What Counts and How: Mathematics Teaching in Culturally, Linguistically, and Socioeconomically Diverse Urban Settings

This article presents findings from an ongoing study of urban teachers' efforts to embrace mathematics reform with student populations that are culturally, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse (CLSD). We investigate the teacher's role in providing accessible and valuable mathematical learning opportunities to diverse students. Through narrative vignettes of practice and analyses of the personal and intellectual resources teachers draw on in CLSD contexts, we examine the challenges and possibilities two third-grade teachers face as they attempt such reform. One teacher's strengths were in making cultural connections with her students; the other's strengths were in pursuing complex and meaningful mathematics with her students. Building on our analysis, we offer a framework for examining the work of attending to mathematical and cultural issues simultaneously. Our findings suggest that such work is complex; however, teachers are seldom supported in their efforts to integrate these two perspectives. Our aim is to examine the dimensions of culturally relevant mathematics teaching and explore where the fields of mathematics and bilingual-bicultural education need to speak to one another.     

“We’re Here to Learn to Speak French”: An Exploration of World Language Teachers’ Beliefs About Students and Teaching

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore five world language teachers’ beliefs about their students, their attributions about student enrollment, and their reported teaching practices. Findings represent a continuum of critical practice in that three teachers appeared to espouse deficit thinking and stereotypes about students of color, and color-evasiveness or colorblindness as an approach to teaching. Two teachers appeared to espouse beliefs that may be more representative of inclusive classrooms, and these teachers reported advocacy work for certain student groups and efforts to develop students’ critical consciousness in their classrooms. Findings are contextualized via critical lenses, and implications for language teacher education and policy are discussed.     

Systems advocacy in the professional practice of early childhood teachers: from the antithetical to the ethical

Dominant constructions of professionalism in early childhood education can diminish early childhood teachers’ and educators’ undertaking of advocacy at the systems or political level. In this paper, we propose an ethically grounded construction of professionalism that provides space for professional practice to move beyond the classroom and into the political sphere. Findings from interviews with four early childhood teachers from Australia who undertake systems advocacy as part of their professional practice show that this work is driven by ethical influences that extend beyond the rule-based imperative, in ethical codes, that teachers should undertake systems advocacy. Findings highlight the value of considering systems advocacy as practice that emerges from an interplay of three theoretical foundations of ethics: deontology, utilitarianism and virtue ethics. Implications for teacher professionalism and the building of a teacher disposition that incorporates systems advocacy are considered.     

更新观念,实施现代汉语教学方法的改革

结合现代汉语课堂教学实际,针对学生学习现代汉语困难的原因,应从两方面对现代汉语课程加以改革,一是改进师生关系和评价方法,提高学生的积极性和自信心,尊重学生的个体差异,满足多样化的要求;二是改变教学理念,把学习的主动权交给学生,从而提高他们的学习能力,发展他们的思维能力,增强他们的实践能力,开创他们的创新能力。     

The missing voice of culturally relevant teachers in school restructuring

This article addresses the role of exemplary teachers of students of color in educational reform. Using an ethnographic study of two urban junior high schools in the beginning stages of restructuring, I describe threeculturally relevant teachers who create empowering educational experiences for low-achieving African American students. Despite their exemplary practice and their enthusiasm for educational change, thewisdom of practice of these teachers was largely discounted in the restructuring process. They were marginalized by ideological and political contexts which suppressed racial issues and advocacy for African American students and which supported a deficit model of low-achieving African American students. Restructuring fostered little examination of policies, practices, and beliefs which tended to marginalize African American students. This research suggests that professional dialogue and collaboration are mediated by teachers' ideologies and by relations of power in schools and communities. If exemplary teachers of children of color are to influence educational change, reformers need to legitimize their knowledge and sponsor their leadership. Also, reforms that benefit marginalized children of color may require the mobilization and participation of parents and communities of color as well as their teacher-advocates. Even though I'm not doing the Mentoring and Counseling Program any more, I can't reject them. They know I care about them. They know when you're not pretending. You don't turn off realness. Paulette I find them where they are. I say, “You've told stories. When you say, ‘The way I see it,’ that's point of view.” I just do it like that. When kids believe you think they can learn, they will. Samuel We have to challenge these students. When we don't give them an opportunity, we're taking something away from them. Helen     

Interrogating practice in culturally diverse classrooms: what can an analysis of student resistance and teacher response reveal?

