Improving Science and Literacy Learning for English Language Learners: Evidence from a Pre-service Teacher Preparation Intervention

This paper present findings from a pre-service teacher development project that prepared novice teachers to promote English language and literacy development with inquiry-based science through a modified elementary science methods course and professional development for cooperating teachers. To study the project’s impact on student learning, we administered a pre and post assessment to students (N = 191) of nine first year elementary teachers (grades 3 through 6) who experienced the intervention and who taught a common science unit. Preliminary results indicate that (1) student learning improved across all categories (science concepts, writing, and vocabulary)—although the effect varied by category, and (2) English Language Learner (ELL) learning gains were on par with non-ELLs, with differences across proficiency levels for vocabulary gain scores. These results warrant further analyses to understand the extent to which the intervention improved teacher practice and student learning. This study confirms the findings of previous research that the integration of science language and literacy practices can improve ELL achievement in science concepts, writing and vocabulary. In addition, the study indicates that it is possible to begin to link the practices taught in pre-service teacher preparation to novice teacher practice and student learning outcomes.     

Integrating Curriculum,Instruction, and Assessment in Project-Based Instruction: A Case Study of an Experienced Teacher

This case study of a teacher who engaged his students in inquiry within a technologically rich classroom was conducted over 5 weeks, including 15 regularly scheduled classes. Data include extensive teacher interviews, e-mail, and artifacts such as class notes, curriculum guides, and handouts. A retrospective analysis methodology was utilized to address what Barron et al. (1998), called the major hurdles in implementing project-based curricula: the simultaneous changes in curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices. In addition, a framework developed by the National Research Councils How People Learn was employed to provide detail on the nature of knowledge, learner, assessment, and community centeredness of the project-based unit. Finally, the classroom environment created during a unit of astronomy was analyzed and five principles emerged: the sense of a project, the development of independent individuals, creation of a global community of learners, a cyclic nature of instruction emphasizing conceptual and procedural understanding, and the utilization of distributedexpertise.     

Designing the Game: How a Project-Based Media Production Program Approaches STEAM Career Readiness for Underrepresented Young Adults

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Numerous studies have indicated a need for a diverse workforce that is more highly educated in STEM and ICT fields, and one that is capable of...     

合作教师教育模式的运用——一条更加贴近现实的途径

介绍了挪威科技大学教师教育系和实习学校之间进行的合作教师教育模式,并探讨了这一模式能否实现“贴近现实的教师教育”这种理念。探讨了该模式是否给学生提供了名副其实的教学相长的机会,是否增加了学生与各个合作者交流的机会,从而使学习成为社会的、互动的过程。最后,审视了该模式是否给学生提供了提高反思能力的机会并促进了实习教师的专业发展。     

The Proof is in the Project: Integrating the Framework for Information Literacy in Developmental Education Through Project-Based Learning

ABSTRACT

Reading and library faculty collaborated in the revision of the developmental reading curriculum at Chandler-Gilbert Community College in an effort to strengthen students’ reading and information literacy skills through project-based learning. This article describes how the new curriculum addresses the challenging concepts defined in the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education in an effort to prepare students more effectively for college-level courses. The results of this new curriculum included stronger posttest scores and student success data.     

Affirming Cultures,Communities and Experiences: Teaching for Social Justice in Teacher Education Literacy Courses

In this article we share several activities we use in our teacher education literacy courses that incorporate a social justice lens. For each activity we suggest resources, offer examples we have created and used in our teaching, and share research to support each activity. The activities build on each other, with the intent of increasing preservice teacher knowledge of how to teach for social justice by moving beyond awareness and understanding lived experiences of students to affirming cultures and experiences of all students, creating inclusive and equitable classrooms. By experiencing teaching from this stance in our courses, we hope that our preservice teachers take up and teach from a social justice stance in their future classrooms.     

Photo-Booklets for English Language Learning: Incorporating Visual Communication into Early Childhood Teacher Preparation

Teachers can integrate discussion and writing about photographs into the early childhood curriculum to build speaking, reading, and writing skills in any language. Although little available research focuses on photography and early childhood education as related specifically to English Language Learners, several current teacher resources do focus on uses of photography in classrooms for young children. What is lacking, however, is substantial reference to the planned use of language along with image creation through photography for the language development of English Language Learners (ELLs) in the early childhood classroom. Teacher training, too, devotes insufficient attention to either visual literacy or visual communication. This article provides a discussion of the role of the visual in English language development as a basis for a sample photography project that can be incorporated into a course for pre-service teachers in methods of teaching ELLs. Pre-service teachers thus experience the project first-hand in terms of image creation and the planning of appropriate content, language, and visual literacy objectives. The resulting visual products then function as teaching resources themselves; however, effective visual learning for ELLs requires that teachers possess such an informed understanding of the techniques that structure and assist language development.     

