LILA ~ Learning Innovations Laboratory at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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  1. Getting to the Roots (and Rhizomes) of Place

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    With Dan Williams   Places are spaces where we make meaning.  But what are the different meanings a place can hold?  Dan Williams, a researcher who has looked at relationships that people have to locations such as national parks and second homes, invited us to consider two different ways in which we make meanings of spaces:  functional and relational.   Functional meaning focuses on the instrumental meaning we have with a space:  it works for our activities and goals.  Relational is about identity:  it speaks to how we see ourselves.  These can intersect but we can see interesting differences that might...
  2. Marga Biller

    Uniting Through Difference with Rachel Arnett

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    Comment
    In the first presentation Rachel spoke about the benefits and risks of navigating a minority identity in the workplace.  In this  presentation she spoke about one way to bring attention to a cultural identity in a way that doesn’t necessarily activate bias and exclusion, and can actually activate and increase inclusion. 
  3. Marga Biller

    Agency in the Context of Diversity with Rachel Arnett

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    Comment
    In her first presentation, Rachel shared some of her work about agency in the context of diversity.  Diversity is increasingly a reality of the workplace, and it brings lots of benefits – we gain new perspectives, we gain access to broader and better talent pools, for example, which helps us to innovate and improve how we do things in organizations. And there are also many challenges for example,  how do we navigate sources of differences.  Rachel’s research explores how the perceived risks and benefits of sharing features and aspects of identity can influence and enhance both individual and collective agency at work.
  4. Marga Biller

    Agency for Unimagined Events

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    Comment
    Agency and structure matter for how you act but also for what future events you imagine or can’t imagine.  Lets look at reflective agency - when you consider scenarios that could happen, you do so based on your current position and the information available to you at the time which lead you to consider different alternatives and contingency plans.  Pre-reflective agency driven by past experiences, will lead you to take for granted that some aspects of reality will be as they have been in the past – leaving you in the dark about the future.  

Harvard Graduate School of Education