As classrooms have increasingly become diverse and complex, developing culturally responsive pedagogies is a professional imperative for teachers. However, considerable international research suggests that meeting the needs of diverse pupil cohorts is challenging for many teachers. In this article, we highlight how curriculum and teaching practices reflect hegemonic values and cultural practices, and can potentially marginalise minority ethnic students. We draw on data from a study conducted in a culturally diverse lower secondary school in Austria where mandatory swimming classes are a source of tension between Muslim female students and their teachers. Our analysis of the intersection of student resistance and teacher authority raises issues of power, compliance and the construction of cultural difference as problematic. We suggest that scenario-based learning and in particular, the analysis of examples of student resistance and teacher response may facilitate teachers’ reflexivity about the values and beliefs that underpin their practice.     

Talking and Teaching Through a Positional Lens: Recognizing what and who we privilege in our practice

This article describes a year‐long professional development project that brought together a group of high school English teachers around multicultural literature they would be teaching to their students. The teachers all taught together in a culturally and economically diverse high school context in the USA. One objective of the project was to enable the teacher participants to explore their discourse patterns around the literature to discern their own subject positions with regard to one another and to the texts studied. In addition, the teachers together analyzed their own classroom discourse to determine how those subject positions carried over into their teaching, how they essentially taught who they were. Discussions of multicultural literature and teachers’ talk around that literature, accompanied by close interrogation of classroom practice, enabled the teachers to discern what (and who) they privileged in their teaching practice. These realizations led one of the two teachers highlighted to readily change her pedagogy and curriculum to better support the learning and empowerment of all students.     

探析新课改背景下教师教学个性的式微与成长

教师具有自我个性的教学是“人性”在课堂教学的体现。新课程改革在解放学生的同时,也为教师具有自我个性的教学提供了展示的舞台。然而,事与愿违,新课程改革中教师的教学模式化、固定化,边缘化的倾向却越来越明显;当我们为解放学生、张扬学生个性欣喜时,发现教师的教学个性在改革的浪潮中逐渐被淹没。教师教学主体性的失落、教师教学能动性的枯竭、教师教学创造性的阻碍、教师教学自主性的压抑等四个维度是新课改背景下教师教学个性式微的主要原因。新课程改革呼唤教师教学个性的成长,这需要教师主体意识的回归,教师自己积极主动的“适应”、“理解”、“体验”,学校运用开放、弹性的教学管理模式,并建立促进生命发展的教师教学评价体系。     

“Who are you callin' expert?”: Using student narratives to redefine expertise and advocacy lower track science

The purpose of this study was to construct an interpretation of lower track science students' notions of expertise in science teaching. Data were collected and transcribed from focus groups, teacher journals, classrooms events, and student artifacts. Students responded to focus group prompts over the course of a years regarding how and why they chose to learn science from their teachers based on affective attributes, advocacy/impedance, and identity. Results showed that lower track science students closely associate affective teacher attributes with effective teaching strategies. In addition, students identified advocacy or impedance in academic success based on personal experience rather than other more overt characteristics such as race or gender as a major determinant for their successful science learning. Implications for research and teacher education in diverse settings are discussed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 48: 13–36, 2011     

Using phenomenography to build an understanding of how university people conceptualise their community-engaged activities

Higher education institutions are seeking greater community engagement through academic, social and civic activity. In response, researcher attention has turned to impacts on students’ education, and benefits to both university and community partners. This phenomenographic study examines how a diverse group of teachers, researchers and administrators at one New Zealand university conceptualised their involvement in community-engaged learning and teaching. We identified an outcome space where university people conceived their community engagement in three ways: within an expert/novice discourse, as advocacy, and in the most complex conception, as reciprocal learning. When working with and within communities, we suggest that university people should be supported to approach community engagement as reciprocal learning rather than adopting approaches that render community partners in passive roles.     

