Vol 5
2026
Kelly Gavin Zuckerman
Abstract
My undergraduate education course students create asset maps to strengthen my students’ understandings of potential resources and benefits to students’ learning, within urban schools and surrounding communities.
To promote preservice teachers’ and other undergraduates’ asset-based orientation towards diverse students, families, cultures and communities, in urban settings, I provide community asset mapping in a course I teach, Geographies of School and Learning: Urban Education Reconsidered. The course’s students are first-year through fourth-year undergraduates, preparing to be certified to teach, and undergraduate students who are interested in the field of education, more broadly.
Ordoñez-Jasis and Myck-Wayne (2012) define community asset mapping as “a process of discovery and reflection that allows the ‘mapper’ to develop new understandings about a specific geographical area that can assist his or her quest to uncover valuable community resources for children and their families” (p. 32). Through asset mapping, the mapper renders visible, a community’s tangible and intangible strengths. Within teacher education, community asset mapping has been shown to support preservice educators in understanding and challenging their biases about urban communities, in strengthening their ability to identify assets in a given community, and in facilitating the development of dispositions necessary for implementing a culturally relevant teaching approach (Jackson & Bryson, 2018).
Internship site groups. My education class students are involved with internships, which are two hours per week, for 10 weeks, in urban classrooms, serving racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse young people. Between two to six of my students share an internship site. The site groups are an ongoing support structure for critical reflection and community-building.
Preparing Students
Prior to the community asset mapping activity, which typically occurs after students have made several visits to their sites, we examine both historical and contemporary narratives about urban education in scholarship and media that equate urbanity with deficiency and deviance. For example, films like Dangerous Minds and the language of “at risk” used by some scholars to characterize Black and Brown youth, who live in urban centers, portray cities and their schools as dangerous and in-need.
Community cultural wealth. As a counterpoint to negative depictions, we engage in readings and viewings that seek to offer alternative asset-based perspectives of urban education, including the language of “at promise” used by some more recent scholars and Yosso’s (2005) categories of community cultural wealth: Aspirational (high educational aspirations in spite of educational inequalities), Linguistic (language and communication skills), Familial (social and personal resources embedded in familial and community networks), Social (peer networks), Navigational (ability to navigate often unfamiliar or uncomfortable social institutions like schools), and Resistance (commitment to and experience in engaging in social justice).
I, then, introduce my students to the concept of community asset mapping; and the students work collaboratively to map the “assets” of our campus community. Mapping assets in our campus community provides practice for my students’ internship community asset mapping assignment that follows.
Mapping Internship Sites’ Assets
The Asset Map assignment has two main products: Asset Map and Written Reflections. Map and Reflections are then shared with the full class, during a gallery walk and discussions.
Community asset map. To create their asset maps, I first ask students to work with their site group, during class time, using their experiences in the field, as well as course readings and class discussions to define what constitutes an asset (for example, an asset is something that increases students’ sense of belonging and mattering), and to brainstorm the various assets at their site.
I typically offer student groups 45-60 minutes for the group brainstorming, as I circulate around the classroom, to check in on each group’s progress, to answer questions, and to probe for deeper thinking (for example, “In what ways, if any, would a local mosque be an asset to a school community?”) If any groups struggle, I remind them of their experience identifying campus community assets, in a prior session, and, if needed, suggest that they use Yosso’s (2005) six categories of “cultural wealth” (Aspirational, Linguistic, Familial, Social, Navigational, Resistance), as brainstorming aids.
Fortified by their collaborative work, students then work individually, outside of class, to create their internship site’s community asset map and key. To do so, I ask my students, to first select a scale (classroom, building, or neighborhood) for their mapping inquiry. For example, Student A, whose map is shown in Figure 1, selected to focus on the classroom in which Student A spent the most time during internship field experiences, while Student B selected the neighborhood as Student B’s focus (Figure 2). The turnaround time from the group brainstorming, to the map due date is approximately two weeks.
Figure 1. Student A’s map.
Figure 2. Student B’s map.
Figure 3. Student C’s map.
