Education Commons^™

Final Report On The Sanger-Firebaugh Long-Term English Learner Project, Karen Thompson, Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica

Teacher Education

The Long-Term English Learner Project is a partnership between Sanger and Firebaugh-Las Deltas Unified School Districts that aims to create large-scale systems change to improve outcomes for middle and high school Long-Term English Learners (LTELs). Karen Thompson and Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica have completed the third and final year of a three-year external documentation funded by the Central Valley Foundation (CVF). The LTEL Project began in 2014- 15 and was originally planned to last three years. CVF approved a one-year extension for the Project and external documentation, lasting through 2017-18.

The Long-Term English Learner Project builds on the previous District Partnership Project …

Instructional Supports: Facilitating Or Constraining Emergent Bilinguals’ Production Of Oral Explanations?, Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica

Teacher Education

This qualitative study examined how specific instructional supports intended to scaffold emergent bilinguals’ oral production of explanations facilitated or constrained students’ attempts to explain. Findings demonstrate that explanations were very rarely produced, and when they were produced, the explanations were not particularly informative. Furthermore, the teachers’ attempts to support emergent bilingual talk via sentence starters, guiding questions, and rephrasing questions inadvertently undermined the students’ attempts to explain.

“Higher” School: Nineteenth-Century High Schools And The Secondary-College Divide, Amy J. Lueck

English

This article traces the emergence of nineteenth-century U.S. high schools in the landscape of higher education, attending to the gendered, raced, and classed distinctions at play in this development. Exploring differences in the conceptualization and status of high schools in Louisville, Kentucky, for white male, white female, and mixed-gender African American students, this article reminds us of how these institutional types have been situated, socially inflected, and structured in relation to broader political and power structures that transcend explicit pedagogical considerations. As a result, I argue for the recognition of high schools as historically significant sites in the history of …

Undocumented: The Stress Of Status, Terry-Ann Jones, Laura Nichols

Sociology

From 2010 to 2012 researchers from Fairfield University, Loyola University Chicago, and Santa Clara University talked to students who were undocumented and attending Jesuit colleges. The project culminated in a book, Undocumented and in College: Students and Institutions in a Climate of National Hostility (Fordham University Press, 2017).

Advancing A Transactional Ecology Model Of School-Based Positive Youth Development Programs For Children, Cheryl Bowen (Mcelvain)

Teacher Education

Knowing that children thrive in a multi-systems approach to mental health development, a growing number of schools often promote their vision through mission statements that include school-based youth development programs claiming to improve social and academic outcomes for all students (Greenberg et al., 2003). However, there is scant empirical evidence investigating effective school-based “wraparound” mental health services for low income, Latino children and their families (Cabrera, 2013; Gándara, 2017). This quasi-experimental, mixed methods case study utilizes a sample of 415 low-income children and their parents living in northern California to test the hypothesis that school-based youth development programs can potentially …

Developing Mutual Accountability Between Teachers And Students Through Participation In Cogenerative Dialogues, John L. Beltramo

Teacher Education

In this study, I explore cogenerative dialogues as potentially supportive spaces for the development of mutual accountability and reciprocal learning between teachers and students, even within contexts dominated by high-stakes accountability and its associated challenges. In cogenerative dialogues, teachers gather with small groups of their students outside of instructional time to discuss classroom teaching and environment and to construct plans by which to improve student learning and wellbeing. Through a design-based case study, I worked with two science teachers, Lorena and Ellen, from urban high schools to establish and enact weekly cogenerative dialogues with their students over a period of …

Sentence Stems That Support Reading Comprehension, Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica, Allison Briceño

Teacher Education

Sentence stems are widely used by teachers, but what do we know about developing sentence stems and using them effectively? Sentence stems are intended to facilitate students’ participation in academic conversations and writing and support students to develop the language expected in school, but sometimes the stems do not provide the support intended. The authors explain how to develop supportive sentence stems.

From English Learner To Spanish Learner: Raciolinguistic Beliefs That Influence Heritage Spanish Speaking Teacher Candidates, Allison Briceño, Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica, Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz

Teacher Education

This qualitative study explored Spanish-speaking teacher credential students’ beliefs about academic language that might promote or inhibit their decision to become bilingual teachers. Data includes interviews with 11 bilingual teacher candidates who were heritage Spanish speakers. Findings show that most were only aware of English-only educational contexts and did not know that bilingual teaching and the bilingual authorization pathway were options. Their schooling experience fostered English hegemony; even their Spanish classes were pervaded by linguistic purism and elitism. Schools taught them that their registers of Spanish, which they learned at home, were insufficient, inappropriate or incorrect. Consequently, they questioned their …