挑战、支持与发展:伙伴协作模式下的教师成长

教育改革需要在教师愿意承担新的角色和责任的基础之上进行。大学与中小学伙伴协作模式有利于打破学校及教师固有的平衡状态,并在以平等、民主为价值诉求的协作环境中,化解教师面对改革创新的保守态度及可能出现的负面情绪,使教师在“高挑战、高支持”的理想情境中获得积极的心理和情绪体验,进而提升其专业知识、能力和自主意识。     

Same Language,Different Histories: Developing a “Critical” English Teacher Identity

ABSTRACT

Our paper contends that growing awareness of the historicity of English lies at the heart of the process by which English language teachers develop “critical” identities. We compare novice teachers in three different contexts of English teaching: urban Guatemala, rural Nicaragua, and a Tibetan refugee community in India. Collectively, these ethnographic case studies illustrate the complexity of English teacher identity formation in contemporary global society, as our participants developed new understandings of their positions in history, their relationships with English learners, and the local meanings around English as symbolic capital.     

Teacher Candidates Learn to Enact Curriculum in a Partnership-Sponsored Literacy Enrichment Program for Youth

This article reports on a multiyear formative experiment of a summer enrichment program that served as literacy enrichment for middle-school students, a field experience for preservice teacher candidates, and a professional development and leadership opportunity for practicing teachers. The analysis focuses on how the design team conceptualized, implemented, and researched inquiry-based, literacy-infused curriculum within the program, which was embedded in a broader university–school partnership. Findings report curriculum-related decisions and adjustments made over two iterations of the program before detailing the data-driven adjustments planned for the program’s third iteration in 2017. Findings reveal that literacy supports were richer when the curriculum with which preservice teacher candidates worked was explicit about the content they must address and well sequenced. Such explicitness left more bandwidth for candidates to focus on literacy and reduced the chances it would get lost in candidates’ other concerns. Implications are discussed for others designing clinical experiences intended to interrupt the status quo in both literacy teacher education and K–12 schooling, with the goal of promoting more equitable outcomes for all.     

Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices and Critical Pedagogy: The Fifth Moment in a Teacher Educator's Journey

In order to research and improve her practice, a teacher educator examined her life history and its relation to the ethical and moral discourses of society using autobiography as a self-study methodology. This critical reflection provided the basis for contextualizing praxis-oriented teacher education in an urban school. Based on the transformative framework of critical pedagogy coupled with a self-study of teacher education practices, this article explores how a teacher educator engages in research relating to the self, professional practice, and the analysis of the tensions surrounding otherness and oppression. Critical pedagogy provided the means and the methods to facilitate reflection upon her own earned and unearned privilege in society and paved the way for an agency of change in her practice.     

Colorism as a Salient Space for Understanding in Teacher Preparation

In this article, we posit the salience of colorism as an important aspect of race in the knowledge construction and preparation of teachers. Although many more teacher education programs across the United States have begun to infuse aspects of race into their curricula, there is sparse literature about the role of colorism in teacher preparation and its potential impact. This article explicitly focuses on darker-skinned students, who experience trauma differently from lighter-skinned students. This research chronicles the particular experiences of African American female students who endure deep-seated biases and attitudes regarding their skin color, both outside of and within school environments. We argue that teacher education programs should include learning opportunities on construction of race as a phenotype (the physical construction of skin tone, hair texture, facial features, and body physique) as an influence on the thinking, beliefs, and consequent practices of teachers in P–12 classrooms. The article concludes with an explicit recommendation for teacher education programs to prioritize colorism in the preparation of teachers.     

Six Objectives for Technology Infusion into Teacher Education: a model in action

ABSTRACT

Effective use of educational technology is a very important challenge for teacher preparation institutions. Recognizing this fact, the College of Education at the University of Nebraska at Omaha has developed an evolving model for effective integration of technology. This model addresses six objectives that focus on three key elements: equipment, expectations, and training. The paper outlines the model and then describes how it has been put into practice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. After eight years of implementation and evolution, the model has helped many faculty members become active and confident users of educational technology.     

Designing a Pedagogy of Inquiry in Teacher Education: Moving from resistance to listening

This paper reports a study of preservice teachers who investigated their own teaching during a field-based component of a mathematics education methods course. The course was designed to engage the preservice teachers in both mathematical and pedagogical inquiry. Analysis of video recordings of course discussions, audiotaped interviews with preservice teachers, audiotaped discussions of instructor's planning meetings, and copies of the instructor's and preservice teachers' journals identified two critical incidents that depict students' resistance to the course directions. Analysis of these critical incidents suggests that prospective teachers' interactions with their students can become the mirror through which we can investigate their interactions with us, as teacher educators, and with our course activities. In this way we might reframe the problem of resistance to one of listening—listening to the students, to each other, and to ourselves.