基于多元智能理论的大学英语课堂活动设计

将多元智能理论应用于大学英语课堂实践中,教师可以根据学生的智能优势和个性特征设计具有个性化和多元化的课堂活动,依据学生的智能差异来开发学生的多元智能,探索促进学生学习的教学方法,从而提高大学英语教学效果。     

Student teachers’ views of practicums (teacher training placements) in Turkish and English contexts: a comparative study

How student teachers experience their transformation into serving teachers in the liminal social spaces of the school-based practicum (teaching practice) is of key importance to them, their future students and their educators. The practicum is a challenging experience for student teachers, even with help from university and school-based mentors, as their knowledge of practice, power and culture in schools lacks sophistication. The practicum, an under-researched but important aspect of education, was investigated by this study by asking 480 student teachers in three universities in Turkey and England in 2010–2011 about how well their universities prepared them for the practicum, what made practicums successful and how practicums fostered their professional development. Participants generally thought the practicum helped them to develop skills in student and classroom management, in meeting students’ diverse learning needs, in recognising multiple students’ perspectives and in grounding their understanding of what it meant to be a teacher ‘for real’.     

Burrowing and becoming: teaching writing in uncertain times

What happens when teachers perceive a growing rift between their pedagogical practice and their students’ lived experiences? How do teachers respond to the uncertainty that such a “relevance gap” can create? In a climate in which literacy research is often pressed to address the achievement gap and to contribute to a sense of certainty, this study explored the relevance gap experienced by teachers in their teaching of writing and the ways that teaching with uncertainty contributed to their practice. Situated in theories of curriculum as currere, local knowledge of practice, and pedagogy as assemblage, the article focuses on the theory and practice of four educators who teach writing in very different and diverse contexts. The rhizo-textual analysis of the data inspired a process of making assemblages to explore context, positionality, and power in teachers’ identities as writers and teachers of writing. Two such assemblages are described, one exploring struggle and the other possibility. In the struggles and uncertainties they experienced, each teacher found new possibilities in different places: in the land, in slam poetry, in story, and in film. Our mappings and analyses suggest that teachers can create new pedagogies of becoming for them and their students by burrowing into uncertainty, process, and social critique.     

Genre and practice: Shaping possibilities for children

This article examines the dialogic nature of educational practices in two diverse communities. We examine how kindergarten and first-grade teachers in two settings use locally specific variants of the genre of early childhood education to describe their practice and the children with whom they work. We rely on Bakhtinian notions of speech genre to theorize these differences, arguing that genres portray conceptions of children that represent issues of power and status. We argue that the meanings attached to the way students are viewed are generated within a community and that they have profound implications for the way children's performance is interpreted.     

对师范生实习叙事的分析与反思

通过对186篇师范生实习叙事分析发现,师范生在教育实习期间体验最深刻、情感最震撼、内心最矛盾的事在于实习期间的首次教学、课堂纪律管理、组织学校文化活动、处理人际关系、问题学生教育等方面的问题。聆听实习叙事中学生的声音,使我们理解实习教师的专业发展困境,从而对教师教育课程的适合性、课程实施的效果等进行主动的批判和分析,提出对改进职前教师教育课程与教学的几点建议。     

Elementary Teacher’s Conceptions of Inquiry Teaching: Messages for Teacher Development

This study explored practicing elementary school teacher’s conceptions of teaching in ways that foster inquiry-based learning in the science curriculum (inquiry teaching). The advocacy for inquiry-based learning in contemporary curricula assumes the principle that students learn in their own way by drawing on direct experience fostered by the teacher. That students should be able to discover answers themselves through active engagement with new experiences was central to the thinking of eminent educators such as Pestalozzi, Dewey and Montessori. However, even after many years of research and practice, inquiry learning as a referent for teaching still struggles to find expression in the average teachers’ pedagogy. This study drew on interview data from 20 elementary teachers. A phenomenographic analysis revealed three conceptions of teaching for inquiry learning in science in the elementary years of schooling: (a) The Experience-centered conception where teachers focused on providing interesting sensory experiences to students; (b) The Problem-centered conception where teachers focused on engaging students with challenging problems; and (c) The Question-centered conception where teachers focused on helping students to ask and answer their own questions. Understanding teachers’ conceptions has implications for both the enactment of inquiry teaching in the classroom as well as the uptake of new teaching behaviors during professional development, with enhanced outcomes for engaging students in Science.     

