. However, I still subscribe to the concepts and the relationships between them as
presented in my conceptual framework. In the sections that follow, I will define and describe
each of the key concepts represented in the conceptual framework and explain their relevance to
building internal accountability amongst a team of educational leaders.

21
Figure 1
Conceptual Framework
Internal Accountability
Building Internal Accountability of the Coordinators in an Administrative Leadership Team
With increased accountability, schools in the United States are being asked to measure
their success by the metric of student academic performance (Elmore, 2002). The accountability
movement expresses society’s expectation that schools will solve the persistent problems of
teaching and learning that lead to the academic failure of students (Elmore, 2002). The pressure
to perform, especially through standardized tests, has influenced the way in which the
administrative leadership team at Prospect Elementary School evaluates their students’ success. I
believed, and still believe, that it is the administrative team’s responsibility to develop the
instructional capacity of teachers, so that they are better prepared to provide a quality first-teach

22
to students. I theorized that it is impossible to cultivate CRT if it is not first modeled by
administrators, and later with teachers. I believed that this required the administrative leadership
team to develop a shared understanding of our designated roles and responsibilities as it related
to CRT instruction. While I theorized that I’d work alongside the administrative leadership team
during the study, I was limited to working with one member of the administrative team: the TSP
advisor. One week before the start of the school year the principal and the assistant principal
were placed at different school sites. Both administrators had previously agreed to be participants
in my study. I still believe that my study would have benefitted an entire administrative
leadership team.
Traditionally, in the context of my school site, administrative work has had little
intersection with instruction and systemic school improvement. Professional development should
embody a clear model of adult learning; however, districts tend to see staff development as a
specialized activity within a bureaucratic structure (Elmore, 2002). In my experience,
professional development at Prospect Elementary School mainly focused on raising standardized
test scores measured through accountability tests like SBAC. As a school site leader, I’ve
observed that the motivation to internalize professional development in the context of
standardized test scores is underwhelming for teachers. The hegemony of meritocracy has
entrenched itself within my practice as a facilitator of adult learning. At the time of my study, I
had been asked to lead compliance driven professional development primarily targeted toward
raising student achievement (through increased standardized scores), rather than focusing on
improving instruction and teaching. I theorized that CRT would provide students with
meaningful learning opportunities that would transcend past the classroom walls and believed

23
that by working with the administrative team, we could build internal accountability in our roles
to support this type of pedagogy.
At the time of the study, there was no understanding as to whom and how coordinators
understood their (instructional) responsibility to lead, support, and guide teachers to effectively
implement their first-teach. Additionally, there was no shared understanding of how coordinators
operated as a systematic instructional resource of support for classroom teachers. Change does
not occur through a top-down model, rather, through skill building activities that raise the
capacity of teachers and administration (Elmore, 2002). Before the start of the study, Bella and I
were not engaged in skill building activities to raise our capacity as instructional leaders. Rather,
we had unintentionally been reinforcing the status quo by reproducing actions that subscribed to
the meritocracy of student achievement. My theory of change, represented in Figure 1, illustrates
how I believed Bella and I would reframe our thinking to develop internal accountability of our
respective roles. I believed that building internal accountability would better position us to
support teachers with their quality first-teach pedagogy grounded in CRT.
School institutions that practice internal accountability have a strong focus on issues of
instruction, student learning, and expectations of their teachers (Elmore, 2002). I believed that
critical dialogue, with the support of “right questions,” as described below, would lead Bella and
I towards internal accountability. Marchel (2007) claimed that for education to become more
equitable and meaningful, educators must learn the skill of examining their own assumptions.
Espoused Theories vs. Theories in Action
Based on my conceptual framework, I theorized that if Bella and I could develop internal
accountability for our designated roles in relation to CRT, we would be better positioned to
support teachers in doing the same with their students. To build internal accountability, I

24
contended that Bella and I needed identify our espoused theories and theories-in-use. Argyris et
al. (1985) stated that espoused theories are those an individual claims to follow, while theoriesin-use are inferred from their actions.
Kegan (1994) emphasized that learners must have every opportunity to explore their
existing frames of reference. Unfortunately, my ineffective andragogy and adaptive leadership,
as explained in the “Findings” section, impeded Bella from doing so. Consequently, Bella was
unable to engage in critical dialogue, which I theorized would help her challenge her current
frames of reference. Kegan (1994) further explained that for a frame of reference to be fully
understood, it must be explored in terms of genealogy, power allocation, internal logic, uses,
affective and intuitive dimensions, and its advantages and disadvantages. Kegan and Lahey
(2009) described “immunity to change” as the barrier that prevents individuals from identifying
competing commitments, thereby upholding the status quo. During the study I adopted the
“immunity to change” map prescribed by Kegan and Lahey (2009) to help Bella identify her
espoused theories and theories-in-use. Through this activity, Bella realized that her enactment of
her role was complicit in merely completing checklisted tasks, rather than influencing
meaningful teaching and learning. This realization contrasted with her espoused theory of
supporting English learner development through small group instruction.
Although the “immunity to change” map was useful as an initial brainstorming tool, I
was unable to engage Bella in critical dialogue about the content she had written. As a result, the
foundational steps for developing internal accountability were not established in a way that Bella
could apply in her role as a school site leader. Ultimately, Bella quit her job as the TSP advisor
during the study, leading me to pivot away from the action plan since it no longer made sense to
work towards building internal accountability. Despite Bella resigning from her position as a TSP

25
advisor, I used the assumptions listed in her “immunity to change map” as a foundation for our
reflective conversation during cycle three. As described in the “Findings” section, I asked
questions that guided Bella to consider how she might challenge her assumptions in her new role
as a home hospital teacher. In the next section, I will define CRT and ML as components of my
conceptual framework.
Culturally Responsive Teaching and Meaningful Learning
In this section I will share my definition of CRT and ML. My theory of change operates
under the premise that Bella and I develop internal accountability of our respective roles as it
relates to our understanding of how to support teachers first-teach aligned to the pedagogy of
CRT and ML. As such, defining the terms (CRT and ML) is an essential component of my
conceptual framework. Below, I will first describe CRT.
Culturally Responsive Teaching
In my conceptual framework, the goal was to develop internal accountability as
coordinators in an administrative leadership team so that we could (eventually) promote, enact,
and support our teachers engage in CRT through ML with their students. I define CRT as the
operationalized enactment of responsive practices (e.g., teaching, learning, and assessment) that
deliver ML experiences and require practitioners to work towards the development of their
identity consciousness. Caring learning communities are created when practitioners engage in
identity conscious practices that recognize students’ intersectionality of ethnicity, race, culture,
and language. Gay (2002) defined CRT6
as the cultural characteristics, experiences, and
perspectives of ethnically diverse students as conduits for teaching them more effectively. I
6 CRT is composed of five tenets: developing a knowledge base for cultural diversity, including ethnic and cultural
diversity into the curriculum, demonstrating caring learning communities, communicating with ethnically diverse
students, and responding to ethnic diversity in the delivery of instruction (Gay, 2002).

26
decided to use CRT in my conceptual framework, rather than culturally responsive pedagogy,
because I believed that CRT was better aligned to support the teaching and instruction of specific
teaching skills needed to promote meaningful learning7
. CRT assumes that when academic
knowledge and skills are situated within the lived experiences and frames of references of
students, they are more meaningful, have higher interest appeal and are learned more easily and
thoroughly (Gay, 2002). Conversely, the thought that standardized teaching to produce higher
student outcomes has historically determined school-based expectations of teaching and learning
at Prospect Elementary School.
Meaningful Learning
In my conceptual framework, I contended that the administrative team should work
toward building internal accountability to be better positioned to support ML opportunities in
classrooms with teachers, through the lens of CRT. ML was first defined by Ausbul (1968) as the
acquisition of new meaning, through the emergence of new meanings where the learner reflects
on the competition of a ML process so that they can relate new material to existing knowledge in
their current cognitive structure(s). Given my research, I defined ML as the learning theory that
embodies constructivism8
, social cognitive theory9
and transfer.
10 This requires educators to
create organized learning conditions in the classroom that work towards developing an
individual student’s cognitive structure by introducing new knowledge through a reciprocal
7 Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), as defined by Ladson-Billings (1995), aims to teach ethnically diverse
students by critically empowering them intellectually, socially, emotionally and politically by providing them with
an opportunity to engage in meaningful learning (ML) that encompasses cultural knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
8
Schunk (2020) defined constructivism as a psychological and philosophical perspective contending that
individuals form or construct much of what they learn or understand. From a cognitive constructivist perspective (as
9 Bandura (2001) defined social cognitive theory as the social environment as the main influence of student
learning; human learning occurs in social situations like in classrooms, with peers, in groups, at school, and within
communities.
10 Transfer is the ability to use what was learned to solve new problems to make sense of knowledge (that has been
stored in long term memory) through appropriate, and accurate application in various settings (Mayer, 2002).

27
interaction between the student, teacher and environment. ML should transcend the traditional
classroom walls through creative, and intentional assessment that gauges the students’ ability to
transfer knowledge (key concepts) to similar situations within the classroom, and in the world
around them.
At the time of this study, teachers at Prospect Elementary School operated through rote
learning frameworks. Mayer (2002) described rote learning as the memorization of key facts,
where students are not able to apply the transfer of new knowledge to solve relevant problems in
new situations. The use of standardized tests at my school site to gauge student mastery did not
allow for the analysis of ML. Fink (2013) described significant learning experiences as an
application of life where learning is not seen as a retention of knowledge, rather, an application
of practice that connects formal knowledge learned in the classroom, to the surrounding world. I
theorized that Bella and I needed to challenge our existing frames of reference by interrogating
our assumptions about how knowledge and learning are developed (Fink, 2013).
According to my definition of CRT above, educators must be open to building their
identity consciousness so that they can critically reflect on their intersectionality and its influence
on the implementation of ML. I had theorized that my role in this study would be to support
Bella to do just that so that we could then turn around and support our teachers to do the same.
Next, I will describe how I intended to use critical reflection to support identity consciousness
and advance my theory of change.
Critical Reflection
For the educators to rearrange our frames of reference, with respect to CRT and ML, I
contended that we needed to engage in critical reflection. Drawing on Brookfield (2017),
Larrivee (2008) and Mezirow (2000) I define critical reflection as a continuous examination of

28
one’s belief system through a process that uncovers a new understanding of how dominant
structures of power, and hegemonic assumptions influence future action. Larrivee (2008)
described four different types of reflection and focused on teachers: pre-reflection, surface
reflection, pedagogical reflection and critical reflection. While Larrivee (2008) described critical
reflection as the continuous examination of personal and professional belief systems, I wanted to
extend this definition by introducing the component of critical reflection as described by
Brookfield (2017). The purpose of critical reflection is to uncover and examine structures of
power that reinforce hegemonic assumptions that we believe serve our best interests but that
work against us in the long term. Mezirow (2000) explained transformative learning as the
process of using prior interpretation to construct new or revised interpretations of the meaning of
one’s experience as a guide for future action. I believed, and still believe, that critical reflection
would guide the administrative team toward transformative learning through the analysis of our
pre-existing frames of reference,11 specifically, of how we measured and assessed student
outcomes. However, in my study the participant and I did not write a critical reflection. Bella
needed extended time to develop her identity consciousness as it related to unearthing her deficit
thinking of students, families and staff.
During the enactment of the study, I had hoped to use critical reflection in two ways. One
way I wanted to use critical reflection was as a tool to challenge my own hegemonic
assumptions, so as to improve my enactment during the study. During my study I wrote four
critical reflections to improve my enactment. Khalifa (2018) stated that critical reflection allows
leaders to see how oppression and marginalization is happening in the moment, and to question it
11 Mezirow (2000) described a frame of reference as a “meaning perspective,” the structure of assumptions and
expectations through which we filter and shape perception, feeling, and cognition. Frames of reference are the
results of ways we interpret various experiences.

29
as it positions itself in the organization. Critical reflection happens when practitioners uncover
how educational processes and interactions are framed by wider structures of power and
dominant ideology (Brookfield, 2017). For example, I wrote a critical reflection about a
disorienting moment when the participant telegraphed that the principal favored non-white staff
members. The critical reflection helped me realize that as a woman of color, I took her comment
personally and did not effectively regulate my distress. As a result, I acted upon my assumption
and ended the conversation.
I wrote a critical reflection after session two, three, five, and six. Mezirow (2000)
described a disorienting dilemma as a problem that does not fit into existing frames of reference.
Wergin (2020) extended this definition by stating that a disorienting dilemma is something that
catches you off guard that you can’t easily make sense of. Writing critical reflections helped me
become more aware of how I navigated the facilitation of the learning sessions with respect to
my positionality. Brookfield (2017) stated that our actions as teachers are based on our
assumptions we have about how best to help students learn; these assumptions come from our
own experiences as learners and the way we interpret advice from trusted sources.
The second way I planned to use critical reflection was to model writing a critical
reflection. I believed that it was important for Bella to challenge structures of power within her
professional context. To challenge structures of power, I theorized that frames of reference
needed to be questioned and restructured to guide future action. While I contended that I’d model
how to write a critical reflection so that I’d be able to guide the participant to do the same, the
participant did not reach the point of the study where she engaged in writing a critical reflection.
Evidence showed that she needed more time developing awareness of her identity and deficit
thinking.

30
During the 12-week study, I anticipated that I would iteratively engage with the first three
steps of the Rodgers’s (2002) reflective cycle. However, Bella remained in the first phase,
“learning to see.” Rodgers (2002) reflective cycle was designed to support educators in the work
of reflection by slowing down their thinking to become curious about the work they do, and its
impact on students. Rodgers’s (2002) four step, iterative, reflective cycle supports educators to
attend to “what is” rather than “what they wish were so.” The four steps of the Rodgers cycle
include: (1) learning to see, (2) description of experience, (3) analysis of experience, and (4)
experimentation. Since we did not reach the “description of experience” phase, Bella did not
write a critical reflection. Next, I will describe in the importance of fostering learning conditions
to create positive learning conditions to foster critical dialogue.
Critical Dialogue and Learning Conditions
In my conceptual framework I theorized that positive learning conditions (brave space)
supported the engagement of critical dialogue. Brave spaces involve risk taking, as such, I
contended that critical dialogue was necessary in order to re-frame how we operationalized our
roles with respect to how we supported (or didn’t) teachers’ first-teach aligned with CRT. In the
next section I will define critical dialogue and describe how I theorized Bella and I would engage
critically with one another, such that internal accountbaility would be built.
Critical Dialogue
I theorized that building internal accountability of the administrative team would be
accomplished through the collective enactment of critical dialogue. Drawing on Talusan (2022),
Marchel (2007) and Schein (1993) I defined critical dialogue as the collaborative process to
examine personal and organizational biases by creating an awareness and understanding of
language as a tool for learning through the process of identity consciousness. Schein (1993) and

31
Marchel (2007) defined [critical] dialogue as the ongoing tool that connects collective inquiry
into the processes, assumptions, and certainties of everyday life. Drawing on Schein (1993) and
Marchel (2007), I believed critical dialogue should additionally include the deep understanding
of oneself as described by Talusan (2022) as the process that informs how we act and interact
with others. Marchel (2007) stated that for teachers12 to develop cultural awareness they must
identify values and assumptions that inform their teaching actions. I wanted to use critical
dialogue as a tool to build our internal accountability of CRT and ML. However, during the
study, the participant and I did not reach critical dialogue.
In my conceptual framework, I contended that critical reflection could help prompt
critical dialogue. At the time of the study, the participant did not write a critical reflection. As
stated above, Bella stayed in the “learning to see” phase of reflection for the entirety of the study.
As a result, she did not reach the point of the study where I theorized she’d be able to write a
critical reflection to use it as a tool to participate in critical dialogue. However, retrospectively
reviewing the transcripts, I found that critical dialogue could have resulted if I effectively
enacted forms of assistance (questioning) to support Bella to gain a deeper understanding of her
identity and deficit thinking.
While I believed that critical dialogue (supported by critical reflection) would provide us
an opportunity to recognize how identity, role, influence etc. informed our decision making as it
related to the existing school structures, I found that I missed opportunities to elicit opportunities
for Bella to engage in critical thinking, and ultimately critical dialogue. While the participant did
not write a critical reflection, as prescribed in the conceptual framework, I realized that I did not
12
Marchel (2007) based their research on critical dialogue as a pre-service teaching educational practice. I will be
operationalizing the definition of critical dialogue with theTSP advisor, as I believe the enactment of critical
dialogue is applicable to leaders as practitioners of building cultural competence.

32
account for other opportunities that Bella could have engaged in critical dialogue had I elicited
effective “right questions.” Regardless, I still believe that positive learning conditions need to be
created for critical dialogue to occur.
Learning Conditions
Arao and Clemens (2013) explained that brave spaces require participants to encounter
risks which may pose difficulty and even controversy. I believed it was necessary that I worked
to foster a brave space so that critical dialogue could occur. In the context of my study, I used
Arao and Clemens’s (2013) definition of brave space as a space that embodies a critical lens
where learning involves not only a risk, but also the pain of giving up a former condition in favor
of a new way of seeing things. Conversely, a safe space is described as an environment where
members feel comfortable to express themselves without fear of attack, ridicule, or denial of
experience (Arao & Clemens, 2013), but that may open the possibility for marginalized people in
the interaction to be further marginalized. In my definition of critical dialogue, I referred to the
development of identity consciousness as the skill needed to support us in the way that we
operate in the world and interact with others. I theorized that critical dialogue required positive
learning conditions that reinforced brave spaces.
I contend that to foster conditions where participants are open to the art of constructive
disagreement, brave spaces required members to trust each other. During the study, there were
limited opportunities to build trust between Bella and myself. I believed that trust was necessary
to create positive learning conditions that would reinforce effective communication through
critical dialogue. I did not foster positive learning conditions; in fact I exerted my political
positioning which further distanced us from reaching a brave space.

