Pitch for Equity Project
Overview
What happens when students work together to make their college more equitable and inclusive? In this scaffolded, semester-long project, students work in teams to develop a plan for how to dismantle oppressive systems, spaces, and practices at their school. At the end of the semester, students pitch their ideas to the school management team.
Useful for
- Identifying issues and assets in the school community
- Developing students’ research and problem-solving skills
- Promoting social change by reaching out to decision-makers within the education system
- Strengthening students’ ability to think interdependently, work with a team, and learn from others
- Creating space for students to identify, use, and develop their gifts (passions, skills, knowledge, etc.)
Materials
- This is a semester-long project, built around many scaffolding activities. Each of the scaffolding activities has its own materials list.
Preparation
- This project culminates with a Pitch for Equity event, where students present their proposals for how to eliminate barriers and create a school where everyone (no matter their race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, etc.) can thrive. Teachers must book a time and place for the Pitch for Equity event and invite members of the school management team to attend.
- Teachers are encouraged to facilitate active learning activities throughout the semester to help students develop their background knowledge of racism, colonialism, and resistance to oppression.
Procedure
The Pitch for Equity project is a scaffolded, semester-long project. Here is a sample week-by-week calendar listing various scaffolding activities teachers might use to set students up for success.
| Week | Scaffolding Activity | Useful for |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Community-Building Activities | Creating a classroom culture where all students feel like they matter. |
| 2 | Building Teams (Part 1) | Preparing students to work together by inviting them to create team agreements that formalize expectations of group members. |
| 3 | The 4 I’s of Oppression | Unpacking how oppression operates as a system and introducing students to the concepts of ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalised oppression. Students can use these concepts to analyse their own experiences in the school system. |
| 4 | Equitable and Inclusive Campus Scavenger Hunt | Cultivating critical hope and showcasing the work the college is already doing to promote equity, inclusion, and Indigenisation. |
| 5 | Identifying Assets and Gaps | Defining what an equitable and inclusive school might look like, comparing this vision to students’ actual experiences, and brainstorming ideas for the final project. |
| 6 | Project Proposal | Helping students clarify their ideas about the equity issue they want to tackle as a team. This assignment gives students an opportunity to get feedback on their work and allows teachers to identify students and teams who may be struggling. |
| 7 | Building Teams (Part 2) | Inviting students to reflect on how well their team is working and identifying strategies to improve team dynamics. |
| 8 | Leveraging Talents and Gifts | Helping students identify their gifts (passions, skills, cultural knowledge, languages, etc.) and explore how they might use their gifts while working on the project. |
| 9 | PowerPoint Karaoke | Offering a fun and humourous opportunity for students to practice speaking in front of an audience. |
| 10 | Avoiding Death by PowerPoint | Helping students identify strategies for building powerful and engaging slides to use when they present their ideas to campus decision-makers. |
| 11 | Pitch for Equity Project Draft | Helping students develop their research and problem-solving skills, as they craft a proposal to make their campus more equitable and inclusive. This assignment gives students an opportunity to get feedback on their work and allows teachers to identify students and teams who may be struggling. |
| 12 | Peer Review (Part 1) | Improving students’ ability to give and receive constructive criticism. This activity also helps students understand the criteria that will be used to evaluate their final projects. |
| 13 | Peer Review (Part 2) | Creating space for students to review and prioritise the suggestions they received on how they might strengthen their proposal. |
| 14 | Pitch for Equity Final Project | Cultivating critical hope as students pitch their ideas for making their campus more equitable and inclusive to decision-makers within the education system. |
| 15 | Reflecting on Learning | Helping students reflect on their learning, so they might make sense of their experiences, set goals, and consider the real-life implications of their experiences in the classroom. |
Evaluation
Most of the scaffolding activities are intended as formative activities: teachers may choose not to grade them at all, or to grade them based on completion.
We have provided grading rubrics for the following activities:
- Project Proposal
- Pitch for Equity Project Draft
- Peer Review
- Pitch for Equity Final Project
- Reflecting on Learning
We recommend that students’ grades include both an individual and group component. As Todd Zakrajsek and Linda Nilson explain in their book Teaching at its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors, “For a long-term, project-based group to function effectively, each group member must feel a sense of personal responsibility for the success of their teammates. In addition, their success must depend at least in part on the group’s success. In brief, members must feel they need one another to complete the task at the desired level of quality.” Here are some approaches you might use to build individual and group accountability:
- Have students complete weekly individual labs (each lab building toward the final project). Students’ grades are based partially on their individual labs and partially on the final group project.
- Count the team grades only for students who pass the individual labs.
- Add an individual reflection assignment where students reflect on their contributions to the team.
- Base a portion (5-30%) of the final project grade on teammate evaluations. To allow students a chance to improve, ensure students complete peer evaluations at least twice during the semester.
- To build individual accountability, teachers may allow teams to “fire” team members who are not living up to the expectations laid out in the team contract. If you make this option available, it would be helpful to have an alternative assignment (of equivalent difficulty) available, to give the “fired” student a second chance. This option is especially important if teamwork is not a required competency for your class.
Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
It is likely that at least one student in your class will face barriers during the semester that make it difficult for them to participate in the team project. Teachers are encouraged to consider how they will accommodate these students. For example, can the project be adapted to meet the needs of a student who is often absent due to medical appointments? Can a student who experiences a mental health crisis in the middle of the semester be given an alternative assignment?
Adaptations & Examples
- The Pitch for Equity project can easily be adapted for use in various disciplines. For example, students might be challenged to develop proposals to decrease their school’s carbon footprint, improve student health and wellness, etc.
Useful Resources
Pitch for planting wildflower gardens on campus by Alan Chen and Alexander Pettipiece.
- Semester-long project
- Download Activity PDF
