Education Commons^™

Collaboration: Advocacy For School Change, Cynthia Strong

SPU Works

Adolescent literacy is a looming issue in secondary schools. Being able to read, comprehend, and write is imperative for students to understand the content of their classes and textbooks. According to Michael Kamil, professor of psychological studies in education and learning at Stanford University, "we almost need a trauma center to take care of this problem, it's that serious for kids that can't read...It's the number-one factor standing in the way of their graduating" (Manzo-Kennedy). Given the importance of literacy, this article provides a story of how a high school media specialist on the east coast sought to collaborate with …

Children’S Hopes And Fears, Bernadette L. Dean, Shazia Solangi

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

No abstract provided.

Improving Consistency In Teacher Judgements : An Investigation For The Department Of Education, Victoria, Marion Meiers, Clare Ozolins, Phillip Mckenzie

School and system improvement

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) was commissioned by the Department of Education in Victoria to undertake an investigation of current best-practice approaches to ensuring consistency of teacher judgements against P-10 state-wide standards.

The investigation encompassed national and international approaches that had been implemented or were under development. A key objective of the investigation was that the approaches identified should be based on current information, research and best practice, and that they should be supportive of the continued development of a learning and assessment culture in Victorian schools. The report of the investigation was required to provide key baseline …

Schools’ Participation In Great Conversation: A Proposal For School Improvement In Pakistan, Zubeda Bana

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

This paper proposes the value of building social relations through critical conversation in schools in developing countries and particularly in Pakistan. The current climate in most of the schools in these countries reflects “apathy” and “ignorance”. It is argued that schools posses a capacity for wisdom if they develop a habit of engaging themselves into critical discourse. Schools can be personified as human beings to speak and open their minds and hearts in front of their stakeholders and share their successes and challenges to form a real sense of school community. The paper also shares an example of one of …

Rationale And Provisional Lesson Plans For Learning High School Science Through Discovering Dialectically And Creatively, Jean Rene

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

A host of studies on students' understanding of science has revealed that persistent topic-specific misconceptions loom over wide groups of learners. However, in the literature, scant consideration is given to high school students' over-arching misconceptions. Those are erroneous conceptions about the nature of science that tend to be resistant even after traditional instruction. Those large-scale misconceptions lay at the frontier of philosophical standpoints and are likely to inhibit students' ability to construct conceptions aligned with accepted scientific views. This synthesis contends that educators can better address high school students' large scale misconceptions at the conjunction of interconnected scientific notions and …

Critical Inquiry: Library Media Specialists As Change Agents, Kafi D. Kumasi

School of Information Sciences Faculty Research Publications

This article describes some of the key concepts and strategies associated with the term critical inquiry that are relevant to the work of school libraries in secondary settings. Practical examples are given for conducting critical inquiry in the library based on the authors work with African American youth in an after school literacy program.

Teachers’ Lives And Their Status: A Secondary Analysis Of The Life History Of Three Teachers, Nelofer Halai

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Multicultural Training For Korean Teachers, Bokeong Cheong

Master's Capstone Projects

The main focus of this Master’s project, Multicultural Training for Korean Teachers, is to generate recommendations for multicultural training for elementary and secondary school teachers in Korea. The background is in the current circumstance that Korea is being illuminated as a newly emerging multicultural society. The two factors illustrated as the primary reasons for this shift are the increase of foreign immigrant workers and internationally married couples centered in Korean rural areas. While these foreign populations contribute to the economic development of society in both rural and urban areas, the majority of Koreans view them in negative and prejudiced ways. …

Does Increasing Biology Teacher Knowledge Of Evolution And The Nature Of Science Lead To Greater Advocacy For The Teaching Of Evolution In Schools?, Ross Nehm, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

This study investigated whether or not an increase in secondary science teacher knowledge about evolution and the nature of science gained from completing a graduate-level evolution course was associated with greater preference for the teaching of evolution in schools. Forty-four precertified secondary biology teachers participated in a 14-week intervention designed to address documented misconceptions identified by a precourse instrument. The course produced statistically significant gains in teacher knowledge of evolution and the nature of science and a significant decrease in misconceptions about evolution and natural selection. Nevertheless, teachers' postcourse preference positions remained unchanged; the majority of science teachers still preferred …

Reconsidering Teacher Professional Development Through Constructivist Principles, Kathryn Kinnucan-Welsch

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

Constructivism has been discussed from multiple perspectives, including philosophical, psychological, social, and educational. These perspectives, of course, overlap when we shape what we do in the day-to-day realities of teaching and learning. The perspective that I bring to this chapter describing the professional development of teachers is that constructivism is a theory of learning that suggests that individuals make meaning of the world through an ongoing interaction between what they already know and believe and what they experience. In other words, learners actively construct knowledge through interactions in the environment as individuals and as members of groups.

It is from …

Critical Mathematics Pedagogy: Transforming Teachers’ Practices, David W. Stinson, Carla R. Bidwell, Christopher C. Jett, Ginny C. Powell, Mary M. Thurman

Middle-Secondary Education and Instructional Technology Faculty Publications

This study reports the effects of a graduate-level mathematics education course that focused on critical theory and teaching for social justice on the pedagogical philosophies and practices of three mathematics teachers (middle, high school, and 2-year college). The study employed Freirian participatory research methodology; in fact, the participants were not only co-researchers, but also co-authors of the study. Data collection included reflective essays, journals, and “storytelling”; data analysis was a combination of textual analysis and autoethnography. The findings report that the teachers believed that the course provided not only a new language but also a legitimization to transform their pedagogical …

What Is Mathematics?: Teachers Exploring The Philosophy Of Mathematics, Kimberly White-Fredette, David W. Stinson

Middle-Secondary Education and Instructional Technology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Reading Apprenticeship Model For Improving Literacy: A Pre-Service Teacher Case Study, Divonna M. Stebick, Diana J. Pool, Jonelle Pool

Education Faculty Publications

A major challenge of today's standards-based assessment movement targets the need to address and improve the achievement of struggling readers. As teacher education programs must prepare content teachers to address the challenges of teaching students who lack reading skills, we need to prepare out pre-service teachers to help students make meaning while reading any text. To accomplish such a goal, comprehension instruction must be explicit, direct, and effective. As VanDeWeghe (2004b) notes, even though students may still need development as readers at the secondary level, there may be confusion surrounding where reading instruction is addressed in the secondary curriculum. After …

“I Was Bitten By A Scorpion”: Reading In And Out Of School In A Refugee’S Life, Loukia K. Sarroub, Todd Pernicek, Tracy Sweeney

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

A refugee student’s literacy practices are examined. Discrepancies between his in-school and out-of-school literacies highlight the tension he and his teachers experience.

The purpose of this study is to examine a high school boy’s experiences in an ELL language acquisition program, at home, and in the work place. Within these contexts, we explore Hayder’s participation in literacy events in light of his identity as a Yezidi Kurdish refugee in and out of school.

Our study indicates that reading instruction works for students such as Hayder when certain support structures are in place. Teaching “styles” matter, as does the content of …