33
While Mezirow (2000) stated that positive learning conditions may be reached through an
understanding of learning agreements, during the study, I listed discussion norms without
eliciting feedback from Bella. During the study, I expected Bella to embody a brave space
without modeling or checking for understanding. From the first meeting, Bella did not have a
strong understanding of what a brave space was and how to contribute to a brave space, two
prerequisites I learned are important to include when working with adult colleagues and learners.
Next, I will describe the actions of an adaptive leader and how to use andragogy to support one’s
adult learners’ learning.
My Moves
Ultimately, I wanted to enact transformative learning by embodying adaptive leadership
and effective andragogy. I intended to embody two characteristics of adaptive leadership (“get on
the balcony” and “regulate distress”). I theorized that I would use three forms of assistance
(feedback, modeling and questioning). In the next section, I will describe the desired
characteristic traits of adaptive leadership that I intended to embody in order to support Bella to
work toward engaging in critical dialogue.
Adaptive Leader
Northouse (2022) defined an adaptive leader as someone who challenges others to face
difficult situations by providing them with the space or opportunity to learn new ways of dealing
with the inevitable changes in beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors that they are likely to
encounter when addressing real problems. Northouse (2022) stated that adaptive leaders must
possess certain behaviors that support them in guiding others when confronting difficult
challenges. Drawing on Northouse (2022) the two behaviors of adaptive leadership that I wished
to embody during the enactment of the study were: “get on the balcony’” and “regulate distress.”

34
The behavior of “get on the balcony” is when the leader can see the bigger picture by identifying
value and power conflicts (Northouse, 2022).
During the study, there were moments where I exhibited behaviors that demonstrated the
behavior of “get on the balcony.” Northouse (2022) stated that adative leaders who “get on the
balcony” step away from a challenging situation in order to see the big picture of what is really
happening. Despite, my attempt to “get on the balcony” I was unable to move back and forth as a
facilitator and action researcher (Northouse, 2022) to address Bella’s deficit thinking. As a result,
I was not present, another important quality of a leader. While I had hoped to embody effective
leadership through the art of presence (Slayton & Mathis, 2010), I was unable to slow down my
thought stream especially during moments where I found myself simultaneously holding
multiple roles (facilitator, note-taker, observer). This study reinforced the importance of both
getting on the balcony and being present as a leader, and as such, these are still part of my
conceptual framework under adaptive leader.
Additionally, I intended to use the adaptive leadership behavior of regulating distress
because I anticipated that critical dialogue would bring up emotions for my participant. What I
learned through this study is that it is important to both regulate your learners’ distress and your
own, something I hadn’t anticipated at the beginning of this study. Before the start of the study, I
theorized that I would regulate Bella’s distress, however, I did not account for the distress that I
would encounter. For example, I was unable to regulate my distress when I realized that Bella
and I were not ideologically aligned. As a result, I experienced a disorienting dilemma, and I
avoided Bella at work. Northouse (2022) stated that adaptive leaders need to be role models and
exhibit confidence and emotional capacity to handle conflict. Further, had I slowed my thought
stream I could have better responded to Bella’s deficit thinking in-the-moment. Retrospectively,

35
I found that my inability to regulate my distress influenced the way in which I was unable to
guide Bella toward critical dialogue. In moments that I was unable to regulate my own distress I
defaulted to elicit closed-ended questions. As such, I was unable to excavate Bella’s assumptions
that reinforced her entrenched deficit thinking.
While I did not embody the characteristics of adaptive leadership, I still believe in its
power to support organizational change and transformative learning. Therefore, I contend that
adaptive leadership is an essential component of the conceptual framework that guides my theory
of change. As I experienced, if administrators lack adaptive leadership, they will be unable to
mobilize school site leaders towards learning opportunities that enhance their understanding of
their role in supporting culturally responsive teaching practices with teachers.
Andragogy
Andragogy supports the facilitation of adult learning. Mezirow (1991) defined andragogy
as an organized and sustained effort to assist adults to learn in a way that enhances their
capability to function as self-directed learners. There were three andragogical moves, or means
of assistance, that I planned to enact as the facilitator: modeling, questioning and feedback. After
the study concluded I found that there was not enough evidence to show that I provided
substantial feedback to support Bella’s learning, even though I still believe it’s important to
enact. At the time of the study, I modeled multiple activities in hopes to reach critical dialogue.
Retrospectively, I found that activities did not drive critical dialogue, rather, reflective dialogue
resulted in meaningful conversation. Consistently throughout the study, I was unable to enact
effective questioning. As a result, I missed many opportunities to engage Bella in critical
dialogue. I still believe that had I successfully used all three andragogical moves, I could have
positioned me and Bella to engage in critical dialogue and work to build internal accountability.

36
Means of assistance are actions enacted by facilitators that support learners in their zone
of proximal development (Tharp & Gallimore, 1989). The zone of proximal teacher development
(ZPTD) denotes the distance between what teaching candidates can do on their own without
assistance as a proximal level they might attain through strategically mediated assistance of
capable others (Warford, 2011). According to my conceptual framework, I contended that I’d use
effective means of assistance to support Bella reach transformative learning within her ZPTD.
Frames of reference are highly influenced by what we experience in life, and shapes how we
think, and act in the world around us (Mezirow, 2000). Warford (2011) stated that adults are
more likely to readily identify their own practice(s) as known and preferable. Teachers13 rarely
engage in powerful discourse which leads to constructive disorientation. To support my theory of
change, I intended to employ means of assistance to facilitate Bella’s constructive disorientation.
Tharp and Gallimore (1989) defined modeling as the process of offering behavior for
imitation, often led through guided participation. Through watching others, a person can
formulate ideas of complex behaviors and can work towards assembling words, pictures, or live
actions into a retention of learned skills (Tharp & Gallimore, 1989). In retrospect, I realized that
I incorrectly positioned modeling activities to advance our progress towards critical dialogue. I
believed that if I demonstrated how to complete an activity, Bella would be able to do the same,
and our debrief of the activity would guide our dialogue. Retrospectively, I realized that I did not
effectively communicate the form of assistance (modeling) and how I intended to use it wth
Bella to support her learning. However, as discussed in the findings, I discovered that using
prescribed activities did not lead to critical dialogue. In fact, I found insufficient evidence to
support the effectiveness of modeling as a means of assistance, as Bella’s work did not
13 While Warford (2011) defined ZPTD as a theory to support teacher learning, in my context of my study, I use
ZPTD to support the learning of the out-of-classroom staff member, the TSP advisor.

37
demonstrate her ability to independently construct her own thoughts and ideas within her ZPTD
following my modeling of an activity.
Throughout the study, I aimed to implement effective questioning techniques but
consistently struggled to do so. Tharp and Gallimore (1989) defined questioning as the process
that ideas are discovered through a social network of dialectical communication. Educators have
often used questioning as a way for students to recite scripted responses regarding assessments;
tests, and homework (Tharp & Gallimore, 1989). I contended that I would use questioning as a
tool to help promote critical dialogue. Marchel (2007) defined “right questions” as a tool to
prompt others to deeply examine their thinking to help prompt dialogue and develop critical
thinking. As the study progressed, I became aware of my ineffective questioning despite utilizing
resources, tools, and reflecting with my dissertation chair. I struggled to implement effective
open-ended questions that would foster critical dialogue. As a result, Bella did not engage in
critical dialogue. I still contend that to support my learners to engage in critical dialogue, I must
hone my questioning skills.
If I had engaged Bella through effective andragogical questioning and modeling, she
could have had opportunities to participate in critical dialogue, particularly to help her uncover
her deficit thinking about students and families. Despite not being able to effectively enact
andragogy to support Bella reach critical dialogue, I still believe that the andragogical moves of
questioning, modeling and feedback support critical dialogue, and are essential components of
the conceptual framework. Next, I will discuss the actions I enacted as a way to accomplish the
desired outcomes in my conceptual framework.

38
Actions
There were many factors that influenced the way I enacted my action plan. As mentioned
in the findings section, the friendship between the participant and me influenced my assumption
of our aligned ideological thinking. Additionally, the participant accepted a new job in the
middle of the study. As such, I enacted a mid-course correction during the last cycle of learning
as it did not make sense to work toward internal accountability. Below are two tables that show a
comparison between the topics of the intended action plan (Table 1) and action plan that was
enacted (Table 2).
Table 1
Intended Topic(s) of Each Session
Session Topic
1 Introduction of Historically Entrenched Inequity
2 Exploring Characteristics of One’s Identity
3 Analysis of Power and Privilege
4 Creating a Shared Understanding of Culturally Responsive Teaching
5 Working toward Internal Accountability: Our Roles and the Intersection of
Culturally Responsive Teaching
6 Analyzing Components of a Critical Reflection to Write a Critical Reflection
7 Engage in Critical Dialogue by Challenging One’s Hegemonic Assumptions
8 Engage in Critical Dialogue by Challenging One’s Hegemonic Assumptions
9 Develop a Shared Understanding of Our Roles as Instructional Leaders to Better
Support Teachers enact Culturally Responsive Teaching in Their Classrooms

39
Table 2
Actual Topic(s) of Each Session
Session Topic
1 Introduction of Historically Entrenched Inequity
2 Review Historically Entrenched Inequity as It Relates to One’s Role
3 Analyze Characteristics of One’s Identity
4 Determine One’s Personal and Professional Assumptions
5 Analyze the Use of Assumptions in Practice
6 Analyze the Use of Assumptions in Practice
7 Connect Prior Learning to New Role
8 Connect Prior Learning to New Role
9 Re-envision Role Through a New Lens of Learning
I planned to enact transformative learning opportunities for myself and the TSP advisor.
To achieve this, I theorized that I would embody adaptive leadership and critical reflection. I
believed this approach would enable me to create learning opportunities for Bella to challenge
her assumptions about how she could support teachers’ capacity to promote CRT in the
classroom. However, I created the action plan with the assumption that Bella and I were
ideologically aligned. As I engaged in-the-field analysis it became apparent that Bella had
entrenched deficit thinking, and as such, we were not ideologically aligned. Despite my
awareness of our ideological misalignment, it was not until after a disorienting dilemma and
Bella disclosing to me that she was changing jobs that I enacted a mid-course correction during
cycle three.
I engaged in critical reflection four different times in my study (once in learning cycle
one, and three times in learning cycle two). Drawing on Coghlan (2019), I addressed the
following questions for each critical reflection: (1) How does my identity and positionality shape
how I interact and provide entry points of participation for the TSP advisor? (2) What did I learn

40
about myself, my skills, and my attitudes? (3) How effective was I in carrying out my actions,
and if not effective, what were the reasons for my lack of effectiveness? (4) Which assumptions
about the actions I enacted created missed opportunities to engage my colleague in learning? (5)
If conflict arose, how did I implement adaptive changes to mediate the situation and manage
distress? While I theorized that critical reflection would help inform my future actions while I
was in-the-field, my lack of adaptive leadership (Northouse, 2022) and presence (Slayton &
Mathis, 2010) meant I didn’t regulate my distress or slow down my thought stream to effectively
ask open-ended questions in the moment and elicit critical dialogue.
I engaged in reflective and analytic memoing throughout the study. I recorded a reflective
memo at the conclusion of each learning session using the application, Otter.ai. The reflective
memos helped me account for personal, in-the-moment observations which included feelings,
biases, and assumptions that I held during each meeting. At times, the reflective memo had
critical components that helped me analyze power dynamics within the learning environment. I
completed an analytic memo at the end of each learning cycle. Additionally, I reflected with my
dissertation chair throughout the enactment of the study. Reflecting with my dissertation chair
helped me process my critical analysis of how Bella made progress, if any, toward
transformative learning. Although I was able to step back and engage in reflection-on-action
(Scön, 1983) I did not use these reflections to modify my behavior until much later in the study.
By that time, it was too late to positively influence Bella’s learning outcomes.
To prepare Bella for participation in my study, I introduced the purpose of the study
during session one. In doing so, I introduced the historically entrenched inequity. After analyzing
my first reflective memo I realized that I needed to review the context of the historically

41
entrenched inequity as it related to her role as an administrative leadership team member. As
such, I extended the exploration of the historically entrenched inequity into session two.
I intended to use the first meeting to establish discussion norms by co-constructing
agreements that would foster a brave space (Arao & Clemens, 2013). I listed discussion norms
without eliciting feedback from Bella. Northouse (2022) stated that establishing constructive
discussion norms have a positive influence on the progress of the group. As explained above, I
did not provide opportunities to build Bella’s capacity to contribute to a brave space, and as a
result we operationalized different definitions of what we perceived a brave space to be.
I intended the study to take place in three cycles, however as mentioned above, many
factors influenced the enactment of my original action plan. As a result, Bella stayed in the
“learning to see” phase. While she only reached the “learning to see” phase, I still believe that
the progression of the reflective cycle, as indicated by Rodgers’s (2002) is an essential
component of my conceptual framework. Listed below are the three cycles of learning I had
wished to reach by the end of the study.
• Learning to see—understanding what an assumption is within the context of our personal
and professional lives.
• Description of the experience— Setting the foundation for writing a critical reflection.
• Analysis of Experience— Engaging in the process of writing a critical reflection to
prepare us for critical dialogue.
The first cycle aimed to help Bella recognize her current perspectives in her interactions
with others and the world (Talusan, 2022). However, Bella required support in uncovering her
deficit thinking towards students, families, and staff. She was not yet prepared to critically
examine her assumptions about herself and her position as a TSP advisor.

42
I designed the second cycle of the study to: (1) explore CRT in relation to Prospect
Elementary School’s mission statement and (2) identify Bella’s espoused theories and theoriesin-use as a TSP advisor. However, as indicated in Table 2, I adjusted the focus of cycle two to
better meet Bella’s learning needs. While I initially thought Bella needed to deepen her
understanding of CRT in her support of adults, she had not yet recognized her deficit thinking.
Consequently, during the second cycle, I focused on analyzing Bella’s personal and professional
assumptions. By the end of cycle two, Bella identified competing commitments (Kegan & Lahey,
2009) that influenced her “big” assumptions. Bella’s overarching assumption was that her role as
a TSP advisor primarily involved managing operational duties, influencing her actions as a
school site leader.
Before the beginning of cycle three, Bella informed me that she accepted a new role at a
different school site. This prompted me to make a mid-course correction, restructuring cycle
three to leverage reflective dialogue in discussing her new responsibilities as a home hospital
teacher, as outlined in Table 3. Looking back, I found that the mid-course correction came too
late to benefit Bella’s learning, however, I saw the power of facilitating reflective dialogue rather
than focusing on completing activities.
I did not answer the research question to the action research for many reasons. There
were some factors that were not in my control (changing administration, Bella accepting a new
job). However, there is additional evidence that shows how negatively I influenced Bella’s
capacity to engage in critical dialogue of her entrenched deficit thinking. Below is the outline of
my action plan.

43

44
Table 3
Action Plan
Cycle 1
“Learning to see- understanding what an assumption is within the context of our personal and professional lives”
Timeline Objective Activity Progress Indicator Andragogical Moves Data (All Sessions)
Session 1 Understand the purpose
and structure of the study
Construct discussion
norms
Introduction to
historically
entrenched inequity
Create disucssion
norms
Participant understood the
purpose of the study as it
related to the historically
entrenched inequity
Reflected after the session
to evaluate the level of the
participants’ understanding
Clarified
misunderstanding(s) of
historically entrenched
inequity
Modeled how to write an “I
am from” poem
Asked questions to prompt
discussion about
participant’s “I am from”
poem
Jottings during the
meeting
Reflective memo
after the meeting
Descriptive field
notes, transcription
Agenda (3)
Constructed
discussion norms
Critical reflection
Participant “I am
from” poem
Analytic memo
Session 2 Review historically
entrenched inequity and
relate it to our roles as
leadership team members
Complete how to write an
“I am from” poem
Reflect about how
our role(s) intersect
with historically
entrenched inequity
Write “I am from”
poem
Participant connected the
context of the historically
entrenched inequity to her
role as a TSP advisor
Participant wrote an “I am
from” poem
Session 3 Analyze characteristics of
one’s identity that offers
privilege and
disadvantages
Share and debrief
the “I am from”
poem
Participant discussed
characteristics of her
identity that offered
privileges and disadvantages
In-the-field
Analysis
I used memos to gauge the evolution of my practice as it related to how my facilitation translated into changes of my practice. I asked: What
are you seeing across the data? What type of environment are you creating? How are you structuring learning? What instructional moves are
you enacting? How does the conceptual framework need to evolve?

45
Cycle 2
“Learning to see- understanding what an assumption is within the context of our personal and professional lives”
Timeline Objective Activity Progress Indicator Andragogical Moves Data (All Sessions)
Session 4 Discuss one’s personal
and professional
assumptions
Complete Personal
and Professional
Assumptions Chart
Participant completed
Assumptions Chart
Modeled how to complete
Assumptions Chart
Jottings during the
meeting
Reflective memo after
the meeting
Ref
Descriptive field notes,
transcription
Agenda (3)
Personal and
Professional
Assumption Chart
Immunity to Change
Map
Critical reflection
Analytic memo
Session 5 Analyze the use of
assumptions in one’s
practice
Create Immunity to
Change Map
Participant addressed
competing commitments
using graphic organizer
Participant listed “big”
assumptions of role
Modeled how to complete
Immunity to Change Map
Asked questions to prompt
discussion about participants’
“big” assumptions
Session 6
Analyze the use of
assumptions in one’s
practice
Review Immunity
to Change Map
Complete
Hegemonic
Assumption table
Participant applied
understanding of
hegemony to her practice
as a TSP advisor
In-the-field
Analysis
I used memos to gauge the evolution of my practice as it related to how my facilitation translated into changes of my practice. I asked: What are you
seeing across the data? What did you carry over from cycle one to cycle two? What is the evidence of how I carried over what I determined I
needed to do with my learners? What progress was made toward the research goal? How did your teaching change, if at all?

46
Cycle 3
“Learning to see- understanding what an assumption is within the context of our personal and professional lives”
Timeline Objective Activity Progress Indicator Andragogical Moves Data (All
Sessions)
Session 7
(Revised)
Connect prior learning to
new role(s)
Whole group
reflection
Participant identified
feelings, thoughts and
actions connected to
hegemonic assumptions
Asked open-ended questions
to prompt meaningful
conversation about
participants’ assumptions
Jottings during the
meeting
Reflective memo
after the meeting
Ref
Descriptive field
notes,
transcription
Agenda (3)
Critical reflection
Analytic memo
Session 8
(Revised)
Connect prior learning to
new role(s)
Whole group
reflection
Participant engaged in
surface level reflection
about current role and
named growth areas of
future practice as it related
to her hegemonic
assumptions
Asked open-ended questions
to prompt meaningful
conversation about
participants’ assumptions
Session 9
(Revised)
Connect prior learning to
new role(s)
Re-envision role through
new lens of learning
Whole group
reflection
Reflect by reinvisioning role
Participant engaged in
surface level reflection
about current role
Participant shared a vision
of new role
Asked open-ended questions
to prompt meaningful
conversation about the
participants’ learning
In-the-field
Analysis
I used memos to gauge the evolution of my practice as it related to how my facilitation translated into changes of my practice. I asked: What
did you see across all three cycles of learning? What pieces of data can you use as evidence to prove patterns/trends? What is the data telling
you about the effectiveness of my andragogy? How does the data “map” on the conceptual framework? What is the data telling me about what
the participant learned?