A Collective Self-Study to Improve Program Coherence of Clinical Experiences

Student feedback collected through program evaluation of secondary education licensure and Master’s program clinical experiences prompted us to conduct a collective self-study. We used a reflective framework for analysis and discussion of the shifts students in our courses made as they progressed from observers to practicing teachers. Along with our graduate students, we collected and shared data and analysis from two courses – an introductory mathematics course for pre-service teachers and a capstone self-study teacher research course for in-service teachers. Data included students’ reflective accounts of their clinical experiences, dialogue with peers in response memos and focus groups, and our meta-conversation about and interpretations of data captured in meeting notes, audio recordings of meetings, email exchanges, and video conferencing over a two-month period. Analysis resulted in reframed thinking about our teaching and implications for program coherence, including provision of meaningful participant observations in diverse settings, design of dialogic platforms for students to make connections, and support of a critical level of reflection to inform teacher professional practice. The results are informative to teacher educators and programs seeking to better understand their roles in designing dialogic spaces for students to think deeply about the connections of their courses to clinical experiences and in supporting ongoing teacher professional development. The study highlights the benefits of faculty collective self-studies and contributes to the literature on self-study for program development.     

Exploring How a Study Abroad and International Service-Learning Project Shaped Preservice Teachers’ Understanding of Humanizing Pedagogy

In an attempt to better prepare future teachers to fight against social injustice, support their culturally and linguistically diverse students and wrestle with social and educational complexities around the globe, many education programs have increased the number of study abroad programs and international service learning projects. In this qualitative study, we explored seven preservice teachers’ experiences related to humanizing pedagogy after participating in a study abroad program combined with an international service-learning project in a South African rural community. Analyzing multiple data sources such as interviews and reflective journals, we discovered that the preservice teachers grappled with the political, social, economic, and educational differences they encountered during the international project and wrestled with conflicting ideas and beliefs about poverty and language. They identified their relationships with students as catalysts to address these educational issues and their need to reverse systemic inequities. They built caring relationships with students in the community and developed additive perspectives the focused on the students’ community cultural capital. The preservice teachers expressed deep critical reflection and a desire to promote a more fully human educational world where students have the opportunities to enact their agency, their creativity, and their language and culture.     

CULTURALLY RESPONSIBLE MENTORING: EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH FOR PREPARING STUDENT TEACHERS FOR DIVERSITY

Teacher education is challenged with preparing teachers to work effectively with culturally diverse students. Gaps in the research literature demonstrate that more bridging is needed between teacher education coursework and student teaching experiences, particularly in terms of supervision approaches that consider multicultural issues. This study argues that culturally responsible mentoring is one way to help student teachers put multicultural education into practice. Culturally responsible mentoring helps preservice teachers become critical thinkers about the cultural contexts in which they work. It also assists them in developing equitable and inclusive practices for their particular students. This study defines and describes the practices of culturally responsible mentoring and examines the impact it has on two student teachers in the field.     

Reflective Voices: Valuing Immigrant Students and Teaching with Ideological Clarity

Students who are not part of the dominant culture need teachers that have a clear understanding of their role as cultural workers (Freire, 1998). Moreover, it is imperative that teachers who work with immigrant children become reflective about their ideology and how their belief systems impact their interaction with culturally diverse families. In order to help immigrant students acquire the necessary academic skills to succeed in our society, teachers must also be supportive and aware of the delicate and nonstatic process of acculturation, which children undergo as they interact with a new culture, language, or reality that may not be in tune with their previous experiences. In this article, we will hear the voices of four novice teachers, as they critically examine assumptions they hold about their most disadvantaged students, and as they strive for ideological clarity in their practice.