Q&A with Symone Gyles
By Carol Jean Tomoguchi-Perez
November 6, 2023
November 6, 2023
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Symone Gyles joined the School of Education as an assistant professor on July 1, 2023. Her research interests – community-based science, social justice, environmental justice, and equitable science teaching and learning – stems from her experiences as a seventh grade life sciences teacher, where she realized that the curriculum she was provided did not align with her students' experiences. "This made me question what it means to engage in science learning grounded in students’ everyday lived experiences and the places that they live and learn," Gyles said.
Q: Tell us about your background. A: I am a Black woman born in Washington, D.C., and raised in my later adolescent years in Northern Virginia. I come from a smaller immediate family, consisting of just my mom, dad, and brother, but a large extended family with too many cousins to count. Professionally, education was never a field I saw myself in. I earned my B.S. in Marine and Environmental Science from Hampton University, a small HBCU (Historically Black College/University) in Hampton, Va., with a dream of becoming an exotic animal veterinarian, specializing in marine animals. Through a winding, and very unexpected road, I ended up in the classroom teaching seventh grade life science and never looked back. After a couple years of teaching, I decided to go back to graduate school. I earned my Ph.D. in education from UCLA, and went on to complete a postdoc at the University of Washington, Bothell before coming to UCI. |
Symone Gyles
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What are your research interests, and how did you become interested in these areas?
My research interests are at the intersections of community-based science, social justice, environmental justice, and equitable science teaching and learning. Generally, my research strives to reimagine K-12 science education as a space that engages students’ home, community and cultural knowledge, experiences and values as assets in learning, and position students as change agents in their communities. Specifically, I investigate community-based and culturally-responsive science pedagogy and curriculum design using co-design methods and community-engaged research. Through these methods, I examine the co-creation and impact of designed pedagogies and curriculum that use lenses of culture, power and social justice in secondary science teaching and learning.
I became interested in this work, initially, because the curriculum I was provided when I was in the classroom was very distant from the lived experiences of my students. This made me question what it means to engage in science learning grounded in students’ everyday lived experiences and the places that they live and learn. What are the structures that make up this type of science learning? How can we integrate these structures into everyday teaching versus “add-ons” to instruction? These questions started, and continue to propel, my research agenda.
Can you define community-based science education? Why is this important?
I define community-based science (CBS) as science instruction anchored in locally and socially relevant phenomena, where community extends beyond the geographical boundaries of a local area to include the cultural epistemologies and historical ontologies of a space and the individuals within that space. Within CBS, the boundaries of science and scientific knowledge are broadened to account for the social, political, and historical dimensions of scientific enterprise that influence how students understand, define and interpret phenomena.
CBS is important to science teaching and learning because it seeks to orient learning beyond fact memorization and towards what I call the three Ps: people, place, and authentic purpose. By broadening understandings of what is considered science, who can do science, and where science knowledge can come from, CBS legitimizes students’ diverse sensemaking and positions their knowledge, descriptions, and self-understandings as valid and valued in science learning.
Where do you see the field of culture and equity in science learning in five years? In ten years?
Science education, as a discipline, reproduces multiple forms of conformation and assimilation by presenting science as a finished body of knowledge. This orientation leaves little to no room for differing conceptualizations and interpretations of scientific phenomena, and disconnects science from students’ everyday contexts and understandings. As I think about a future of science education that centers justice and equity, I hope to see the field have more expansive understandings of what is considered science, where science knowledge can be derived from, and what/whose knowledge is valued in science. Further, I hope to see students engaged in science learning that truly positions them as what Daniel Morales-Doyle calls “transformative intellectuals” who can help us to imagine more just, transformative and alternate measures for social change.
Does your research have you working with other School of Education faculty, and/or UCI faculty in general? Who do you look forward to working with?
Yes! Currently I am working on grants with Mark Warschauer and Rossella Santagata that I am very excited about. I look forward to working in the future with Hosun Kang as we both have a research interest in supporting science teachers’ learning around, and enactment of, equity and justice-centered science curriculum.