After selecting their map’s scale, students are encouraged to review their notes from their site group’s brainstorming, as well as their individual notes, from their site or other community field visits, to select the assets relevant to their scale and represent the assets visually, on their map. Students are asked to include a key that categorizes their assets in a way that helps the viewer to understand their importance. To illustrate, Student C in Figure 3, color codes assets to represent Yasso’s (2005) “cultural wealth” categories.
Written Reflections. To accompany their map, each student writes 500-750 word reflections, related to their asset mapping. The students describe their rationales for identifying an entity at their internship site or its broader community, as an asset.
For example, Student C shared this definition of an asset:
In the four to five times I’ve observed the classroom, I determined/felt that an asset was anything that helped the students’ learning become more streamlined and engaging, whether that meant tools to help them listen attentively or provide the teacher a way to add a component of “play” to lessons— anything that encouraged the students to feel that they “can do it” (“it” being any assignment/task) and achieve overall, and anything that helped to ground the students in a routine or foster collective responsibility, in organizing/caring for their classroom space.
In their written reflections, students also include potential opportunities for discussing assets among stakeholders (for example, teachers, school support staff, parents, community members and local business owners), what Achinstein et al. (2016) refer to as “boundary crossing.” In addition, in their reflections, the students discuss the central takeaways from their asset-mapping experience, including the potential utility of community asset mapping, for their own imagined futures, as educators.
Gallery walk. On the assignment due date, students display their maps for a full-class, 30 minute “gallery walk,” in which students view each other’s maps and offer feedback on sticky notes, in response to these guiding questions: “What do you notice?” and “What do you wonder?”
The displayed maps are usually diverse in size and mode of representation with some students, for example, Student A choosing to use paper and art supplies (Figure 1), while others, such as, Student B, choosing to use computer images or computer software (for example, Prezi, Google Maps, Powerpoint), as depicted in Figure 2.
Some maps are two dimensional, such as, Figure 1 and Figure 2. while others are three-dimensional, for example, Figure 3. While some features of the maps, particularly within site groups, may be similar, the unique design choices and variety of created keys support both appreciation and critical thinking.
Culminating class discussion. After students review their sticky-notes, I facilitate a final class discussion that asks students to share any themes or (dis)connections that they saw across maps, as well as any thoughts on how, if at all, the act of asset mapping has impacted their views of their sites, specifically, and urban education, more broadly. Many students draw upon insights from their individual reflections during this sharing.
Learning Outcomes
The community asset mapping activity promotes deeper learning – learning that is retained and can be used beyond a test or class, with outcomes such as critical thinking, creativity, ability to work independently and collaboratively, communicate effectively, and acquiring knowledge (For Deeper Learning, 2026).
Critical thinking, creativity, and application. In their individual reflections, students applied their knowledge of the field, and practiced “thinking carefully/critically and creatively” about potential opportunities for Achinstein et al.’s 2016 “boundary crossing” among education stakeholders.
Student A, for example conceptualized opportunities for fostering greater belonging through the sharing of resources between and among different grades at his site:
Having 8th graders make presentations about topics of relevance to both the classroom and their own culture, and presenting their ideas to younger grades, could create close-knit relationships across ages and open up space for conversations between students who may not otherwise interact very often.
Critically and creatively conceived, Student A’s proposed cross-grade collaboration represents evidence of Student A moving from acquisition to application of knowledge— of using, in the role of instructional designer, the lessons learned from their experience with community asset mapping, to strengthen school community and deepen learning. Completing such a task moves the learning further along Bloom’s Taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001), increasing the cognitive complexity of the task.
My students reflections offered an additional opportunity for application, when the students considered where, when, and how they may use community asset mapping in their professional futures.
Student A described the importance, in analyzing the physical environment of a classroom:
I found benefits of items and spaces that I had previously completely overlooked. It allowed me to appreciate the ways a simple rug could be transformed into a system of student agency, or the ways a single desk off to the side of the room, allowed for student privacy and focus.