47
Research Methods
The methodological approach that I used was a qualitative study. Action research is a
type of research approach that often uses qualitative methodology. Lochmiller and Lester (2017)
defined action research as an orientation to education research where the practitioner-scholar
selects a problem, challenge or issue drawn from their practice and uses the research process to
identify and implement a possible solution or response. Qualitative methodologies represent a
variety of interpretive, inductive approaches to the study of human experience (Lochmiller &
Lester, 2017). Through qualitative methods, I sought to understand the processes of how the TSP
advisor worked toward building internal accountability of CRT. My research question positioned
me as the practitioner-scholar in the context of my school environment. For this reason, action
research through a qualitative study is appropriate. Below I will describe the participant of the
study, the setting and the data collection I used to conduct this action research.
Participants and Setting
I used my conceptual framework and the research question to guide the selection of the
participant and the setting of my study. I had one participant in my study: the TSP advisor. While
my initial plan had been to include the entire administrative team at my school site, leadership
changes and turnover prevented me from doing so. I verbally asked the TSP advisor if she’d be a
participant in the study. I scheduled nine weekly learning sessions to enact the actions as outlined
in the study. We met via Zoom after school hours and off site. I used my USC student Zoom
account to host meetings. I chose to conduct my study via Zoom because LAUSD enforced a
strict research policy. I did not have to receive approval from the school district because I
collected data outside the context of my school site.
Participants

48
Prior to the start of my research, both of my administrators left my school site. This left only one
administrative leadership team member to be the participant in my research, the TSP advisor.
Purposeful sampling was used because I wanted to build internal accountability at my workplace.
Purposeful sampling is used when the researcher wants to discover, understand and gain insight
about something specific and therefore must select a sample from whom the most can be learned
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I asked Bella, face-to-face, if she would like to participate in the
study. During this interaction I briefly described the purpose of the study and explained the time
commitment required for participation. I communicated that the purpose of the study was to
work as members of the administrative team to build internal accountability of our designated
roles so that we could better understand how our actions (as school leaders) shaped teachers’
practices of CRT.
Setting of Action
I scheduled sessions for the study after school using my USC Zoom account. I scheduled
three weekly meetings with Bella per learning cycle. There was a total of three cycles (nine
meetings). Since I conducted my study outside the context of my school site, I did not need to
obtain permission from my principal or the district to complete my study. Upon her arrival, I
notified the principal, Mrs. Morgan, that I was conducting the study out of respect and to make
sure she knew what I was doing.
Data Collection
To document my progress towards the desired goals of this study, as presented in my
conceptual framework and actions, I collected documents and conducted observations.
Documents that were used in my study are listed in Table 3. I periodically enacted critical
reflection while I was in-the-field, and these written reflections were also data sources for this

49
action research. Lochmiller and Lester (2017) stated that it is important to [critically] reflect
upon how biases, assumptions, and/or perspective shape what I am seeing and not seeing as the
researcher. Critical reflection allowed me to consider how my positionality shaped how I choose
(or not) to respond to the participant and how this interaction influenced her capacity to
participate in the study.
Drawing on Lochmiller and Lester (2017) I attended to the following during my
observational data collection: how I would enter the learning environment, the specific
interactions that I had with participants (as it related to the learning purpose and conceptual
framework), and how these related to the research question. Additionally, I recorded and saved
audio transcripts on my computer. I transcribed recordings and created descriptive field notes at
home to assist me during in-the-field analysis so that I could make informed decisions for future
actions. The following sections will detail these data collection methods.
Documents and/or Artifacts
I used the following documents and artifacts to help organize my action research:
meeting agendas, handouts, reflective memo, and critical reflection. The agendas served as a tool
to direct Bella’s learning and guide my facilitation. And for the study, they served as evidence of
what I planned to enact, what topics I included and what my objectives were for each session. I
used my jottings on the weekly agendas to prepare for upcoming learning sessions. Initially, I
relied on the agendas to maintain my current approach to support Bella’s learning as outlined in
Table 1. In the “Findings” section below, I discuss how my assumptions shaped my initial action
plan. Despite evidence suggesting Bella required focused support to address her deficit thinking,
I found it challenging to deviate from the action plan. The agendas and action table served as

50
evidence for me to examine how I stayed the course even when I became aware that I would not
be meeting Bella’s needs with what I had planned.
Another document I used as a data source was the “immunity to change map” which was
intended to guide Bella’s awareness of her competing commitments as it related to the “big”
assumption of her role as a TSP advisor. During this activity I gave Bella the job aid that
described her role as a TSP advisor. She used the job aide to support the completion of the
activity.
Another data source was that I recorded a reflective memo after completing each
meeting. A reflective memo is brief and reflects on the researchers’ thinking process (Miles et
al., 2014). Reflective memos helped me gauge my understanding of the progress the participant
made toward the learning purpose. Reflective memos were secured on an application called
Otter.ai. The application Otter.ai was also used to record my critical reflections. While reflective
memos are not necessarily used as data sources in a traditional study, in an action research
project that focuses on the researcher’s actions, they become a powerful data source.
Artifacts consist of physical objects found in the study setting; tools, implements,
utensils, and instruments of everyday living (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). One artifact that I used
was the job aide that described the TSP advisor role. This aided the participant to discover her
espoused theories and theories in use.
Critical reflection guided my analysis to improve my future practice as a facilitator. I
wrote four critical reflections during the study. My critical reflections were used as a tool to help
me to analyze the power dynamics within the learning environment. Within each critical
reflection I questioned the existing power dynamics and its intersection with my actions. While I
contended that the participant would write a critical reflection, during my study, she did not.

51
Observations
Observations are conducted in the setting where the phenomenon of interest naturally
occurs (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Observational data represents the firsthand encounter with the
phenomenon of interest (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). In my study, observations described: the
setting, participants, activities, conversations (especially the interaction between myself and the
participant), subtle factors (non-verbal cues), and my own behavior (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Observations require: (1) learning how to pay attention, (2) learning how to write descriptively,
(3) disciplined approach to recording field notes, (4) the ability to separate detail from trivia and
(5) using detailed methods to validate and triangulate observations (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Observer’s comments were included in my jottings. Observations make it possible to record
behavior as it is happening (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Qualitative researchers can take on one of a handful of roles. I was a participant observer.
Schensul et al. (2013) defined participant observer as someone who: must be present at, involved
in, and recording the routine daily activities with the people in-the-field setting while also
maintaining an active participant role. Critics of participant observers as data gathering
instruments point to the highly subjective nature and therefore consider participant observers an
unreliable source of data (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). To address this critique, I triangulated
methods as described in the section “Credibility and Trustworthiness.” Observer’s comments
also helped me build credibility as I attended to findings, patterns, and trends and intentionally
bracketing my interpretations from my descriptions.
I wrote jottings on agendas during the learning sessions that I conducted with Bella.
Jottings are like an analytic sticky note that are words or phrases that can be written on a piece of
paper (Miles et al., 2014). My jottings included physical setting, the participant, interactions,

52
conversation, subtle factors, and my own behavior (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Jottings helped
me create descriptive field notes. Highly descriptive field notes should make readers feel like
they are there, seeing what the observer sees; participants, setting, the activities, behaviors of the
participants and what the facilitator does (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). My field notes additionally
assisted me as I analyzed the interaction between myself and the participant during moments that
we engaged in dialogue. Descriptive field notes were written after each meeting and described
the interactions that I had with the participant.
To facilitate the writing of the descriptive field notes, I used the application Otter.ai. The
Otter.ai application transcribed the learning sessions and ensured I captured the dialogue that
occurred between Bella and myself. Observer’s comments were taken from my jottings and
added to the transcripts that helped me produce the descriptive field notes. Observer’s comments
captured non-verbal cues that audio recordings did not translate.
As a novice researcher, I realized that my role as a participant observer was difficult
because I needed to balance my interactions with the participants, jottings, and facilitating the
learning. I found that as a novice action researcher, I struggled to simultaneously balance the
responsibilities of an action researcher and an adult educator. As a result I limited my capacity to
maintain presence and encourage critical dialogue. Altogether, I collected approximately nine
hours of observational data.
Data Analysis
Preliminary data analysis began at the end of each cycle while I was still in-the-field. I
intended to use the in-the-field analysis to better understand Bella’s understanding of CRT, with
respect to her role. I used in-the-field analysis to examine how my actions were being enacted
and whether they were having the desired effect on Bella’s learning. Despite recognizing Bella’s

53
entrenched deficit thinking, it wasn’t until I implemented a mid-course correction in cycle three
that I directly addressed this issue. I recorded a reflective memo at the end of every learning
session. I wrote three analytic memos while I was in-the-field (one after each learning cycle). As
described above, I wrote four critical reflections during the enactment of the study. Qualitative
researchers begin data analysis immediately after starting data collection and continually analyze
data for length of the study (Maxwell, 2013).
Critical reflection helped me identify my feelings, reactions, hunches, initial
interpretations, and speculations through a critical lens that allowed me to analyze the power
dynamics (interaction) between me and Bella. The intention of each critical reflection written
between cycles was to inform my actions as I prepared to enact the subsequent cycle(s) of
learning. However, despite being aware of the purpose of critical reflection, as described earlier,
I did not apply it to alter my actions early enough during the study’s implementation.
More extensive qualitative analysis was conducted after enactment and data collection
were completed as set forth in my action plan. This involved reading through the observational
notes and documents to be analyzed (Maxwell, 2013). Analysis involved working with data,
organizing them, breaking them into manageable units, coding them, synthesizing them, and
searching for patterns (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). I used my conceptual framework and the action
plan to guide my data analysis.
When I was out-of-the field I worked with the data from my jottings, descriptive field
notes, reflective memos, critical reflections, and documents. I used the application ATLAS.ti to
store my documents and organize my codes and coding process. According to Ravitch and Carl
(2021) codes help qualitative researchers organize data into manageable chunks. First, I engaged
in the process of precoding. Precoding is the process of reading, questioning and engaging with

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data (Ravitch & Carl, 2021). Miles et al. (2014) stated that a start list of codes prior to collecting
data should be generated using the conceptual framework, research question and general topics
of interest. I created a priori codes generated from the research question and conceptual
framework (Patton, 2002). Some examples of a priori codes that I generated were “adaptive
leadership,” “andragogy,” “critical dialogue,” “internal accountability,” and “learning
conditions.”
Next, I engaged in a second round of coding by looking for emergent codes. Emergent
codes focus on patterns related to the research question and conceptual framework (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016) but that were not anticipated prior to starting analysis. Qualitative data analysis is
all about identifying themes, patterns, categories or answers to the research question (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). To create emergent codes, I looked at my codebook to find patterns of typicality,
similarity and co-occurrences. Examples of emergent codes that resulted were “art of presence”,
“andragogy-questioning,” and “deficit thinking.”
My findings were a result of my coding process. The code definitions in my codebook
helped me ensure a consistent coding process (Ravitch & Carl, 2021). As a result, I looked for
typicality within my ATLAS.ti project amongst codes. Typicality is frequently occurring codes.
Next, I will describe the limitation and delimitations of the study.
Limitations and Delimitations
As an insider-action researcher, I completed the study within the context of my
workplace. I inevitably encountered constraints and restrictions. A limitation is a constraint of
the study. Limitations I list below are time, my novice status as an action researcher, availability
of the administration team to conduct the study, and Bella changing her job during the study. A
delimitation is a restriction placed on the study through the choices I made as the researcher.

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Two delimitations were: my choice to use a purposeful sample (TSP advisor) and my bias in
selection of theories to create my conceptual framework.
Limitations
As with all studies, this action research also has limitations. One limitation was time. I
allotted twelve weeks to conduct my study. While I believed that this was enough time to build
internal accountability of Bella and myself, we encountered unanticipated obstacles. As such, I
did not reach my intended outcome as outlined in my conceptual framework.
As a novice action researcher, I was also limited in my capacity to apply skills to guide
the TSP advisor through action research. Herr and Anderson (2015) stated that action research is
one of the most complex research undertakings because it demands that the researcher (me) play
multiple roles- researcher, facilitator, and collaborator. Balancing multiple roles while
documenting and enacting decisions within the research process makes action research especially
difficult (Herr & Anderson, 2015). While I had wished to perform at a high standard of quality as
the action researcher, I realized that my level of experience and exposure to this type of research
methodology limited my ability to do a good job.
Two limitations that I did not anticipate for included, the changing of the administration
team and Bella accepting a new job during the study. As mentioned, the principal and the
assistant principal who originally agreed to engage in the study as participants, were assigned to
different school sites at the beginning of the academic school year. While my study was designed
to work alongside an entire administrative leadership team, I was left with one participant (TSP
advisor). Further, Bella decided to quit her role as a TSP advisor during the study. As mentioned,
I did not believe it was beneficial to continue to build internal accountability. As such, I changed
my action plan (as shown in Table 3) to meet the needs of the learner.

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Delimitations
A delimitation of the study is that I used a purposeful sample. The purposeful sample, as
described above, involved one participant (two including myself). Because my research question
specifically sought to build internal accountability of the TSP advisor, as described above, I had
to seek the participation of only the TSP advisor. The findings from my study yielded data from
one participant: the TSP advisor. In-the-field analysis informed me of the learning progress of
the TSP advisor, no one else. The results from this study did not inform my work with others.
I constructed and selected specific theories to create my conceptual framework. Maxwell
(2013) described theory as a coat closet. As a researcher I am biased in my selection of useful
theories and how I make sense of them. Maxwell (2013) described the concept of existing theory
as “coat hooks” in the closet; they provide places to “hang” data, showing their relationship to
other data. The selection of theories in my conceptual framework illuminates certain theories,
and leaves other theories in the darkness (Maxwell, 2013). Becker (2007) warned that existing
literature (and the assumptions embedded in it) delimit the ways in which the researcher
conceptualizes the study. Students’ (and other researchers’) use of theory is often distorted by the
perceived authority in the literature (Maxwell, 2013). Literature that I have been taught to build
into my theory of change included: critical reflection, andragogy, learning conditions, and
adaptive leadership. Students will rarely challenge authoritative literature; analyses often result
in the reproduction of theory from this literature (Maxwell, 2013).
Credibility and Trustworthiness
My subjectivity shaped the design, conduct and analysis of this research. Researcher bias
is a threat when the qualitative conclusions “fit” the researcher’s existing theory, goals or
preconceptions of data (Maxwell, 2013). I came into the study with existing assumptions. For

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example, as explained in the findings, my assumption that I had aligned ideological beliefs with
the participant led to me inaccurately design the action plan. I recorded a reflective memo at the
end of each meeting to better understand my progress toward supporting Bella to reach
transformative learning. I wrote an analytic memo at the end of each learning cycle. Both
reflective tools helped develop my awareness of Bella’s learning needs.
The two sources of data for my study were observations and artifacts/documents. I was
the main instrument for collecting data. Because humans are the primary source of data
collection and analysis in qualitative research, interpretations of reality are accessed directly
through the methods (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Lochmiller and Lester (2017) named
triangulation as a strategy to build trustworthiness. There are four different types of triangulation
(a) multiple methods (b) multiple sources of data (c) multiple investigators (d) multiple theories
to confirm emerging findings (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I implemented multiple methods to
triangulate data. In my study, I used my reflective memos, critical reflections and analytic
memos to examine the ways that I interacted with the participant as shown in the transcripts. To
assess how I supported the participant's growth toward transformative learning, I analyzed my
descriptive field notes, including detailed jottings and observer’s comments, to determine if my
actions aligned with future strategies to better answer my research question. Triangulation helps
show that the research findings are not based on one method of data collection, rather, a
connected methods approach to understanding the analysis of findings (Merriam & Tisdell,
2016).
As the researcher of this study, I used critical reflection and analytic memos to remind
myself of the purpose of the research by acknowledging, and consistently reflecting upon my

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motivating goals (personal, practical, and intellectual).14 Truth, or what is “considered”
meaningful and “right” for researchers and participants depends on how we each experience the
world (Milner, 2007). Below I will describe how I used ethical codes to reduce Bella’s risk as a
participant in the study.
Ethics
Throughout the sessions the TSP advisor was openly engaged, this showed me that she
did not perceive any risk by participating in the study. Ethical codes protected the participant in
my study. The five ethical codes that guide the decisions of the Institutional Review Boards
(IRBs) are: (1) research subjects must have sufficient information to make informed decisions
about participating in the study (2) research subjects must be able to withdraw, without penalty,
from a study at any point (3) All unnecessary risks to a research subject must be eliminated (4)
Benefits to the subject or society, must outweigh all potential risks (5) Experiments should be
conducted only by qualified investigators (Glesne, 2011). During the first meeting, as described
above, I reviewed the purpose of the study. Through informed consent, the participant was made
aware that: (1) participation is voluntary (2) any aspects of the research that might affect their
well-being (3) they may freely choose to stop participation at any point in the study (Glesne,
2011).
Privacy was the foremost concern in conducting research. Participants expect that you
(researcher) will protect and preserve anonymity (Glesne, 2011). A breach in privacy of the
participant’s identity could have resulted in consequences which include (but not limited to);
participants choosing to stop participation, loss of rapport and trust, and possible termination of
14 Personal goals are deeply rooted in curiosity and desire, practical goals are focused on accomplishing something,
and intellectual goals are focused on understanding something (Maxwell, 2013).

