Shanyce L. Campbell (University of Pittsburgh)

*All Winter Design@Large talks will be hosted online. This aligns with UC San Diego policy that all events be hosted virtual during the Winter 2021 quarter.

Just Designs: The (Un)intended Consequences of Teacher Evaluation Policies

Students of color are often schooled in dehumanizing environments, as evidenced by unjust discipline referrals, less rigorous course placements, lower academic expectations among school staff, and ultimately push out. Central to these traumatic experiences are teachers. Scholars agree that teachers have the most substantial influence on student success; however, there is significant variation in their effectiveness, with those least effective teaching a higher proportion of students of color. In efforts to address this concern, teacher evaluation systems were introduced across the United States on an unprecedented scale through federal funds from the Race to the Top competitive grant.

During this talk, Dr. Campbell will explore how the implementation of classroom observations, a component of teacher evaluation systems, creates negative consequences for teachers of color. She will also discuss policy recommendations to address the design and implementation of classroom observation procedures to reimagine just education policies.

About the Speaker

Dr. Shanyce L. Campbell is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Education. She is also a research faculty at Pitt’s Center for Urban Education. Dr. Campbell’s research focuses on understanding how policies and practices influence access to quality learning  opportunities for students of color. Employing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods, she explores various institutional factors associated with advancing students of color’s opportunities to learn including educator quality, school-community partnerships, and curricular access. Dr. Campbell’s work has appeared in American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, and Race, Ethnicity, and Education. In 2019, she received the Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award for the most outstanding article appearing in an American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) sponsored journal. Dr. Campbell earned her bachelor of science (summa cum laude) in Accounting with a minor in Economics from North Carolina A&T State University, a Historically Black College & University (HBCU). She earned her Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the first Black person and woman program graduate. She was also a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Education at the University of Michigan.

About Design@Large

Design@Large is a speaker series that is hosted by The Design Lab at UCSD, where each quarter we examine a topic in society and the relevance and implications through the lens of human centered design.

Co-hosted by Elizabeth Eikey and Edward Wang and developed in partnership with Carrie Sawyer, Design@Large this quarter (and next) is focused on racism in the design of everyday things across a range of topics, such as artificial intelligence, linguistics, education, and more. Each topic area will help shed light on the historical context of racism and the consequences of “designing” without understanding racism’s deep roots, as well as provide examples of anti-racist and equitable approaches in practice. Too often we want to jump straight to action, but without building our capacity to understand racism (and other “isms”) and critically evaluating its impact, we perpetuate racism and inequality – even with the best intentions. Through an exciting lineup of speakers, this series begins to make connections between history and designing and aims to promote awareness around the lifelong practice of anti-racist work across a variety of interconnected domains.