What are you looking forward to most in your first year at UCI?
I am really looking forward to building community with my fellow faculty members and students. I love that the School of Education is so diverse and collaborative, and I look forward to continuing to learn about everyone’s work and research interests to figure out potential areas of connection and collaboration.
Any fun facts we should know about you?
I am an avid weightlifter! The gym is my safe haven and a space I truly feel like I can cancel out the rest of the world and simply focus on what is in front of me. My goals in the gym by the end of the year are to bench 145 pounds and squat 235 pounds. I also am an avid reader and enjoy mystery/thriller books, so if anyone has recommendations, please send them my way!
My research interests are at the intersections of community-based science, social justice, environmental justice, and equitable science teaching and learning. Generally, my research strives to reimagine K-12 science education as a space that engages students’ home, community and cultural knowledge, experiences and values as assets in learning, and position students as change agents in their communities. Specifically, I investigate community-based and culturally-responsive science pedagogy and curriculum design using co-design methods and community-engaged research. Through these methods, I examine the co-creation and impact of designed pedagogies and curriculum that use lenses of culture, power and social justice in secondary science teaching and learning.
I became interested in this work, initially, because the curriculum I was provided when I was in the classroom was very distant from the lived experiences of my students. This made me question what it means to engage in science learning grounded in students’ everyday lived experiences and the places that they live and learn. What are the structures that make up this type of science learning? How can we integrate these structures into everyday teaching versus “add-ons” to instruction? These questions started, and continue to propel, my research agenda.
Can you define community-based science education? Why is this important?
I define community-based science (CBS) as science instruction anchored in locally and socially relevant phenomena, where community extends beyond the geographical boundaries of a local area to include the cultural epistemologies and historical ontologies of a space and the individuals within that space. Within CBS, the boundaries of science and scientific knowledge are broadened to account for the social, political, and historical dimensions of scientific enterprise that influence how students understand, define and interpret phenomena.
CBS is important to science teaching and learning because it seeks to orient learning beyond fact memorization and towards what I call the three Ps: people, place, and authentic purpose. By broadening understandings of what is considered science, who can do science, and where science knowledge can come from, CBS legitimizes students’ diverse sensemaking and positions their knowledge, descriptions, and self-understandings as valid and valued in science learning.
Where do you see the field of culture and equity in science learning in five years? In ten years?
Science education, as a discipline, reproduces multiple forms of conformation and assimilation by presenting science as a finished body of knowledge. This orientation leaves little to no room for differing conceptualizations and interpretations of scientific phenomena, and disconnects science from students’ everyday contexts and understandings. As I think about a future of science education that centers justice and equity, I hope to see the field have more expansive understandings of what is considered science, where science knowledge can be derived from, and what/whose knowledge is valued in science. Further, I hope to see students engaged in science learning that truly positions them as what Daniel Morales-Doyle calls “transformative intellectuals” who can help us to imagine more just, transformative and alternate measures for social change.
Does your research have you working with other School of Education faculty, and/or UCI faculty in general? Who do you look forward to working with?
Yes! Currently I am working on grants with Mark Warschauer and Rossella Santagata that I am very excited about. I look forward to working in the future with Hosun Kang as we both have a research interest in supporting science teachers’ learning around, and enactment of, equity and justice-centered science curriculum.
What are you looking forward to most in your first year at UCI?
I am really looking forward to building community with my fellow faculty members and students. I love that the School of Education is so diverse and collaborative, and I look forward to continuing to learn about everyone’s work and research interests to figure out potential areas of connection and collaboration.
Any fun facts we should know about you?
I am an avid weightlifter! The gym is my safe haven and a space I truly feel like I can cancel out the rest of the world and simply focus on what is in front of me. My goals in the gym by the end of the year are to bench 145 pounds and squat 235 pounds. I also am an avid reader and enjoy mystery/thriller books, so if anyone has recommendations, please send them my way!