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research that has been associated with harm of participants. No breach of privacy was made
during the enactment of this study.
Due to the purposeful sample of my study, Bella’s identity may have been easy to
decipher. My commitment to the participant was to work to protect her from any harm
(Lochmiller & Lester, 2017). If the participant’s identity was revealed, consequences could have
resulted such as jeopardizing the workplace culture at the school site between the participants
and the staff members. Bella’s identity was not revealed to the public before, during and after the
study. To protect her identity, I used a fictitious name (Glesne, 2011). However, a fictitious name
may not be enough to protect her identity. Therefore, I was extremely transparent by informing
Bella of the research structure, and methods (Lochmiller & Lester, 2017). I reviewed the rights
of the participant during the first meeting. Lochmiller and Lester (2017) defined basic level
ethics as, inviting consent, ensuring no harm is done, and protecting the identity of the
participants. Responding to the needs of the participant, especially during an adverse event,
included reminding her of her voluntary participation (Lochmiller & Lester, 2017). The
participant always had the right to leave the study before, during, or after the start or completion
of a study.
There were various strategies that I used to reduce Bella’s risk. One strategy was
privately storing all documentation in a secure electronic file that was password protected. I
secured physical copies of documents generated by my participant in a secured google drive
folder attached to my USC account. I completed analysis at home to ensure the confidentiality of
the participant. Using a secure device to hold documents and transcriptions increased security of
the confidential files produced by the study. Loose paper documents used for the study were
stored at my house. I also conducted the sessions, via Zoom, in a safe and enclosed environment

60
at home. To ensure the security of the physical learning environment, I made sure that I was the
only person present at home during Zoom learning sessions.
Findings
In this section, I discuss the findings from my action research to answer the research
question: How do I and the Targeted Student Population advisor engage in critical dialogue to
work towards internal accountability of our respective roles aligned with supporting culturally
responsive teaching? My findings demonstrate that I assumed an ideological alignment between
me and my colleague, the participant, which resulted in an ineffective action plan and ultimately
a disorienting dilemma when I learned of the participant’s entrenched deficit thinking of students
and families. Also, in my conceptual framework, I theorized that the art of presence (Slayton &
Mathis, 2010) would support me to foster positive learning conditions and engage Bella in
critical dialogue. However, I found that I reinforced my political positioning and did not slow
down my thought stream, two components of presence. As a result, I did not foster a brave space
(Arao & Clemens, 2013) where critical dialogue could occur. Lastly, I will describe how I
enacted two forms of assistance (Tharp & Gallimore, 1989): questioning and modeling. As
mentioned, I did not have enough evidence that showed I effectively used feedback as a form of
assistance. However, I believe that feedback is an effective forms of assistance that can be used
to elicit effective andragogy. I found that I disproportionately asked closed-ended questions as
compared to open-ended questions. Additionally, at the time of study, I believed that if I
effectively modeled multiple activities, I’d be able to support Bella (within her ZPTD) to engage
in critical dialogue. However, I did not explicitly explain how my modeling should be used as a
form of assistance. As a result, Bella was not effectively able to use my modeling to support her
learning. Ultimately, I decided to enact a mid-course correction because of Bella deciding to

61
leave Prospect Elementary School. At the end of the study, I used reflective dialogue to guide
Bella in meaningful conversation. Unfortunately, I enacted the mid-course correction too late to
influence Bella’s capacity to reach transformative learning.
Action Plan Did Not Support the Participant’s Needs
Because of initial assumptions I made about my colleague Bella, the action plan that I
created for the enactment of the study was not created to intentionally meet her needs.
Retrospectively, I realized that I made assumptions about her alignment to my ideological beliefs
based on our friendship, instead of gathering evidence about them. Constructive developmental
theorists Drago-Severson and Blum DeStefano (2017) argued that it’s important to assess adult
learners’ readiness to engage in social justice work. I was not present to where my learner was
developmentally and missed hints that indicated Bella’s deficit thinking (before and during the
study). As a result, I did not make mid-course corrections to my action plan until the end of the
study, thus resulting in missed opportunities to support Bella.
While I did not attend to Bella’s developmental readiness to enact social justice change, it is
important to note Bella’s commitment and willingness to participate in the study. This
willingness is partially what led me to assume she was ready for this work. In this section I will
describe how I inhibited learning through the misalignment of the action plan. Bella, however,
further limited her learning by being reluctant to participate in cognitively engaging
conversations.
Bella’s deficit thinking, which will be demonstrated in a later section, extended to
students and families. In addition to her deficit thinking, Bella showed awareness of her
privileged identity. Still, comments that she made reinforced the fact that she had entrenched
deficit thinking of students and parents. Bella’s deficit thinking reinforced the myth of

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meritocracy that seeks to use outcomes to measure student achievement (Elmore, 2002). She
placed blame on everyone but herself for producing low student outcomes. These characteristics
should have prompted me as a facilitator to know that learning sessions should be planned to
unearth and ultimately disrupt deficit thinking before one can build internal accountability to
support teachers to enact culturally responsive teaching.
In the following sections, I will demonstrate how I ineffectively planned learning
sessions based on my initial assumed ideological alignment with the participant. As a result, I
experienced a disorienting dilemma when I confronted the assumptions I made about Bella, thus
falling short in enacting adaptive leadership to meet her needs.
Assuming Alignment Led to an Ineffective Action Plan
When I started the study, I assumed that Bella was aligned to me ideologically. Bella and
I served as voluntary members on the Community School Board at Prospect Elementary School.
As a Community School, Prospect Elementary received resources to empower collaborative
partnerships between the school and families. During the second month of school, we met with a
Community School Instructional Coach. In this meeting we discussed ways Prospect Elementary
could better empower students through rigorous, interest-based activities. I believed that our
participation and attendance at this meeting indicated our alignment with asset-based thinking,
especially because we discussed the academic interests of our students. The meeting was
informal, and as a result, I did not save an agenda or take notes. Below is a summary of the
conversation between Bella, me and the Community School Instructional Coach.
During the second month of school, Bella and I attended a meeting with a Community
School Instructional Coach. The purpose of the meeting was to support our leaders to
creatively brainstorm ideas that may engage students in interest-based lessons. During

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this meeting Bella shared her observation of how our students loved after school robotics
classes. Bella said, “The kids really enjoy the robotics class with Ms. Dee. Perhaps we
should use our resources to fund programs like this during the school day.” The
Instructional Coach said, “That’s a great start, do the majority of the students like
robotics, or STEM related content?” Bella responded, “Well I don’t think all our students
participate in robotics since it is an after-school program, but if there was a robotics
course embedded in the school day so that all students could experience the program, I
really think more students would enjoy it.” The Instructional Coach then listed ideas on
chart paper that helped us brainstorm ways staff could uplift student engagement through
relevant topics of interest in curriculum and extracurricular programming related to
STEM. Some ideas that she charted on the paper were: hands on, STEM, coding and
professional development.
Bella’s knowledge of the students’ interests in robotics helped jumpstart the conversation
about how our school might be better positioned to support the integration of science and
technology into teachers’ daily teaching, and instruction. When I heard her say, “The kids really
enjoy the robotics class,” and “I really think more students would enjoy it,” I assumed Bella was
invested in leveraging our students’ funds of identity.15 At this point, I believed Bella had assetbasaed ideology. Esteban-Guitart and Moll (2014) stated that understanding a student’s funds of
identity helps teachers select appropriate instructional materials and curriculum to connect to a
student’s identity, and experience. Bella’s centering of students’ interests in this meeting
prompted me to believe that she was paying attention to and cared for our students’ funds of
identity. Since I believed Bella and I were aligned ideologically, there was no other evidence
15 Esteban-Guitart and Moll (2014) defined funds of identity as, historically accumulated, culturally developed, and
socially distributed resources that are essential for a person’s self-definition, self-expression, and self-understanding.

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(that I could find) to show, if at all, I questioned our alignment critically. Retrospectively, had I
examined my assumption of our ideological alignment, I could have better anticipated Bella’s
deficit thinking (and prepared for it).
While Bella demonstrated knowledge of students’ interests, this is not the same as using
students’ funds of identity to design instruction. My relationship with her as a friend made me
assume that we were ideologically aligned. Specifically, I assumed Bella was an asset-oriented
educator who worked to adapt her practice to the needs of her students. After weeks and weeks
of searching for evidence that would show our ideological alignment, there was sparse data that
indicated this alignment. As a result, I found no additional evidence to support my assumption
that Bella embodied asset-based thinking. Schwyck et al. (2023) stated that similarity among
friends is commonly observed in human social networks, people assume such similarities exist,
and that this assumption serves as a heuristic to inform predictions of how others will behave to
scaffold mental representations of friendships. Ultimately, my assumption guided the design of
the action plan. Unfortunately, the action plan did not support the development of Bella’s
identity consciousness and awareness of her deficit thinking because I provided little time for
such interrogation as will be discussed below.
I decided to conduct the study with Bella despite the shift in the administrative leadership
team. Bella agreed to her engagement as a participant for the entirety of the study. Despite the
action plan not meeting her learning needs, Bella took responsibility of her continued
participation (and learning) in the study. Evidence showed Bella’s commitment to learn in the
study was reflective when she accepted to be a participant in the study, her continued attendance
in the nine learning sessions, and her completing the activities in each session. These actions
communicated to me that Bella was ready, and willing to learn. While I could have been more

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critical in my analysis of our friendship, Mezirow (2000) stated that in order to “find one’s
voice” through participation is to engage in learning with agency. Mezirow (2000) stated that
agency is dependent on others. I found that Bella lacked the agency needed to meet me half way
and engage in critical discourse.
It was not until after session five that I reflected on my assumptions of why I believed
Bella and I had aligned ideological beliefs about education and about our students. Up to that
point in the study, I did not critically analyze my assumptions. As shown in the excerpt from my
reflection below, I explained how my hegemonic assumption of her positionality as a respected
leader and the history of our friendship guided my belief in our alignment of ideological
thinking.
I’m now realizing that I didn’t allow enough time for the first cycle, “learning to see”
where I had planned to quickly walk the learner through the “I am from” poem and
connect the components to the “I am from” poem to herself in a way that was related to
her role. I had assumed she “knew” and was aware of her identity, however, this was
based on me leveraging her years of leadership. Years of experience doesn’t mean that
you have had time to reflect about your identity. Moreso, years of experience does not
lead you to question how your identity influences your practice and beliefs of yourself
and others. I believe my friendship with Bella influenced my assumption of her
(ideological) beliefs. We have a strong friendship because we work together on the
administrative leadership team. However, I never critically examined the assumptions I
held of our friendship and the implications of those assumptions. While Bella has been
known [as] the previous principal’s “right-hand-man” she has not demonstrated her
capacity as an effective instructional leader. Instructional leaders should not hold deficit

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[views] of students. Bella has made many comments about students and families
grounded in deficit thinking.
Bella’s senior position as a respected site leader contributed to the assumptions, I held of
her as an effective, asset-based instructional leader. When I stated, “Years of experience doesn’t
mean that you have had time to reflect about your identity. Moreso, years of experience does not
lead you to question how your identity influences your practice and beliefs of yourself and
others” I was beginning to challenge my own beliefs about Bella’s positionality as a highly
respected, longtime leader. I believed her position as the previous principal’s “right-hand-
[person]” influenced my assumption of her effectiveness as an instructional leader.
Retrospectively reflecting on this statement, I realized that being someone’s “right-hand-person”
does not necessarily reflect one’s ideology.
In addition to her senior position at the school, our friendship also influenced the
assumptions I made of the alignment between our ideological beliefs. When I stated, “I believe
my friendship with Bella influenced my assumption of her (ideological) beliefs” I attended to the
power of our friendship as the reason I assumed ideological alignment. Rodgers (2002) described
the presence of “seeing” as a response to the learner’s needs as the ability to differentiate
different parts in the moment and from moment to moment. Had I critically attended to my
assumptions of our alignment earlier, I could have adjusted the action plan sooner. Duckworth
(2006) stated that understanding students’ thinking involves the intervention and adjustment of
their thought processes according to the results of the intervention. Given my lack of background
knowledge of Bella, especially as it related to her readiness for social justice work, I should have
been present to better prepare before the start of the study.

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In the context statement, I stated the creation of my role as an intervention coordinator, to
mediate low, standardized student test scores. It is important to note that the conceptualization of
my role as an intervention coordinator was sustained through the school’s budget which was
overseen and written by the TSP advisor, Bella. Knowing this, I should have anticipated Bella’s
commitment to standardized testing to measure student achievement, and the deficit ideology
that often comes with that commitment. In the context statement I wrote:
...the intervention program at Prospect Elementary School was developed as a response to
students’ low-test scores on the CAASPP assessment. While my role was created to
support students, it relies on the assumption that students have deficits, without an
examination of the classroom instructional practices.
Bella developed the budget outlined in the School Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA)
and provided justification to adequately fund my role. Bella outlined the SPSA budget to allocate
thousands of dollars to pay my salary so I could “fix” student test scores, as prescribed by
meritocratic standardized achievement assessments. Had I been present to where Bella was
developmentally and “gotten on the balcony,” (Heifetz et al., 2009) to piece together evidence
like this, that might’ve led me to an earlier awareness of Bella’s deficit thinking. I did not “get on
the balcony” and as a result, I lacked the capacity needed to adjust the action plan before the start
of the first session. Instead, I relied on my assumption that Bella and I were aligned ideologically
because we were friends and because she was a longtime leader deemed the “right-hand-person.”
As a result, the action plan that I enacted did not account for the deficit thinking that Bella
embodied, thus limiting my ability to push her thinking.
Because of the assumptions I made about Bella, my action plan allotted only one learning
opportunity embedded in one session for Bella to engage in the analysis of her identity and

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positionality. Brookfield (2019) explained the importance of understanding who your learner is
before engaging in challenging dialogue. I did not gather enough evidence about Bella to help
guide my thinking before the start of the study. As a result, the pacing of the action plan did not
meet Bella’s personal needs to help her address her deficit thinking. Table 4 presents the topics I
included in my action plan for this study.
Table 4
Intended Topic(s) of Each Session
Session Topic
1 Introduction of Historically Entrenched Inequity
2 Exploring Characteristics of One’s Identity
3 Analysis of Power and Privilege
4 Creating a Shared Understanding of Culturally Responsive Teaching
5 Working toward Internal Accountability: Our Roles and the Intersection of
Culturally Responsive Teaching
6 Analyzing Components of a Critical Reflection to Write a Critical Reflection
7 Engage in Critical Dialogue by Challenging One’s Hegemonic Assumptions
8 Engage in Critical Dialogue by Challenging One’s Hegemonic Assumptions
9 Develop a Shared Understanding of Our Roles as Instructional Leaders to Better
Support Teachers enact Culturally Responsive Teaching in Their Classrooms

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In the list of topics in Table 4, session two was the only session reserved for Bella and me
to explore our identities, which could have revealed how her identity positioned her to make
deficit-oriented assumptions about our students and families. Had I been present to Bella’s needs
before the start of the study, my action plan would have reflected additional time dedicated to
building the connection between her identity and deficit thinking. If I were to redesign my action
plan, I would have allotted the first three sessions for developing Bella’s understanding of the
historically entrenched inequity as it conflicted with her hegemonic assumption of meritocratic
outcomes that were reinforced by her deficit thinking. As a reminder, the historically entrenched
inequity that my study was trying to address was the disproportionate outcomes for marginalized
groups of students on high-stakes accountability tests.
The friendship between Bella and me inhibited my ability to critically analyze Bella’s
deficit thinking and readiness for social justice work before the start of the study and during the
first cycle of learning. As a result, the action plan that I designed did not support her needs as a
learner. However, as I described above, Bella also lacked the agency needed to contribute to her
learning. Ultimately, Bella needed more time and support from me to unearth her deficit thinking
before moving on to topics like “Creating a Shared Understanding of Culturally Responsive
Teaching” and “Working toward Internal Accountability: Our Roles and the Intersection of
Culturally Responsive Teaching.”
Bella’s Deficit Orientation
During session one, I introduced the purpose of my study by sharing the historically
entrenched inequity I wished to address. Bella had a difficult time unpacking the historically
entrenched inequity as it related to the context of our school site. She alluded to the
standardization of student achievement as “terrible” but also reinforced her belief in

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accountability and testing as the only form of measurement to gauge student performance. In so
doing, she signaled deficit perspectives about the students and their families who weren’t
performing well.
B: Schools are reflective of the inequities in our society, like lack of health care,
poverty, you know, parents who work the night shift, so no one’s home to read
with the kids. So anyway, I could just talk forever about it, but basically, it just
seems like schools reflect our society and the people that we vote in to change or
remediate things in our country … they’re often choosing to opt out of the system.
So, they’re not really seeing like, “Oh, your kid’s friend doesn’t have lunch” or,
you know, that kind of thing. So, it feels like you know, in terms of testing, you
know, we’ve talked about this, if we don’t have some measure, the loosey goosey
world of like “Oh, I'm teaching all day” (and maybe) the kids aren't getting
exposure to the standards at their grade level. I feel like it (SBAC) is a very bad
test. It’s culturally insensitive like it'll say, “My father is going to work in a tie.”
Some kids are like, “What’s a tie” you know? While the test (SBAC) is culturally
insensitive to the broader society, at the same time, I don't know how we would
measure (student success). I mean, it’s kind of helpful to say, hey, Prospect
you’ve got this population and you’re not meeting the standard… Another school
has this population and they’re doing better at the standard so you over here, you
need to buckle down and do a couple of things they’re doing over there. So, in
some ways, as terrible as I think the test is, we must have some sort of measure.
During this first session, Bella showed signs of deficit thinking. She toggled between her
recognition that standardized tests are not a good measure of student learning and her perception

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of necessary meritocratic means to assess students. For example, Bella stated that she believed
that the SBAC test was culturally insensitive when she described a scenario on the test that asked
students to answer a question about a “tie.” While Bella tried to name the inequities of the
language used in accountability testing, she also assumed that students did not know the
definition of a tie based on her assumption that students’ parents most likely had “blue color
jobs.” When Bella showed her awareness of societal structures that influenced school inequities
like healthcare and poverty, she did so by reinforcing her deficit lens. For example, when Bella
said “parents who work the night shift, so no one’s home to read with the kids” she reinforced
her assumption of parents’ inability to read to their children which contributed to students’ low
proficiency scores on standardized tests. Bella’s deficit thinking that placed blame on the parents
reflects victim blaming. Valencia (2010) defined victim blaming as the endogenous nature of
deficit thinking that roots students’ deficits and absolves inequitable schooling structures that
exclude students from optimal learning. Valencia (2010) described deficit thinking in which
(marginalized students) poor students, students of color, and their families are responsible for
academic failure due to their limited intellectual abilities, linguistic shortcomings, lack of
motivation to learn and immoral behavior. Bella then compared our school site to a neighboring
school that was producing higher test scores. The school that Bella referred to was located two
miles down the street from Prospect Elementary School. Additionally, the school that Bella
compared to Prospect Elementary was demographically similar. Bella reinforced the myth of
meritocracy by saying our school site needed to “buckle down” to meet the standard. However,
educational theorists have shown that “buckling down” would not necessarily produce higher
academic achievement (Oakes, 2018). While Bella tried to name the inequities produced by
standardized testing, she ultimately reinforced standardized tests and meritocracy when she

