Planning for co-produced impact is a foundational element of Action-Oriented Pedagogies (AOP). It moves teaching and learning beyond isolated knowledge acquisition toward meaningful action, co-designed by teachers, students, and—ideally—community partners. In this phase of the AOP cycle, planning becomes an iterative, participatory, and relational process.

What is “Planning for Co-Produced Impact”? 

Unlike traditional models where students follow predefined steps, AOP invites students to co-create both the path and the impact of their actions. Students and teachers collaboratively identify sustainability challenges, consider diverse perspectives, and co-plan responses that are grounded in the needs and possibilities of their classroom, school, families, or community. Whatever the action, it requires purposeful planning that shares decision-making power and values collective wisdom. 

When community members are brought into the planning process, students are further supported by the resources, knowledge systems, and lived experiences of others. Depending on the scale of the issue and the intended impact, these partners may include peers, families, school officials, local organizations, city departments, or even regional and global networks.

Co-planning is a creative, strategic, and sometimes messy process of aligning purpose, possibility, and power.

A Shift Toward Collective Orientations 

Today’s educational systems often prioritize individual achievement and cognitive gains. AOP calls for a collective orientation: a mindset that values collaboration, community goals, and shared responsibility for creating a more sustainable and just world. Planning for co-produced impact becomes an opportunity to practice and model this shift.

But intergenerational, cross-sector collaboration isn’t commonly practiced in schools. 

Planning for co-produced impact invites students and educators into this uncharted space—learning to co-create solutions with diverse people, across boundaries of age, role, and expertise.

Further reading to support Planning for Co-Produced Impact

• The ABOTA Teacher Instructions & Student Worksheets from Scholastic’s American Justice program is a classroom resource designed to build news literacy and critical thinking in middle and high school students through the lens of the American justice system. Rather than focusing solely on legal procedures, the materials guide students to analyze how news is reported on legal issues, evaluate the credibility of sources, distinguish between fact and opinion, and understand the impact of media on public perception of justice. The lessons encourage students to dissect real and simulated news stories related to jury trials, lawmaking, and constitutional rights, helping them become more informed and discerning consumers of media. It was developed in collaboration with the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). ABOTA, founded in 1958, champions the preservation of jury trial rights. 

• Jennifer Noji’s article, “Beyond ‘True’ and ‘False’: Teaching Students to Read the News Critically” (2023), reframes news literacy as a relational, power-informed practice rather than a simple fact-checking exercise. Drawing from her teaching at UCLA, Noji describes how students often consume news passively, assuming objectivity. To disrupt this, she assigns a Critical News Analysis where students compare two articles on the same event, from different ideological or geographic perspectives, analyzing tone, sources, bias, and intended audience. This practice encourages students to reflect on their own reading habits and recognize how truth is constructed through dominant narratives.

• The Vimeo channel Underwriters Laboratories (UL) serves as a visual showcase of a century‑old nonprofit’s scientific and collaborative work around safety, sustainability, and standards. With videos like “The Future of Safety Science: Autonomous Vehicles and Standards,” “Battery Safety Science Symposium,” and “UL SDG Video,” it highlights UL’s research initiatives into critical areas—ranging from battery sustainability and autonomous vehicle safety to fire science and microplastics—illustrating how it convenes experts, educators, and industry to co-create solutions. 

Further reading on Community Ethnography

• The Practitioner’s Guide to Localized Research: Community-Based Ethnography for Resilience Outcomes (2023) is a community-based guidebook that walks practitioners through seven guiding principles, such as recognizing diverse social voices, power dynamics, continuous field observation, positionality, and co-created analysis; structured across seven “learning moments” that cover everything from site selection to resilience-focused reporting.

• Community Ethnography as Pedagogy (Tan & Calabrese Barton) outlines a powerful, co‑creative approach where students employ ethnographic methods, including participant observation, interviews, and surveys, to engage directly with their communities as they define real engineering problems and design solutions. 

• Community Ethnography Teacher Toolkit (Chenkel, Beiesner, Barton, & Tan, 2020) is a practical teacher’s toolkit that combines theory, classroom strategies, and examples to help students connect science and engineering with their communities in meaningful, equity-focused ways.