By having had the experience of looking closely at classroom spaces, through community asset mapping, Student A was able to see classroom decor, not as just physical items, but as evidence of intentionality and care that can transform student experiences. The development of this orientation to classroom spaces and to the role that a teacher’s attention and decision-making plays in its curation are valuable insights, for my future educator students.
Working collaboratively and individually. First brainstorming with their group and then working individual, helped my students to build their capacity for acquiring and being able to use knowledge. By comparing and contrasting their field observations with other classmates, rather than solely relying on their own observations, students were able to “identify the limitations of [their] own…interpretations” (Nilson, 2023, p.73) and gain a fuller understanding of their site’s strengths.
Visual communication. The assignment’s invitation to represent their site’s assets visually, for an audience of their peers, facilitates students’ ability to communicate effectively. To complete this assignment, students must move beyond the written word to communicate their findings. In doing so, they are asked to consider the impact of color, scale, and dimension, among visual elements. College teaching that embraces visual modes of meaning-making has shown to develop students’ creativity, enhance memory, and support students’ ability to express thoughts and opinion (Kędra and Žakevičiūtė, 2019).
Author’s Reflections
Inspired by Jackson and Bryson (2018), my first objective, in designing this community asset mapping assignment, is for students to have the opportunity to cultivate and/or hone an asset-based orientation to their field sites and the students, educators, and community members that inhabit them, by developing their ability to identify and document the existing assets. I believe that this objective was met by the majority of students, as evidenced in their maps, reflections, and participation in class discussion. For example, in their reflections, Student B explained:
When thinking of the boundary crossing…I think about what I see in my students. Each student has a rich, multifaceted character, and when they cross the boundary into school…they carry with them personal experiences and passions that make the classroom an intersectional space.
The identification of of value, of worth, of goodness, within students and their neighborhoods is powerful evidence of the development of this asset-based orientation in my preservice educator students.
My second objective is to support students in applying their knowledge, of their sites, to creatively conceptualize possible opportunities that strengthen learning opportunities. While I believe that most of my students achieved this objective, I think that their work could be strengthened by having an opportunity to re-collaborate, even briefly, with their site groups, during one of our in-class sessions, between the brainstorming and the assignment’s due date, to specifically discuss opportunities for reaching out to those who are potential resources for students’ education and development. This would provide an additional check-in point and collaborative scaffold, for students who are struggling to find applications.
Finally, to deepen learning further towards both objectives, in future iterations of this assignment, I plan on requiring intentional communication with those who have interest in supporting students’ learning and development, such as teachers, school support staff, parents, community members and local business owners, to conceptualize what constitutes an asset, to identify assets, and to consider opportunities for sharing, among interested parties, to benefit the learning and well-being of students. Working with the community can offer my students not only additional opportunities to strengthen interpersonal skills, but also to develop a deeper understanding of the assets of urban sites of teaching and learning. as well as the possibilities for intentional collaboration and resource-sharing.
References
Achinstein, B., Curry, M. W., Ogawa, R. T., & Athanases, S. Z. (2016). Organizing high schools for Latina/o youth success: Boundary crossing to access and build community wealth.Urban Education, 51(7), 824-854.
Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching,and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman.
What is deeper learning? (2026). For Deeper Learning. https://fordeeperlearning.org/deeper-learning-defined/
Jackson, T. O., & Bryson, B. S. (2018). Community mapping as a tool for developing culturally relevant pedagogy. The New Educator, 14(2), 109-128.
Kędra, J., & Žakevičiūtė, R. (2019). Visual literacy practices in higher education: what,why and how? Journal of Visual Literacy, 38(1-2), 1-7.
Nilson, L. B. (2016). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors. John Wiley & Sons.
Ordoñez-Jasis, R., & Myck-Wayne, J. (2012). Community mapping in action: Uncovering resources and assets for young children and their families. Young Exceptional Children, 15(3), 31-45.
Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69-91.
Kelly Gavin Zuckerman, Ed.D., is Visiting Assistant Professor of Education in the Bryn Mawr/ Haverford Education Department and Assistant Director of the Teaching and Learning Institute at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges. Kelly Gavin Zuckerman can be reached at kzuckerman@brynmawr.edu.