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stated that these tests were the only measurable tool to gauge student learning. When Bella said,
“if we don’t have some measure, the loosey goosey world of like ‘Oh, I’m teaching all day’ (and
maybe) the kids aren’t getting exposure to the standards at their grade level” she revealed her
expectations of standardized tests as a necessary tool to hold teachers accountable for desired
student outcomes. And while this “holding teachers accountable to supporting their students” is
better than victim blaming, the emphasis on tests as the measure of accountability, rather than
instructional practice for example, is problematic.
Valencia (2010) stated that deficit ideology ignores the role of systemic factors in
creating school failure. As stated above, Bella referred to deficits of children regarding academic
performance which contributes to the hegemony of meritocracy as an ideological stance. The
vignette below represents another moment in session one when she reinforced her deficit
thinking.
B: I think at our school site there is a lot of poverty. I supervise at lunch, and because
people (families) who are working really hard and maybe haven’t had all the
privileges of education, they’re sending their kids with a whole thing of Pringles
for lunch, or just a Capri Sun and a candy, whatever. So, I see a lot of things that
impact a child’s development and ability to learn just in terms of what is going
into their (students’) bodies. I also see classroom situations that are not as
rigorous as the kids need them to be. And I don’t mean like “drill and kill” all the
time but certainly things like planning and developing appropriate lessons. I do
see it in some rooms, and I don’t see it in a lot of rooms. And that seems unfair,
and that’s inequitable. I feel like in a community where there might be a lot of
parental involvement and a lot of very educated parents, they wouldn’t accept that

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their child or the whole school is getting 10% proficient on tests (referring to
SBAC).
A: I heard you say the test (SBAC) in its creation and its implementation is not
equitable, whether it’s the questions or just in general. You mentioned that the test
is our only standardized measure that we have (as educators) to gauge student
success. You also said that you see evidence (and lack of evidence) in the
classrooms (at our school site) of rigorous instruction, and how that could be
contributing or not contributing to student achievement. Before we move on, is
there anything else that you’d like to add on?
B: No
As shown in the vignette above, Bella continually placed blame on the students’ parents.
At first, Bella placed blame on parents for providing snacks that she perceived not to be
nutritional to a child’s development. Then, she proceeded to blame parents for their inaction
when exposed to students’ low-test scores. When Bella said, “I feel like in a community where
there might be a lot of parental involvement and a lot of very educated parents, they wouldn’t
accept that their child or the whole school is getting 10% proficient on tests (referring to SBAC)”
she blamed parents’ lack of education as a reason for their inattention to scores produced by
high-stakes accountability tests. Bella noted the inequities that shape standardized test outcomes,
yet in this excerpt, she used the results of these tests to place blame on parents’ inability to
advocate for higher scores to improve the school’s outcomes. Deficit thinking ignores external
forces that make up the complexity of the macrolevel and microlevel of school’s inequitable and
exclusionary institutions (Valencia, 2010). While Bella’s perception of accountability tests was
complex, as seen in her mention of the larger societal issues like poverty, it was ultimately

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entrenched in deficit thinking about the students and their families. Evidence of Bella’s complex
perception is that in the transcript above, Bella also placed blame on the school. Bella
acknowledged that the school did not provide quality first-teach instruction when she said, “I
also see classroom situations that are not as rigorous as the kids need them to be.” In this
statement, Bella recognized the lack of academic rigor teachers offered students at Prospect
Elementary School. According to my conceptual framework, I contended that we (as
administrative leaders) had to first develop the internal accountability of our roles (with respect
to CRT) so that we could be better positioned to do the same with teachers. When Bella said, “I
do see it (appropriately designed lessons) in some rooms, but I don’t see it in a lot of rooms. And
that’s unfair and that inequitable” she named her awareness of the quality of instruction (or lack
of) at Prospect Elementary. However, she did not take responsibility as an instructional leader
who remained complicit in a system that contributed to inequitable outcomes for students in
classrooms. It was my hope in this project to build internal accountability and build clarity
around our roles as instructional leaders, to better determine how we could better position
ourselves to support teachers. Because I realized too late that Bella harbored mostly deficit
orientation towards students and their families, I did not have the opportunity to ask her to think
about her own complicity in the outcomes we were seeing.
Bella needed support to connect the origin of her deficit thinking to her complex,
intersectional thinking about standardized testing. She also needed to interrogate and critically
reflect on how her identity shaped her thinking. In session 2, I debriefed the “I am from” poem to
explore Bella’s identity characteristics. During this debrief, I realized that Bella needed
additional support to excavate the origin of her deficit thinking. While the goal of the writing and
debriefing of the “I am from” poem was to promote critical analysis of power and identity, Bella

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did not have the experience, training or skills needed to critically analyze her identity. To work
toward building an identity conscious approach, practitioners must build awareness of identity by
taking time to think about thoughts, attitudes, behaviors and beliefs (Talusan, 2022). The debrief
of the “I am from” poem below shows that I was not able to support Bella to identify her deficit
thinking and white savior ideology, a trope that is often portrayed as white teachers who are well
intentioned and heroic liberal warriors who help save students of color from failing (Matias,
2016).
A: … What did you pick to share? And what are some things that you didn’t pick?
B: Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, for example, I grew up in a very, very wealthy home
but then my dad was a bit of a gambler so he would lose all his money. There
were really high highs, then low lows. There are so many things about you that
are important but the “I am from” poem is a good glimpse of who you are now,
and it certainly gives good information. I was really interested to read yours, it
gives good information but there’s so much to a person’s life. For me, I went to
this school in Westwood called St Paul’s. It’s a really good (private) school, and
then I went to Brentwood school. It is the fanciest school for high school and then
I went to Santa Clara University which was a private school. Then I went to
Columbia, which was a private school. I just had these really, really special
educational environments. And then while I was at Columbia, I did my student
teaching in Harlem. And then I went to Harlem, and it was just so devastating,
like they (schools, students) just didn’t have materials, it was just like a
warehouse. This one school I was at, not saying all the schools were like that, this
one school. I was so inspired to be like, no, I could do you know, I could work

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really hard and do what I was privileged to have in my classroom, and … that’s
what I did. As a teacher, I spent just boatloads of money and made my room
amazing and did all these things and tons of field trips and like started an
overnight field trip thing that I did for 15 years. I took the kids to Sacramento. Of
course, Catalina, Astro camp, Pali camp, and all different places because I just
really wanted to give the kids in title, I schools what I had.
A: Do you think it was intentional or unintentional with the things we decided to
choose or not choose (to share)?
B: I think you make your best effort to represent yourself.
In this interaction, Bella named her privileged identity and reinforced her deficit mindset
and white saviorism. Bella acknowledged her privilege when she described her childhood,
especially when she named the city (Brentwood) that she grew up in and when she mentioned the
private institutions that she attended. DiAngelo (2022) stated that white ideologies are deeply
conditioned in the belief that the system benefits whites leading to an internalized superiority.
Bella reinforced her superiority when she referred to her fancy, private, and “special education
environments” that she attended (in high school and college). She used the word “devastating” to
describe the school that she worked at as a teacher in Harlem. The only way Bella knew how to
make the school “better” was by spending “buttloads” of money to provide experiences for
students “that she had growing up.” Bella described that her motivation to spend money on her
classroom resources and field trips (like to Astrocamp and Catalina) was to provide her students
with “she had” growing up. Her assumption that her students in Harlem could not afford
resources and field trips reflected her deficit thinking. Bella showed awareness of her privileged
identity personally (attending wealthy private schools) and professionally (buying resources for

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her classroom). However, when Bella recognized her privilege, she tried to downplay it and
ultimately internalized it through white saviorism.
Need to Regulate My Distress
To create an action plan that did support Bella by addressing her hegemonic assumptions
and deficit orientation, I needed to better regulate my own distress. Had I embodied adaptive
leadership, by regulating my distress, I would have been better positioned to make changes to the
action plan earlier to meet Bella’s needs. Adaptive leaders need to monitor themselves closely by
controlling their own anxieties (Northouse, 2022). In addition to demonstrating a deficit
orientation, Bella also assumed that the principal favored non-white staff members (in-group),
reinforcing her belief that the principal, who was black, did not like her because of her white
identity (out-group). Her entrenched assumption, that the principal favored non-white staff
members, activated her belief system that reinforced the way that she interacted with the
principal. Ultimately, this assumption helped inform her decision to eventually leave Prospect
Elementary School. Northouse (2022) stated that in-groups and out-groups are based on how
well followers work with the leader and how well the leader works with them. As a non-white
staff member, I became distressed when I realized that Bella’s assumption also actively placed
me as a staff member who was favored based on my identity as a person of color. I didn’t realize
that I would have an emotional reaction to Bella’s assumption that the principal favored nonwhite staff members, including me. The following interaction shows how I abruptly ended the
conversation once I realized she probably believed that the principal was choosing favorites
based on race.
B: Um, well, I mean, the principal does a lot of things to me. I don’t know that those
are racial things… although two people this week have told me that they think it

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is racial. But I just kind of don’t buy it. I don’t really validate that conversation
when the two people have told me that same thing separately. I just say, you know
that's not really something to spend time on.
A: Do you act or interact differently with these two people (custodian and principal)
having this thought (assumption) in the back of your head?
B: I think she (principal) has other issues with me. So, I’m more fearful of her but
that’s just because of all the things that have been happening.
A: Just so I'm clear, the relationship that you have with the principal you don't
believe that it’s connected to your racial identity.
B: I don’t really know, I don’t know that those are provable things. I don't spend
time investing in that kind of avenue. Like I said, two other people have come to
me and said that they are seeing a pattern between who she is aligned with and
who she doesn’t like at the school. I don’t think that it serves anyone to spend a
lot of time on that. But I mean, it is possible.
A: Was there anything else you wanted to share?
Bella created the structure of an in-group and out-group based on her belief that the
principal favored non-White staff members. While Bella tried to downplay her assumption by
saying “I don’t know that those are racial things,” she ultimately reinforced her belief that nonwhite staff (in-group) members were favored over white (out-group) staff members. When Bella
stated, “Like I said, two other people have come to me and said that they are seeing a pattern
between who she is aligned with and who she doesn’t like at the school” I was activated because
I believed Bella telegraphed that the principal favored me based on my non-White identity. The
two teachers that Bella referred to in the transcript were White women. Bella’s assumption, that

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the principal favored non-white staff members, led her to believe that she was considered an outgroup member, and as a result, the principal did not like her.
I believed Bella avoided answering my questions when I attempted to excavate her
hegemonic assumption about the principal. When I asked, “Do you act or interact differently
with these two people (custodian and principal) having this thought (assumption) in the back of
your head?” Bella responded by saying the principal had “issues” with her, which created a sense
of fear. Picower (2009) stated that feelings of fear create a sense of anxiety in situations with
people of color, largely based on stereotypes from one’s earlier experiences. When I tried asking
a second question to directly address Bella’s assumption of the principal’s favoritism, Bella
responded, “I don’t think that it serves anyone to spend a lot of time on that. But I mean, it is
possible.” At this moment, I became frustrated. Northouse (2022) stated that adaptive leaders
need to experience frustration but not to the extent that they lose their own sense of who they are
as leaders. Heifetz et al. (2009) stated that to embody adaptive leadership one must manage
oneself in the environment. Unfortunately, I did not regulate my distress, and I ended the
conversation, which could have been the foundation for critical dialogue, a desired goal for my
study.
An adaptive leader needs to exhibit emotional capacity to regulate their own and others’
distress (Northouse, 2022), and in this particular situation I did not. To cope with my
disorientation, I turned away from the conversation by ending it when I asked, “Was there
anything else you wanted to share?” Bella said “no” signaling she did not have anything further
to share, and we proceeded with the agenda. In fact, we did not engage in dialogue about this
topic for the remainder of the study. My distress also inhibited my capacity to make changes to
my action plan. Ending the conversation was a result of my inability to regulate my own distress,

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and as a result, I missed an opportunity to push Bella to critically think about her belief that the
principal favored non-white staff members. After session six I wrote a critical reflection about
the frustration I experienced during my disorientation. I asked myself a lot of questions that
resulted in me realizing that I was unable to regulate my distress.
At that moment, I was like, “Why am I having such a hard time asking her questions?” It
was hard trying to ask follow up questions during the session… It seemed like she was
avoiding any conversation about race. Now re-reading in the transcript I am confused, it
seems like Bella is very contradictory. She doesn’t believe in spending time investigating
“that avenue” (principal favors non-white staff members) but also “thinks it’s possible.” I
think for me, that really hit me hard. It seemed like Bella justified the principal’s
perception of me (as a non-white staff member) based on my identity, not merit or
credibility. Could I have opened her perspective to a new lens that she has not allowed
herself to think and see from? So why did I not say something? What is the power
dynamic? Was I trying to protect myself, and my psychological safety? Would anything
have changed if I brought this to the participant’s attention? I think (at the moment) my
thought was, “This woman is not going to understand where I am coming from.” In that
moment, I missed an opportunity to nudge at the beginning stage of transformative
learning…I shouldn’t have ended the conversation. I wonder how Bella would have
responded if I said, “Hey you are making me feel uncomfortable” or “Are you implying
that the principal favors me because I am not white?” Ultimately, I felt… how can I move
on? I can’t be in this situation. I regulated my distress by finding a way out. I need to
think about how to regulate my own distress. I think I have been so focused on regulating
the participants’ distress, I forgot about myself.

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Northouse (2022) stated that feeling a certain type of distress is inevitable and even
useful for most, but feeling too much distress is debilitating. I missed the opportunity to nudge
Bella’s frames of reference which might have led to the beginning stages of transformative
learning. I contended in my conceptual framework that challenging Bella’s frames of reference
would better position me to excavate her espoused theories and theories in use. I believed that
Bella would engage in transformative learning by building an awareness of how her
intersectional identity influenced her assumptions, beliefs and actions. Transformative learning
involves becoming aware of both assumptions undergirding our ideas and those supporting our
emotional responses (Mezirow, 2000). When I said, “I think (at the moment) my thought was,
‘This woman is not going to understand where I am coming from,’” I assumed Bella would not
be open to a new perspective other than her own. I made this assumption because of her
entrenched deficit thinking. As a reminder, I had just realized that Bella had entrenched deficit
thinking which resulted in a disorienting dilemma. The evidence that shows my belief that Bella
was unable to “take on” a new perspective is when I acted upon my assumption, which was also
deficit-oriented, by ending the conversation. I missed a critical opportunity to challenge Bella’s
belief (the principal favors non-white staff members) when I was unable to regulate my own
distress. As such, Bella continued the internalization of her assumption beyond the study.
At the time of the study, Bella communicated being on the fence about the possibility of
the principal’s favoritism toward non-white staff members. However, a few months later, I talked
with Bella, and she was more certain that she was not liked because of her racial identity. In
April of 2024, Prospect Elementary School began searching for a new TSP advisor. Bella asked
me, “Is the new TSP advisor Black?” When I asked her why, she said, “Well you know I was not
treated well, and I just thought maybe she (the principal) wanted someone that was not like me…

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you know.” This statement demonstrated Bella’s enduring belief that the principal did in fact
have a racial bias and favored non-white staff members. Had I guided Bella toward
transformative learning, her perception may have been different than it was when I spoke to her
in April.
After I had a disorienting dilemma about Bella’s deficit thinking I began to question my
friendship with her. As a result, I began distancing myself from her at work. Wergin (2020)
stated that empathy may be facilitated by identifying and taking the trouble to understand the
values, attitudes, and beliefs of others. By avoiding Bella at work, I limited my capacity to
engage with her to further my understanding of her values, attitudes and beliefs. Heifetz et al.
(2009) stated that managing conflict is necessary to build an identity conscious practice,
however, my disorientation caused paralysis. Conversations about identity often open the door to
conflict because people are sharing personal experiences informed by who they are, what they
experienced, and how they see the world around them (Talusan, 2022). In a conversation with
my dissertation chair, I was able to reflect on how my disorientation was affecting my
relationship with Bella, and thus my ability to support her as a learner:
AO: I kind of noticed myself distancing myself from this person at work…
Yeah, just some things that I’ve heard in the context of the study. I’ve even been
asking myself questions like trying to lift things that I hadn’t considered when I
was making my action plan or even like thinking about, you know, my intended
outcome. I didn’t even think about my assumptions of her as a learner. I assumed
she was self-aware of who she was, and what privilege she holds. Yeah, we need
to dig deeper in the beginning, “learning to see” phase. It’s not like that I hadn’t
intended to, I just assumed that this person was a little more self-aware. Some

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things that she said made me stop to think. Like especially when I heard her
deficit thinking of like, our students, families.
AS: I think that speaks to the way that we don’t prioritize reflection and reflective
practice. So, I’m not surprised that she's not as self-aware as you thought she
would be. And I wonder if you can try to find out why you thought she was more
self-aware than she is. Maybe because you felt an affinity towards her or like that,
she was your friend. So, you automatically gave her more credit. But at the end of
the day, educators don’t have, we don’t really have the spaces to reflect, we’re not
really asked to do that. So, again, to go back to: people make sense, and you must
give her some grace that she hasn’t been positioned in a way that would allow her
to be more conscious. And, you know, it says something about you and your
friendship with her right that you had higher expectations, or you made
assumptions that, you know, without having the evidence you made assumptions
about where she was.
AO: Yeah. I think I’ve also been struggling with our friendship. I just feel very
confused. Um, yeah, like how did I not see? How did I not know?
Reflecting with my dissertation chair helped me process my disorientation. I realized that
Bella needed support (rather than distance) in navigating her awareness of her complex belief
system and identity. When my dissertation chair said:
But at the end of the day, educators don’t have we don’t really have the spaces to reflect
we’re not really asked to do that. So, again, to go back to people makes sense, and you
must give her some grace that she hasn’t been positioned in a way that would allow her to
be more conscious

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I paused and reflected on the different types of professional development that we had previously
been exposed to. I realized at this moment that Bella had little to no opportunity to flex her
muscle of identity conscious practice. When I said, “Yeah. I think I’ve also been struggling with
our friendship. I just feel very confused. Um, yeah, like how did I not see? How did I not know?”
I learned that my disorientation was a result of my difficulty in managing an essential tension. I
was dialectically holding two truths; Bella was my friend and we had conflicting beliefs of how
we oriented ourselves in the world with respect to education and our students. Wergin (2020)
stated that managing tension required intuition and mindfulness to create conditions necessary
for constructive disorientation. Engaging in reflection with my dissertation chair allowed me to
enter a state of constructive disorientation. In doing so, I was able to work within my productive
zone of disequilibrium (Heifetz et al., 2009) to slow down my thoughts to think about what Bella
needed from our interactions, and what I needed to do as the facilitator to provide that for her. As
described below, I incorporated reflective dialogue to promote meaningful conversation. The
mid-course correction is a result of my constructive disorientation. Although this constructive
disorientation came later than I wish it had, it was only after I reflected with a critical peer that I
could move past my negative emotions and regulate my distress.
As this section explained, I started this study with assumptions of alignment with my
participant. There were moments leading up to my disorienting dilemma that alluded to Bella’s
entrenched deficit thinking of students and families. Bella demonstrated deficit thinking when
she placed blame on parents given students’ perceived deficits (e.g., not scoring well on
standardized tests). I missed opportunities to support Bella to unearth her deficit thinking. She
also made assumptions that she was not a part of the in-group with our new principal because of
her identity as a white woman, and that conversely, I was because of my identity as a woman of

