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Collective Joy: Leveraging Students’ Collectivist Mindset as a Classroom Asset

View the slides from Collective Joy: Leveraging Students’ Collectivist Mindset as a Classroom Asset, presented by Erin Cary and Cydnee Sanders at the 2025 Minnesota English Learner Education (MELEd) Conference. This session invites educators to shift from deficit-based thinking to an asset-based approach that recognizes the collectivist strengths many multilingual adult learners bring to the classroom.

Grounded in culturally responsive practices and inspired by Zaretta Hammond and Gholdy Muhammad’s Five Pursuits (Identity, Skills, Intellect, Criticality, Joy), this session highlights how collaboration and community care can be leveraged to deepen engagement and joy in learning. The resource includes practical strategies—such as simple, community-building routines—and reflective prompts to help educators create classroom environments where connection, identity, and joy are central to adult ESL and ABE instruction.

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