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color. These assumptions went unquestioned because I did not regulate my distress. Had I
embodied adaptive leadership by regulating my own distress I could have made a mid-course
correction to my action plan earlier and further pushed Bella’s assumptions. Ultimately,
reflecting with my dissertation chair helped me reach constructive disorientation so that I could
work within my zone of proximal disequilibrium (Heifetz et al., 2009) and realize that I needed
to give Bella grace and time for dialogue and reflection.
Lack of Presence
In this section I will show how my lack of presence, as defined by Slayton and Mathis
(2010), limited positive learning conditions and inhibited Bella’s capacity to engage in critical
dialogue. Slayton and Mathis (2010) defined presence as the ability to be self-aware enough to
recognize one’s political positioning, one’s interactional style, and the capacity to slow down and
become aware of one’s thought stream in the midst of interacting with others when one’s impact
becomes clear. While Slayton and Mathis (2010) stated that, together, these three characteristics
contribute to a leader’s art of presence, in this section, I will focus on two characteristics that
shaped my interactions with Bella: political positioning and slowing down.
As represented in my conceptual framework, I had intended to create positive learning
conditions to foster a brave space so that Bella and I could engage in critical dialogue. However,
during the study, I reinforced my political positioning, which Slayton and Mathis (2010) say not
to do, and as a result was not able to foster a positive learning environment where Bella was
positioned to contribute to a brave space.
Arao and Clemens (2013) stated that brave spaces embody a critical lens where learning
involves not only a risk, but also the pain of giving up a former condition in favor of a new way
of seeing things. Bella and I operationalized two different definitions of what we believed a

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brave space to be and because of not having a shared definition, we were not able to reach
critical dialogue. I defined critical dialogue as the collaborative process to examine one’s biases
by using language as a tool to develop identity consciousness. I theorized that if Bella engaged in
critical dialogue, she’d be better positioned to develop internal accountability about our role in
supporting CRT. However, I was not able to slow my thought stream to enact System II16
thinking to effectively promote forms of assistance to guide Bella toward critical dialogue. In
this section, I will discuss how my lack of presence inhibited my ability to support positive
learning conditions and then provide evidence to show how I did not foster a brave space. In the
section that follows, I will delve deeper into how this lack of presence inhibited effective forms
of assistance to guide Bella toward critical dialogue.
Lack of Presence to Support Positive Learning Conditions
In this subsection I will explain how I did not embody presence, specifically, because I
reinforced my political positioning. Slayton and Mathis (2010) defined political positioning as
the way in which one has power in relation to others in the room. Throughout the study I
reinforced my authority as a facilitator. Retrospectively, I found that my lack of awareness as it
related to my political positioning influenced the learning conditions of the study in a negative
way. As a result, a brave space was not created, and critical dialogue rarely occurred.
Rather than being present, I continually reinforced my political positioning as the
facilitator throughout the study. The three ways in which I reinforced my political positioning
16Kahneman (2011) described two different types of thinking; System I and System II. System I
thinking is described as an automatic way of “fast thinking” while System II thinking forces our
brains to slow down to think, question, and recognize cognitive traps to avoid significant
mistakes when stakes are high (Wergin, 2020).

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were: using jargon, making references to my degree, and increased talk time.17 represents the
frequency of my lack of presence in relation to political positioning during the enactment of my
study.
Table 5
Lack of Presence: Political Positioning
Political Positioning Cycle 1 Cycle 2 Cycle 3
Jargon 19 10 8
Reference to Degree 4 10 4
Increased Talk Time 17 9 4
Totals 40 29 16
17 Jargon is defined as academic language. Reference to degree is defined as moments where I
allude to my work as a doctoral candidate. Increased talk time is defined as moments where I talk
for elongated periods of time without engaging in dialogue with the participant.

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I lacked the presence to recognize I was reinforcing my political positioning throughout
the study, which ultimately (as described below), influenced the kind of learning conditions I
created. As listed in Table 5, I reinforced my political positioning 40 times in Cycle 1, 29 times
in Cycle 2, and 16 times in Cycle 3. At the time of my study, I believed that reinforcing my
political positioning helped establish my credibility as a facilitator. However, I contend that by
doing so, I discouraged Bella from entering a brave space. Throughout the study, Bella did not
take risks to challenge her current frames of reference to engage in critical dialogue and “try on”
a new perspective.
During the first learning session, I reinforced the power I had in the room in relation to
Bella through jargon, increased talk time, and reference to my degree as a doctoral candidate.
Aguilar and Cohen (2022) stated that to recognize and navigate power it is necessary to
understand the way you move through hierarchical systems and relate to systems of power. From
the start of the study, I leveraged my political positioning, was not present to how it would affect
the interactional dynamics, and as a result, did not foster positive learning conditions. The
example below shows how I reinforced my political positioning when I proposed discussion
norms.
A: Great. Okay. So perfect, we are moving right along. I wanted to propose some
discussion norms and then, ask for your feedback and see if you wanted to add
anything to them. These, with full transparency, are the discussion norms that we
use in class at SC, and they’ve worked for us really well. So, I’m just going to
take some time to go through each of them. For example, we are going to be
talking about identity in our first sessions and our assumptions. This could be very
personal to us. I want to make sure that our holding environment in this Zoom

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Room is a place where we can take risks and trust one another. So, I’m gonna
start with the norm “be present.” I know that we’re on Zoom, and Zoom is not
always the best place for learning to occur. There might be some easy distractions
here and there. Dogs barking, babies crying or what not… So, I want us to try our
best to be present given the Zoom format. I wanted to ask you, is there anything
that I can do as the facilitator to make this virtual environment more conducive
for you?
In this introduction, I listed norms that I later expected Bella to follow. When I said,
“These, with full transparency, are the discussion norms that we use in class at SC, and they’ve
worked for us really well” I reinforced my position as a doctoral candidate. I used my position to
exert discussion norms that I believed would support Bella’s learning because they had worked
for me. I established discussion norms without feedback or consultation of Bella. As such, I
leveraged a power-over relationship with Bella. Aguilar and Cohen (2022) described the powerover relationship as a power dynamic that protects the perceived superior power and operates
through compliance by making decisions for the group. When I said, “I want to make sure that
our holding environment in this Zoom Room is a place where we can take risks and trust one
another” I used jargon (holding environment) to describe the setting of the study. I expected
Bella to contribute to a positive “holding environment” without providing background
information on what a “holding environment” is. Lastly, I found that during session one, my talktime was disproportionate to Bella’s talk time. According to the transcription, during session one,
application Otter.ai, I talked for 73% of the time while Bella talked for 26% of the time. Bella
was not given an opportunity to develop an understanding of how to uphold discussion norms, let
alone a brave space, because I controlled the creation of the discussion norms and did most of the

90
talking. The power-over relationship that I embodied did not contribute to positive learning
conditions.
Slayton and Mathis (2010) stated that positive learning conditions are conditions where
academic and behavioral expectations are established by those in power so that the adult learners
know what is expected of them. Further, Arao and Clemens (2013) stated that protracted
dialogue is necessary to co-construct and understand the rules around contributing to brave
spaces. After sharing the definition of brave space during the discussion of norms, I assumed that
Bella understood the prerequisites needed to foster a brave space. For brave spaces to be created
and cultivated, Bella first needed to know what was expected of her (and me). As the data below
demonstrates, norms were shared, but not co-constructed. They were explained and listed on
behalf of myself without providing Bella time to internalize an understanding of each norm,
much less agree that they were the right ones for us to use.
A: This is the norm “foster a brave space.” I wanted to talk about the difference
between brave and safe. Brave space involves taking a risk and kind of giving up,
maybe one way of seeing things in favor of a different way of seeing things and
looking at something from a different perspective and trying on that lens. A safe
space is where participants might feel safe in a way where they can express
themselves without fear of attack or ridicule. So, I really want to make sure that
we foster a brave space by asking each other questions so that we can be critically
aware of our positionality or power and privilege and how it leads to our actions.
OC: I could have paused here to model or provide an example. At this point, I do not
know if Bella understands what a brave space is. Bella is looking directly at the
computer and does not comment on my definition of brave space.

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A: The next norm is “Engage in ongoing dialogue.” Dialogue and being in a social
setting is really important as we move through each learning session.
Webster-Wright (2009) stated that positive learning conditions must be in place if adults
are expected to adapt to significant changes in practice. During session one, I neglected to coconstruct norms to foster positive learning conditions. Instead, I listed norms without eliciting
questions and/or feedback, and as a result, I relied on my political positioning and missed
opportunities to leverage Bella’s perception of what she believed a brave space to be and how to
contribute to one. In my conceptual framework, I contended that I’d co-construct norms to foster
positive learning conditions. However, as seen in the transcript, I listed norms, and moved from
one to the next without providing Bella an opportunity to discuss each one. For example, when I
said, “The next norm is ‘Engage in ongoing dialogue’...” I left no room to debrief the norm of
brave space. Discussion norms should be developed in an inclusive way so that a diversity of
perspectives is heard (Aguilar & Cohen, 2022). Aguilar and Cohen (2022) stated that effective
adult learning theory promotes conditions where participants must feel safe to learn and develop
an agency to want to learn. Bella did not develop her own agency to internalize the discussion
norms I listed. It is not surprising that Bella did not contribute to a brave space for the remainder
of the study.
By not providing an opportunity for Bella to co-construct the norms and get on the same
page about them, she did not know how to engage in a brave space and later revealed a different
understanding of what Arao and Clemens (2013) defined a brave space to be. During session
three Bella stated that she believed a brave space was a space where people can be honest and
respected. To respond to her statement, I used jargon and increased talk time to reinforce my
own definition of brave space without checking to see if she agreed.

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A: Before we get started, is there a norm that is sticking out to you that you’d like to
commit to today?
B: I think the brave space one is a good one. Where we can be honest and respected.
I think.
OC: The language “honest” and “respected” sounds like a safe space.
A: Today would be a good start to think about a brave space because our guiding
questions are going to help us think about what privileges do our identities come
with, or disadvantages. This could potentially be a great space to ask questions to
learn more about each other’s identities. We may ask each other to put on a new
lens. This might require us to ask questions to maybe understand a little more
about each other. This might feel uncomfortable (asking and answering) because
maybe we haven’t asked identity-based questions of one another (before). I think
for me, I need to focus on being present today. I’ve been having migraines these
past couple of days. I know like the screen (time) intensifies migraines, so I’m
trying my best to be present.
B: I’m sorry.
A: Do you have any questions about the agenda?
B: No.
Bella defined a brave space using words that more directly reflect safe spaces. Arao and
Clemens (2013) defined a safe space as an environment where members feel comfortable to
express themselves without fear of attack, ridicule, or denial of experience. When Bella used the
words “honest” and “respected” she telegraphed to me that she believed that a brave space is one
where she would engage in dialogue honestly and that she would be respected while doing so. In

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the observer’s comments, I questioned Bella’s understanding of what she believed a brave space
to be. However, her comment went unquestioned. As seen in the transcript, rather than asking
questions to understand her definition, I reinforced my understanding of brave space, without
paying attention to my political positioning as the facilitator. When I said, “This could
potentially be a great space to ask questions to learn more about each other’s identities. We may
ask each other to put on a new lens…” I referenced “space” without using the term brave space
and without explicitly saying that this is the definition with which I was operating and how I
believed it to be different from how she characterized it. As seen in the transcript, I continued to
share my definition of brave space using jargon with words like identities, and lens. At this point
of the study, I had not reviewed the word identity and I had not reviewed how brave spaces
require risk taking by trying on a new perspective (lens) different from our current way of seeing
things. Not only did I respond with jargon, but I also used increased talk time to telegraph that
my understanding of brave space was the correct one. As a result, I reinforced my position as the
facilitator and did not provide Bella an opportunity to engage in a better understanding of what a
brave space is.
The number of times I reinforced my political positioning decreased as the study
progressed. However, there is evidence that showed my presence was lacking even at the end of
the study. As presented in Table 5, I struggled the most with toning down my academic jargon. A
positive holding environment is formed by cohesive relationships between people with shared
language and a clear set of rules that allows groups to function (Aguilar & Cohen, 2022). For
example, when I listed discussion norms that were jargon-filled at the beginning of the study, I
demonstrated a power-over relationship. Further, as a reminder, my study aimed to support the
engagement of critical dialogue such that Bella and I would build internal accountability of our

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roles aligned to CRT. Retrospectively, I could have attended to my enactment of creating a
culturally sensitive and caring environment, a key characteristic trait of CRT stated by Gay
(2002). According to Gay (2002) culturally responsive caring is a social responsibility and
pedagogical [andragogical] necessity and requires teachers [facilitators] to strategically decide
how to use knowledge and strategic thinking to act in the best intersts of others. Unfortunately,
when I reinforced my political positioning, not only did I lack presence but I did not embody the
tenets of CRT, a desired pedagogical outcome of my study. Ultimately, Bella and I did not coconstruct a shared language and understanding of brave space. Bella and I remained misaligned
in how we believed we could each contribute to a brave space. I believe that when I reinforced
my political positioning, as mentioned above, I inhibited my ability to effectively contribute to
positive learning conditions that ultimately inhibited my ability to promote critical dialogue.
Not Slowing Down Enough to Support Critical Dialogue
According to Slayton and Mathis (2010) slowing down is the ability to become aware of
one’s ‘thought stream’ in the midst of interacting with others when one’s impact becomes clear.
During the study I missed opportunities to slow my thought stream, particularly during moments
when Bella demonstrated a need to build awareness of her identity. Leaders who are unable to
see what they do, their literal behavior, the way their choices impact those around them, create
learning difficulties that impede the process of organizational change (Slayton & Mathis, 2010).
My missed opportunities to enact the presence of slowing down, influenced my ability to
actively listen to Bella, gather my thoughts, and respond appropriately. Instead of slowing my
thought stream, in the midst of interpreting Bella’s beliefs, I often ended the conversation or
changed the direction of the conversation. During the study there were a total of 42 missed
opportunities to slow down my thought stream. Had I done this, I would have responded more

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appropriately to help guide Bella toward critical dialogue. As a reminder, I defined critical
dialogue as the collaborative process to examine one’s biases by using language as a tool to
develop identity consciousness.
In my conceptual framework I contended that I’d embody presence by slowing my
thought stream so that I’d be better positioned to ask, “right questions.” Kahneman (2011) stated
that System I thinking effortlessly originates impressions and feelings that are the main sources
of one’s explicit beliefs while System II is activated when one questions the model of the world
that System I maintains. I found that I rarely enlisted System II, or slow, thinking (Kahneman,
2011), to enact effective questioning. In one example, presented below, I quickly reacted to
Bella’s comment about her perception of her race being seen as offensive. My knee-jerk reaction
to Bella’s comment inhibited my ability to ask targeted questions to excavate her assumptions
about her identity.
B: And then a lot of times I think of my race as offensive. I even wonder if
the principal doesn’t like me partly for that. And so, like I do think about race. I
understand why it is offensive, and why it is that my skin is like a reminder of
many bad things. But I do feel like, “Do people just think I’m just bad or
something, because I have this skin?” I never ever, ever have thought about this
my whole life. I never ever thought like, “Oh, I was better than people because of
my race.” I know it gave me privileges being in the world. But, yeah, a lot of
times I think about things like, “Do people just think I’m just bad?”
OC: Bad? What evidence reinforces this belief?
A: I would like to come back to what you said earlier about like you thinking about
maybe your race could be offensive at our work setting (later in our conversation)

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because I think as I was reading your immunities to change map, there was one
question I had on one of your columns. I wonder if we could hold that thought
and come back to it and maybe unpack it a little bit more if you’re open to that.
But I do see that it’s 5:30. Is it ok if we move on from here?
B: Yeah, ok.
In the transcript above, I ended the conversation despite my observer’s comment where I
questioned Bella’s perception about her identity. I was taken aback when Bella stated that she
wondered if others perceived her to be “bad.” I did not engage in dialogue, especially dialogue
that I defined as “critical.” I needed to better manage my own thought stream during learning and
better understanding Bella’s perception of her identity as “bad.” When I stated, “I wonder if we
could hold that thought and come back to it… But I do see that it’s 5:30. Is it ok if we move on
from here?” I enacted System I thinking, as defined above, as an automatic solution to end the
conversation. Drawing on an analytic memo I wrote (presented below), I ended the conversation
because, in the moment, I did not know how to hold three internal processes simultaneously (1)
process her statement (2) internalize my thoughts (3) formulate a question (within a matter of
seconds) to respond to Bella. Despite my theory of action, as outlined in my conceptual
framework, I didn’t appropriately enact effective questioning to engage Bella in critical dialogue.
I missed a crucial opportunity to enact System II thinking which could have led to critical
dialogue between me and Bella.
At the end of cycle one, during in-the-field analysis, I listed strategies to help me slow
my thought stream so that I’d be better positioned to effectively support Bella. I wrote an
analytic memo with hopes of improving my presence. Strategies that I listed to help me embody
the presence of slowing down were breathe, use available resources, and review transcripts. I

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believed that slowing my thought stream would position me to ask effective and appropriate
“right questions” and as a result, eventually drive critical dialogue. The analytic memo selection
shows my realization that I was not as present as I could have been.
I noticed that I need to work on my presence, specifically, slowing down. When I rush to
engage in dialogue (without thinking about what I am asking, and why) with the
participant there is an increased frequency of missed opportunities to ask effective
probing questions. I think that my ineffective probing is impacting our ability to reach
critical dialogue. How can I slow my thoughts, especially as I am jotting, actively
listening, and trying to formulate probing questions?
1. Breathe—Physically slow your breath to calm the nervous system. Use this to
center yourself when you feel “rushed” to move on/forward. Use this strategy
when you are trying to slow down your thoughts as you interact with Bella.
2. Using available resources—During session three you wrote a list of probing
questions… refer to the sentence stems to help formulate your thoughts. This may
increase the depth of the type of questions you ask.
3. Review transcripts—Look at missed opportunities. Re-word ineffective questions
to store in your toolbox for future use. Review prior transcripts the day before so
that examples of effective questioning are fresh to use in your mind during the
learning session.
4. Normalize the complexity of asking questions— Feeling “down” by the frequency
of missed opportunities (slowing down and asking questions) in observer
comments. Remember that action research is hard work, you are wearing multiple
hats. Practice making progress each session, not all at once.

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In my conceptual framework, I theorized that slowing down my thought stream would
help me ask “right questions” during the study. However, during the first cycle I experienced the
complexities of action research, and as a result I struggled to effectively wear “multiple hats”
(facilitator, note-taker, question-asker). I telegraphed the difficulty to embody the presence of
slowing down when I wrote, “How can I slow my thoughts, especially as I am jotting, actively
listening, and trying to formulate probing questions?” In the analytic memo above, I expressed
feeling “down” when I came across missed opportunities that showed my inability to slow down
to better elicit effective questions. My awareness of my lack of presence prompted me to write
an analytic memo to improve my practice for future learning sessions. As I progressed in the
study, despite intentionally planning for these strategies, I did not frequently (1) breathe, (2) use
resources, or (3) normalize the complexity of action research.
At the end of cycle one, I reflected with my dissertation chair to better conceptualize the
difficulty I encountered to embody presence, especially slowing down my own thought stream to
(eventually) ask effective questions. Reflecting with a critical peer helped me identify my lack of
presence as a factor that inhibited my ability to effectively ask questions of my learner.
Eventually I found that my lack of presence inhibited our ability to reach critical dialogue.
AO: I think I‘m having the hardest time trying to focus on Zoom, modeling activities,
engaging in active listening, jotting what she is saying and then internalizing what
she’s saying (by picking out the main idea), and formulating a question. Like
trying to do all this, and then asking questions, it’s hard!
AS: Okay. Why do you think that is?
AO: I think part of it is my presence. I’m preoccupied with trying to write down notes,
I’m trying to listen, and I’m trying to think of my CF and my research question.

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All of this is happening at the same time, I’m thinking about it and trying to
internalize it in my brain. As I am trying to formulate my thoughts, Bella stops
talking…and I’m like, “Ahhhh, what do I do?”
AS: So, there’s a connection between how you can be present and how you listen to
Bella. I’m not saying you’re not… but as you go, hopefully you’ll get more
comfortable and not necessarily have to jot everything down. Right now, you’re
learning how to jot as she’s talking, and that makes it hard for you to anticipate
what your next question is going to be. So, one thing that has helped me, is to
think about some sentence starters or question starters. So, it might help to have
some probing questions. It’s often the case that in the moment, we either don’t
know what to ask or we ask a yes/no question, which is not right. And so having
some question starters could help… but I also think that as you get more practice
doing the jottings, you will start to attend more to the conversation.
Talking to my dissertation chair helped me identify the connection between my lack of
presence and the way that I listened to Bella as a reflection of being a novice qualitative note
taker. I shared that I struggled to juggle the responsibilities of an action researcher and a
facilitator who effectively asked questions. My dissertation chair offered a suggestion to write
sentence/question starters or probing questions to help guide the conversation. She mentioned
that sentence starters may help me as I refined my skill of presence. As the study progressed, I
used her suggestion and wrote probing sentence starters at the top of each agenda. However, I
did not use these as much as I would have liked. As stated earlier, I consistently missed
opportunities to slow down my thought stream.

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In this section I explained how my lack of presence inhibited my ability to produce
positive learning conditions and critical dialogue. Slayton and Mathis (2010) stated that slowing
down one’s thought stream is critical especially when the other person’s impact becomes clear. I
did not embody two of the three characteristics of presence, attending to political positioning and
ability to slow down my thought stream. Slayton and Mathis (2010) stated that effective leaders
must demonstrate presence, create positive learning conditions, and be able to teach adults to
support the development of changes to practices of teaching and learning. My lack of presence
influenced my ability to effectively foster a brave space where Bella and I could engage in
critical dialogue.
The Use of Forms of Assistance
Throughout the study I consistently asked closed-ended questions that often resulted in
yes-or-no responses from Bella. Merriam and Tisdell (2016) stated that yes-or-no questions give
researchers no information and offer reluctant or shy respondents an “easy” way out. According
to Marchel (2007) dialogue is a collaborative process that leads toward inquiry. Yes-or-no
responses, because of closed-ended questions, inhibit a group of people from developing
collaborative inquiry. Critical dialogue is the ongoing collective inquiry into the processes,
assumptions, and certainties that compromise everyday life (Schein, 1993). Marchel (2007)
stated that critical dialogue is a collaborative act in which peers examine each other’s biases with
respect to power and privilege. When I asked closed-ended questions I inhibited our ability to
examine each other’s biases by using dialogue as a tool for change. As the study progressed so
did my awareness of my inability to enact effective andragogical questioning. During the study I
tried many scaffolds to help me elicit effective questioning. Toward the end of the study, there
was some evidence that my skill of questioning improved. However, it was too late in the study

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for my improved questioning to make a difference in the way that I supported Bella’s work
toward engaging in critical dialogue.
Secondly, during the study, I facilitated the completion of activities to drive critical
dialogue. I theorized that if I effectively modeled these activities, I’d be able to support Bella
within her ZPTD such that she’d engage in critical dialogue. I found that when I facilitated these
activities, I was not able to effectively drive critical dialogue. My modeling was not framed
explicitly to indicate to Bella that I was using andragogy to support her learning. As such, Bella
did not use modeling in the way that I intended to support her within her ZPTD. In this section, I
will first discuss ways that my inability to enact effective questioning influenced Bella’s capacity
to engage in critical dialogue. Then, I will discuss the ways that I tried to elicit effective
modeling as a form of assistance.
Closed-ended Questions
In my conceptual framework, I theorized that if I asked “right questions” I’d be better
positioned to support Bella’s engagement in critical dialogue. Marchel (2007) defined critical
dialogue as a process of collective inquiry to build an awareness of personal biases,
understanding language as a tool, and used to promote mutual learning. Closed-ended questions
do not produce scaffolds necessary for critical dialogue. Throughout the study, I limited Bella’s
opportunity to reach critical dialogue by limiting my facilitation to closed-ended questions.
Table 6
Types of Questions I Asked During the Study
Cycle 1 Cycle 2 Cycle 3 Total
Closed 34 28 26 88
Opened 11 9 21 41

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My use of closed-ended questions persisted throughout the study. As listed in Table 6, I
used closed-ended questions 34 times in Cycle 1, 28 times in Cycle 2, and 26 times in Cycle 3.
While I tried to ask open-ended questions to drive critical dialogue, the frequency of closedended questions outnumbered the frequency of open-ended questions. Closed-ended questions
compel respondents to choose a “closest representation” of their actual response as a fixed
answer (Robinson & Leonard, 2018). Oppositely, open-ended questions produce fuller and
deeper responses reflecting differences in opinions and attitudes (Robinson & Leonard, 2018). In
my conceptual framework, I theorized that I’d need to engage in effective means of assistance
(Tharp & Gallimore, 1989) to support Bella within her ZPTD (Warford, 2011).
When I asked closed-ended questions, I inhibited the way that I supported Bella within
her ZPTD. During session three, Bella referred to herself as a nun-like character, Sister Mary
Sunshine. She referenced this person when we started debriefing what she perceived as her
disadvantaged identity.
B: I know that I come off as someone who is like Sister Mary Sunshine. I feel like I
could put my nun outfit on, and I could just be Sister Mary Sunshine. And I know
that probably annoys that F out of a lot of people. I’m just trying to be cheerful
and friendly, but it’s probably annoying. And I don’t know any other way to be.
But that’s kind of a disadvantage, just being a big Dumbo, you know. I don’t
know, I kind of think it’s funny that I’m like that and I know it’s probably
annoying.
OC: Bella is smiling when she talks about being Sister Mary Sunshine. I am confused,
why?
A: Are there disadvantages of being Sister Mary Sunshine?

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B: I think people at work think I am out of touch and think I have no idea.
A: Is your disadvantaged identity based on what you believe people to think of you
as Sister Mary Sunshine?
B: Yeah. I like it.
As shown in my observer’s comments, I was taken aback when Bella referred to herself
as Sister Mary Sunshine. My interpretation of her comment was that Bella was intentionally
using this persona to annoy people, and that she liked doing it. I was unable to process my
confusion about the persona of Sister Mary Sunshine, and rather than asking her to clarify what
she meant by this comment, I quickly reverted to asking closed-ended questions. For example,
when I asked, “Is your disadvantaged identity based on what you believe people to think of you
as?” Bella understandably responded with a yes-or-no response to my closed ended question
without elaborating. This served as a missed opportunity.
I could have used more effective questioning as a form of assistance to better excavate
Bella’s perception of her persona of Sister Mary Sunshine. For example, I could have said, “Tell
me more about how you use the persona of Sister Mary Sunshine at work” or “Tell me about a
time when colleagues’ perception of you as Sister Mary Sunshine was seen as a bad thing.” If I
had provided opportunities for Bella to explain the persona of Sister Mary Sunshine, I may have
been better positioned to support her in thinking about how her persona intersects, if at all, with
the way she interacts with staff members. Further, had I asked clarifying questions, I might have
been better positioned to interpreting why she used the persona of Sister Mary Sunshine to
“annoy” people. Without effective clarifying questions I was left to create my own interpretation
of what Bella implied when she said,

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I’m just trying to be cheerful and friendly, but it’s probably annoying. And I don’t know
any other way to be. But that’s kind of a disadvantage, just being a big Dumbo, you
know. I don’t know, I kind of think it’s funny that I'm like that and I know it’s probably
annoying.
In my own interpretation, I believed Bella telegraphed the persona of Sister Mary Sunshine as a
White, privileged, and nun-like character that acted out-of-touch. As a reminder, my conceptual
framework stated that effective forms of assistance, like questioning, would support Bella and
me to engage in critical dialogue. I needed to better position the skill of questioning to support
Bella to better analyze her thinking as it related to her identity.
During the second cycle, I met with my dissertation chair and shared the difficulty I
encountered when trying to enact effective questioning. At this point in the study, I had
developed an awareness of my ineffective questioning, and was becoming frustrated. I was
frustrated because despite my efforts to improve my questioning, my skill of questioning did not
significantly improve during the study. I realized that my questions needed to be aligned to the
learning outcomes.
AO: …questions are so hard for me. It’s like, it’s like a nightmare. I have so much
difficulty.
AS: …well, maybe it would help to reframe that questioning is hard. I wonder if you
could reframe them in a way that doesn’t feel as hard. For example, you could say
something like, last time you talked about XYZ. I’d love to explore a little bit
more about how that makes you feel or so that it’s not like a directive. So, you
could find other ways to kind of pull out her perspectives without feeling like you
have to keep asking questions, right?

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AO: This past week, I was watching how you ask us questions in class. I noticed that
you often will say, “tell me more about this?” As I listened to you ask questions in
class, I thought to myself, questioning doesn’t seem too hard. I thought to myself,
“Am I overthinking things?”
AS: What I would do at this point, especially given you know, your anxiety around not
being on time, right. I would think about what is my hope for this session, looking
at the arc of outcomes that you want, right? Like your desired goal for your
learner. And I think I would pick and choose the things that would allow you to
make progress on your goal. You need to think about…how do I need to move her
in the direction that I’m hoping… The point of it is to help make progress, for her
to make progress as a learner.
Reflecting with my dissertation chair helped me reframe my thinking toward the
difficulty I experienced when asking Bella questions. Artineh provided examples for me to use to
reframe the way I’d been asking questions and the pressure I was putting on myself to ask, “right
questions.” When she said, “...find other ways to kind of pull out her perspectives without feeling
like you have to keep asking questions” I realized that I had only thought about traditional
questioning when I interacted with Bella. When my dissertation chair said, “You need to think
about…how do I need to move her in the direction that I’m hoping” I began reflecting on the
way in which I responded to Bella, and if my responses (questions) had been aligned to the larger
outcome. While reflecting with my dissertation chair helped me reframe my approach to asking
effective questions, my frustration (of my ineffective questioning) was evidenced throughout the
study. To address my frustration I wrote critical reflections, reflective memos, and analytic
memos. In these memos, I continually questioned my ability to ask effective “just right”

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questions. I needed to more productively use my memos to better improve my questioning
(rather than built frustration) to guide Bella toward her participation in critical dialogue.
An Attempt to Support Bella’s ZPTD Through Modeling
During sessions one through six, I planned activities to guide Bella and me toward
critical dialogue. I had theorized that modeling activities would provide a scaffold to support
Bella’s progress within her ZPTD. Warford (2011) stated that ZPTD is the distance between
what teaching candidates can do on their own without assistance and a proximal level they might
attain through strategically mediated assistance from more capable others. Tharp and Gallimore
(1989) defined modeling as the process of offering behavior for imitation, often led through
guided participation. While I theorized effective modeling would guide Bella and me toward
critical dialogue, I found that the way in which I modeled activities did not show that Bella was
able to develop her own learning. I did not consider the features of modeling to enact it
effectively. While I intended to model certain activities prescribed in the action plan,
retrospectively I found that I was not explicit in letting Bella know I was using a form of
assistance to support her learning. In other words, I assumed that she understood I was modeling
such that she could use the form of assistance to support her learning. As a result, there was not
enough evidence to demonstrate that my modeling supported her progress toward new learning
within her ZPTD.
More specifically, I found that when I enacted modeling, Bella imitated my examples
almost exactly. Tharp and Gallimore (1989) stated that modeling should initiate a behavior that
produces a form of imitation. However, Bella was unable to take the activity deeper than where I
left it, and as a result she often simply repeated what I modeled. Had I been explicit in the use of
modeling as a form os assistance Bella may have internalized my modeling differently, knowing

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that the intention was to use my example in a way that was authentically her own. Warford
(2011) stated that teaching practice should include an ontogenetic framework to connect the
current approaches to learning by weaving experiential learning into personal narratives. To
promote critical dialogue within Bella’s ZPTD, I should have done a better job of explicitly
connecting her practice with the new learning being produced in the study. Further, I should have
been direct in how I intended to use modeling to support her learning such that I’d be able to
facilitate further learning in Bella’s ZPTD. According to Warford (2011) connecting theory to
one’s personal practice supports the development of learning within ZPTD. I thought that if I
modeled how my thought process about how my personal experiences led me to develop the
formation of my hegemonic assumption, Bella would be able to independently do the same. In
the example below, I modeled an activity where I had asked Bella to complete a table by listing
her hegemonic assumptions.
A: I’m going to model how to complete these slides.
OC: I opened google slides, and began with personal hegemonic assumption
A: From a young age I’ve always worked hard. My parents conditioned me to
believe that if I worked hard, everything would be ok. For example, if I worked
hard in school I’d get good grades. This belief has followed me as an adult. While
I often see desired outcomes as a result of my hard work, I often find myself
feeling burnt out.
OC: Bella works on her google slide to complete the hegemonic assumption table.
A: Let’s look at your slide. Feel free to share in any way that you’d like to.
B: So, I was really drawn to yours (example) because my family also worked very
hard and was always like, “if you work hard, it’s all going to work out right.” I

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was always told that everything would be okay if I just x, y and z… and so I was
really drawn to your example. And it was hard for me to get out of that.
OC: Modeling may have worked, and also maybe not worked? Are there new
thoughts/ideas being produced?
Bella’s “parroting” did not reveal to me that new learning was obtained in her ZPTD. As
seen in my observer’s comments, I questioned the effectiveness of my modeling when I wrote,
“Are there new thoughts/ideas being produced?” When Bella said, “I was really drawn to yours
(example) because my family also worked very hard…I was really drawn to your example. And
it was hard for me to get out of that” I was unclear if Bella was able to apply my scaffold of
modeling to herself when thinking about a hegemonic assumption. Bella did not understand how
to effectively use my modeling as a form of assistance to support her learning. Other examples in
the study show that when I tried to enact modeling, I lacked the language needed to accompany
the form of assistance such that Bella explicitly understood the purpose of engaging in behavior
to support her learning within her ZPTD.
Moving From Compliance Activities to Dialogue
I wrote an analytic memo to reflect on the effectiveness of how I used activities in the
study. During the study, I realized that I was instructing by using the completion of activities as a
marker of success. The way that I was using activities did not leave room for me to see how I
gauged Bella’s progress toward thinking differently. In between each learning cycle, I engaged
in writing an analytic memo. Analytic memos helped me critically and analytically think about
my actions and behaviors within the study. Below is an excerpt from my first analytic memo
where I began to question how I structured learning by using multiple activities to drive
dialogue.

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… I need to re-think about how I structure the learning session, and perhaps be more
intentional about how I use multiple activities as a tool to reach dialogue. Sometimes
Bella and I complete multiple activities, but we do not engage in critical dialogue. It is
difficult to see how she internalizes the activities within her own context. I want to be
more intentional about how I use activities to drive dialogue.
In my first analytic memo I developed an awareness that activities did not necessarily
result in critical dialogue. When I said, “I need to re-think about how I structure the learning
session, and perhaps be more intentional about how I use activities as a tool to reach dialogue” I
telegraphed that activities (alone) were not an effective tool to reach critical dialogue. WebsterWright (2009) stated that activities may be positioned as passive development, rather, prevailing
discourse allows professionals to refer to experiences through an active conceptualization of
knowledge. When I said, “It is difficult to see how she internalizes the activities within her own
context” I telegraphed the difficulty that I encountered when I tried to connect the activities to
Bella’s context so that I’d be better positioned to use the activities to drive critical dialogue about
her thinking (especially about her deficit thinking of students and staff). I continued to enact
activities to drive dialogue for the entirety of the first two cycles of learning. Learning sessions
1–6 had approximately one to two activities to drive dialogue. Despite writing analytic memos to
inform my future action, it was not until Bella disclosed to me that she was changing jobs that I
reconsidered the way that I positioned activities to reach critical dialogue.
I enacted a mid-course correction during cycle three, which resulted in a complete shift
in how I positioned dialogue rather than the completion of an activity, as the driving force to
reach desired learning outcomes. When Bella informed me that she was changing jobs, I had to
change the trajectory of the learning sessions as prescribed by my action plan because it no

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longer made sense to work toward developing internal accountability. This change gave me the
permission, or perhaps forced me, to let go of my very structured action plan. I decided to use the
last cycle of learning as an opportunity for us to be reflective. As such, I planned to engage in
dialogue about what Bella had learned throughout the study and how she planned to use what she
learned as she prepared for her new role as a home hospital teacher. As a result, it gave me the
opportunity to craft interactions with Bella through dialogue. Below, I will show how the midcourse correction resulted in a moment of meaningful dialogue as we talked about how Bella
would apply her learning to her new role.
A: What identity do you feel like you can’t escape?
B: I’m just a regular, you know, schmo. I have privilege but I don’t think I judge
other people because of it. I think one example of privilege that I can’t escape is
my education. But this identity (privileged education) has been used against me.
For example, Mr. E the yard supervisor, judges me based on my privileged
identity. But I can’t change who I am. He has made comments about how he
thinks I believe I am better than him because I went to college. But education is
something that I can’t escape.
A: What can you do when you have this privilege (for example, like education) that
you can’t escape?
B: For example, I try to (with English Language Advisory Committee parents) be
respectful and kind. I don’t judge other people because they (by the force of their
birth) didn’t get lucky to be placed into a family that gave them privileges, that’s
just something I would never do.
OC: She is trying to make sense of her privilege and unknowingly perpetuating deficit

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thinking.
B: So, I think it’s important to be conscious of my privileged identity.
OC: Yes! She says this on her own, to be conscious of her privilege, something she has
not named before.
B: And especially as I go into a new role I don’t want to come off as inaccessible or
unkind or highfalutin. You know, how Mr. E sees me. So, my privilege is like
something I need to be conscious of. It’s like something I want to be conscious of.
As evidenced in the transcript, I did not use an activity to anchor our interaction to reach
the desired learning outcome. Instead, I used reflective dialogue to guide Bella toward a new
way of processing her thinking. When Bella said, “...as I go into a new role I don’t want to come
off as inaccessible or unkind or highfalutin. You know, how Mr. E sees me. So, my privilege is
like something I need to be conscious of” she telegraphed that she had begun to re-think the way
she wanted to interact with future colleagues, families and students with respect to her privileged
identity. In fact, this was the first time that Bella said that she wanted to become conscious of her
privilege (as it influenced the way that she interacted with others). In my observer’s comments I
mentioned, “She says this on her own, to be conscious of her privilege, something she has not
named before.” Unfortunately, I only allotted nine learning sessions for this study, and the above
interaction happened during session eight, leaving less time to continue this approach of
centering reflective dialogue.
While Bella’s new position and the subsequent mid-course correction released me from
my arbitrary assumption of the need to complete activities to produce moments of meaningful
dialogue, it happened much too late in the study. I use the word meaningful intentionally, as I do
not believe Bella exhibited critical dialogue, which was the goal of this study. Additionally, I did

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not question or challenge her deficit thinking. When she said, “I don’t judge other people
because they (by the force of their birth) didn’t get lucky to be placed into a family that gave
them privileges” she telegraphed her deficit thinking about students and families as she had done
weeks before. She did not account for the intersection of her positionality and her identity that
reinforced her entrenched deficit thinking. Despite naming her desire to want to become
conscious of her privilege, Bella needed additional time and support to engage critically about
her deficit thinking.
In this section I explained how I attempted to enact effective forms of assistance (Tharp
& Gallimore, 1989) to elicit critical dialogue. In my conceptual framework I contended that
questioning and modeling would support Bella to engage in critical dialogue. However, I found
that my ineffective questioning inhibited my ability to guide Bella toward participating in critical
dialogue. Throughout the study I often asked closed-ended questions. As such, Bella often
responded with a yes-or-no response. I found that analytically reflecting with my dissertation
chair helped me reframe the way I positioned traditional questioning so that I could better
formulate questions that were aligned to the learning outcomes of each session. In this section I
also explained how I thought the form of assistance of modeling would best support Bella to
reach a new level of learning in her ZPTD. In my conceptual framework I theorized that if I
modeled activities effectively, I’d be able to move Bella ZPTD. However, I did not effectively
nor explicitly introduce the form of assistance of modeling. As a result, Bella did not understand
how to apply my modeling as a form of assistance to support her learning within her ZPTD.
Lastly, I explained how I incorrectly relied on activities as a tool to drive critical dialogue. As the
study progressed, I found that activities served as compliance-oriented tasks prescribed by my
action plan. During cycle three I enacted a mid-course correction and used reflective dialogue as

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a tool to excavate Bella’s deficit thinking. As a result, I was able to reach moments of
meaningful dialogue.
Afterword
In my final section, I will share my retrospective takeaways after conducting my first
action research study. I will discuss my realization of the importance of dialogue, how my
facilitation of adult learning changed because of my action research, and my next steps to
develop my reflection-in-action practice. I am excited to improve my leadership, using findings
from this action research, to inform my future action as an aspiring assistant principal to
positively and productively influence adult learning.
Realizing the Importance of Dialogue
As a result of my action research, I realized the importance of dialogue to support
learning. Schein (1993) stated that dialogue allows a group of people to learn collectively.
Retrospectively, I found that my attachment to my action plan limited the type of dialogue Bella
and I engaged in. It was not until Bella disclosed to me that she was changing jobs that allowed
me to step away from the action plan of “getting the work done” and rather focused my attention
on developing her learning. Now, out of the field, I have used what I learned about the
importance of dialogue to drive adult learning.
As a school site leader, I was asked to lead a professional development series on
integrated English Language Development (ELD) instruction. LAUSD’s Multilingual and
Multicultural Education Department (MMED) delivered professional development and
facilitator’s guide to school site leaders to enact a “teach-the-teacher” series on ELD instruction.
“Teach-the-teacher” is a framework where professional development is modeled to a selected
group of teachers, who in turn, teach the content from the professional development to their

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respective school site. According to Gay (2002) the “Teach-the-teacher” framework is a style of
formal plans of instruction, mandated instruction grounded in “standards” issued by national
commissions, state departments, and local districts. As the designated facilitator of the “teachthe-teacher” ELD professional development series, I was expected to follow the facilitator’s
guide provided by MMED. As I reviewed the facilitator’s guide, I found that the learning
sessions were designed based on completing multiple activities to drive learning. For example,
participants were expected to watch a video, read an article and produce two anchor charts
comparing integrated and designated ELD time.
Stepping away from the facilitator’s guide allowed me to construct a learning session that
was grounded in dialogue. Gay (2002) stated that culturally responsive teachers know how to
determine the multicultural strengths and weaknesses of curriculum design. As such, when I
reflected on the findings from my action research, I adjusted the MMED facilitator’s guide (by
reducing the number of activities) so that learners had an opportunity to engage in small group
discussion and reflection. As Gay (2002) theorized, I saw a shift in the way that teachers at
Prospect Elementary School typically engaged in [professional] learning. I found that teachers
engaged in robust dialogue, especially when sharing strategies that they used in their practice
that enhanced ELD instruction. Looking back, I have found a pattern in the way that scripted
curriculum (and in this case professional development) does not lead to desired learning
outcomes.
There is an interesting connection between the way teachers have been conditioned to use
scripted curriculum to guide student learning, and further, how school site leaders are expected to
use scripted facilitator’s guides to drive adult learning. As a teacher, I remember being trained to
follow a teacher’s guide to support student learning. Ede (2006) stated that curriculum must be

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flexible so that teachers are able to construct learning experiences that will actively engage a
uniquely diverse group of learners. Similar to my experience as a teacher working with youth,
strictly following a facilitator’s guide as a school site leader and adult educator did not allow for
flexibility to adjust the sequence of learning to meet the diverse needs of adult learners. Based on
my conditioned history to follow a scripted guide to drive learning, it is no surprise that at the
time of my study, I struggled to step away from my outlined action plan. My commitment to
enacting the action plan was reinforcing a formal plan (approach) to learning which Gay (2002)
stated not to do. Had I embodied tenets of CRT in my action plan, I could have stepped away
from the action plan sooner to meet Bella’s learning needs earlier. In other words, CRT is a
helpful framework not only to support the learning of young children, but of adults too.
Scripted curricula and the “teach-the teacher” framework are typically used as a crutch to
support inexperienced educators and facilitators. Scripted curriculum and other bureaucratic
controls make it difficult or even impossible for teachers [and administrators] to respond in the
context and realities of their work (Milner, 2013). Unfortunately, scripted tools as described
earlier, do not necessarily result in desired learning outcomes. The norm to follow a scripted
guide reinforces the belief that a “one-size-fits-all” model effectively prepares educators and
facilitators to support a diverse group of learners. Milner (2013) stated that the scripted
curriculum reform has contributed to the de-professionalization of teaching and the de-skilling of
teachers. Teachers have been trained to rely on predetermined curriculum to shape instructional
practuces rather than their professional judgement. However, to meet the diverse and unique
needs of learners (students and adults), educators and facilitators must be equipped with adaptive
leadership skills to step away from scripted curricula, facilitator guides, and action plans. As

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such, I hope to continue to leverage dialogue (rather than prescribed activities) as a tool to
enhance collective inquiry and critical dialogue when facilitating future adult learning sessions.
Changing My Facilitation as a Result of My Action Research
Upon completion of my in-the-field research, I started a new part-time role as
Instructional Faculty (IF) in the Intern Credentialing and Added Authorization Program (iCAAP)
in LAUSD. As faculty, I was asked to teach the course: ESEd 402c Teaching Reading to
Students With Special Needs. I facilitated four 4-hour sessions with a group of 21 teacher
interns. As I prepared to teach my first learning session, I found a unique opportunity to learn
from my missed opportunities, as stated in my findings above.
Co-creating Discussion Norms
As I prepared to facilitate the first learning session with the district interns, I intentionally
designed the first meeting to co-create discussion norms. As a reminder, in my study, I
ineffectively provided a set of discussion norms in hopes of fostering a brave space. This resulted
in the misalignment of the definition of a brave space. To avoid a similar situation, I allotted time
during the first learning session to co-construct discussion norms. To prepare the district interns
to co-create discussion norms I stated the purpose of co-constructing norms, allotted time for
small group discussion, and elicited a whole group share out.
As a result of the whole group share out, I charted trends of discussion norms that were
shared. Instead of giving my learners discussion norms (as I did in the study), I empowered the
district interns to use the charting as a guide to engage in dialogue and co-create norms they
would buy into. As a result, the district interns created two discussion norms: “Be Present” and
“Be an Active Listener and Participant.”

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I was able to draw on these norms to help drive dialogue. For example, I reinforced the
discussion norm “Be an Active Listener and Participant” by prompting interns to engage in
dialogue. To do this, I positioned interns to engage in dialogue with one another when seeking
clarification. For example, during the first session, when Intern 1 shared the symptoms of an
auditory processing disorder, I began charting what was shared. In response to what was shared,
Intern 2 stated how they had seen symptoms of an auditory processing disorder displayed by a
student in their classroom. To check for understanding Intern 2 asked me if they were on the
“right track” in diagnosing an auditory processing disorder. To reinforce the norm, “Be an Active
Listener and Participant” I posed the question back to the whole group. I said, “Based on what
you heard Intern 1 and Intern 2 share, what are your thoughts in regard to the question that Intern
2 asked?” This elicited a collective engagement in dialogue. The authentic back-and-forth
dialogue resulted in new learning and an inclusion of multiple perspectives.
As a result of my action research, I learned that co-creating discussion norms allowed for
fruitful conversation where participants became empowered to take ownership of their learning.
Despite my lack of presence to co-construct discussion norms during the study, I was able to use
my missed opportunity as an action researcher to enhance my facilitation as IF only a few weeks
after.
Use of Cognitive Structures
As IF I enlisted cognitive structures to support andragogy. Tharp and Gallimore (1989)
defined cognitive structures as structures used to organize and justify thinking and acting. When
developing my conceptual framework, I did not include cognitive structures as a form of
assistance to support Bella’s learning. Retrospectively, as IF, I found cognitive structures (as a
form of assistance) supported the intern’s conceptualization of course content.

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I used two cognitive structures to support learning: written questions and charting. To
guide thinking, I embedded questions to required readings in the weekly agenda. Before each
learning session I sent an agenda to the class. In the agenda, I listed 3–4 questions to answer in
response to the assigned article (per the course syllabus). Interns were expected to come to class
1) having read the article and 2) answered the questions on the agenda. The answers to the
questions on the agenda helped guide the interns’ thinking about the course content as it related
to the required reading. I found that embedding pre-work in the agenda helped prepare the
interns to engage in small group discussion, and later whole group reflection. I know that the
agenda served as an effective structure based on the feedback I received from the interns at the
end of the semester. For example, an intern shared:
...the agendas incorporated [questions to the readings] and the instructor charted our
responses during the class discussions. The fact that discussion topics were charted and
shared after class was beneficial because I was able to recall important talking points
during class.
Charting responses to questions served as a second cognitive structure to support the intern’s
learning. I used characteristics of Chalk Talk (Brookfield, 2019) to elicit connections between
the intern’s responses. Many interns commented on their end-of-course reflection that charting
was a new approach that they had never been exposed to before. Most interns shared that the
charting technique supported their engagement of the required readings. Additionally, many
interns shared that they had never reviewed past readings with former IF and wished that they
had engaged in charting earlier, because it helped organize their thoughts and connections to the
required readings.

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Looking back at my study, I wish I had enacted more effective andragogy that provided
cognitive structures. Although I created agendas, the format of the agenda was centered around
the completion of activities. While I listed essential questions within the agenda, I rarely used
them to guide Bella’s thinking. Retrospectively, I could have used my essential questions
purposefully to drive dialogue. Additionally, I did not use charting. Conducting the sessions on
Zoom with one participant did not provide the space to effectively engage in charting. Looking
forward, as a school site leader and aspiring assistant principal, I hope to use effective forms of
assistance, questioning, cognitive structures, and modeling to engage deep adult learning.
Working Toward Developing Reflection-In-Action as an Aspiring Assistant Principal
As an aspiring assistant principal, I plan to use the findings from my action research to
learn how to engage in reflection-on-action. Schön (1983) stated that reflection can happen in the
midst of an experience (reflection-in-action) or outside an experience (reflection-on-action). In
my findings I found that I missed opportunities use the art of presence (Slayton & Mathis, 2010)
to slow down my thought stream so that I could engage in reflection-in-action. As mentioned, I
found it difficult to wear multiple hats as an action researcher. As a result, I was unable to be
present and effectively engage in reflection-in-action. As an aspiring assistant principal, I want to
set a short-term goal of practicing and mastering reflection-on-action so that I can effectively
work toward building steppingstones to effectively engage in reflection-in-action; in-the-moment
action.
As a school site leader, I have seen the urgent pressure that administrators face when
addressing school site situations. It is human nature to jump to conclusions about a situation
especially for teachers [administrators] who must react quickly to multiple events (Rodgers,
2002). I believe that if I can continually engage in reflection-on-action, I will be able to

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eventually effectively enact reflection-in-action. From my experience, typically, assistant
principals are tasked with addressing first-order change (Hallinger, 2003). First-order change
directly impacts curriculum and instruction (Hallinger, 2003). Oppositely second-order change
involved the creation of a shared vision, great systems for communication, and collaborative
decision-making processes (Hallinger, 2003). Slayton and Mathis (2010) stated that a leader who
can do both, enact first-order change with an emphasis on second-order changes, enacts
transformational leadership. I wish to become a transformational leader by embodying reflective
practice.
As an aspiring assistant principal, I know my role will involve supporting the learning of
teachers. I want to enact systematic, organizational change by supporting second-order change.
During my study, I was unable to enact second-order change because I lacked the presence to do
so. For example, at the time of my study, despite my awareness of ineffective questioning I
continued to ask closed-ended questions. It was not until I was forced to make a mid-course
correction that reflective dialogue was used to drive learning. Becoming a reflective practitioner
will take time and practice. I plan to first use Rodgers’s (2002) reflective cycle to develop my
practice of reflection-on-action. Reflection keeps at bay the tendency to interpret and react to
events by first slowing down to see, describing and analyzing what happened, and finally
planning next steps of action (Rodgers, 2002). As I develop my skill and confidence as a
reflective practitioner, I anticipate I will develop (over time) the necessary prerequisites to enact
in-the-moment reflection. Moreover, I plan to reinforce my theory of change by working toward
building internal accountability of my future administrative team, especially in re-thinking about
how the administrative team will support teachers to support a diverse group of students such
that CRT and ML is enacted by teachers in classrooms. I look forward to the opportunity to

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support my future colleagues as a reflective practitioner who enacts adaptive leadership skills
and effective andragogy.
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract This action research examines my ability to lead and facilitate professional learning using adult learning theory and adaptive leadership. My action research question was: How do I and the Targeted Student Population (TSP) advisor engage in critical dialogue to work towards internal accountability of our respective roles aligned with culturally responsive teaching? I developed a 3-month long action plan that consisted of 9 weekly 1-hour sessions where I engaged the participant in learning that addressed her capacity to interrogate her actions that influenced her perceived responsibilities as a TSP advisor. To answer my research question I used jottings, fieldnotes, critical reflections, reflective memos, analytic memos and reflections with my dissertation chair to better understand how my actions supported the participant’s progress toward transformative learning. My findings show that I was unable to answer the research question. First, I found that I assumed the participant and I had aligned ideological beliefs. As a result, my action plan did not support the participant’s needs. Next, I found that I failed to create positive learning conditions to foster a brave space to engage the participant in critical dialogue. Lastly, I did not effectively enact the form of assistance of questioning. I tried to enact effective modeling, however, I did not explicitly describe to the participant how modeling would support her learning within the ZPTD. At the end of the study, I enacted a mid-course correction and used reflection to drive the conversation rather than activities as prescribed in my action plan.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Okihara, Alexis Sayuri (author)

Core Title Towards critical dialogue: an action research project building an awareness of an administrative team member’s role, identity, and deficit thinking

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Educational Leadership

Degree Conferral Date 2024-08

Publication Date 08/02/2024

Defense Date 07/12/2024

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag critical dialogue,critical reflection,deficit thinking,internal accountability,OAI-PMH Harvest

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Samkian, Artineh (committee chair), Lyons-Moore, Akilah (committee member), Slayton, Julie (committee member)

Creator Email alexissokihara@gmail.com,aokihara@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113998R8U

Unique identifier UC113998R8U

Identifier etd-OkiharaAle-13321.pdf (filename)

Legacy Identifier etd-OkiharaAle-13321

Document Type Dissertation

Format theses (aat)

Rights Okihara, Alexis Sayuri

Internet Media Type application/pdf

Type texts

Source 20240802-usctheses-batch-1191 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu