Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Toward A Theory Of An Integrated Theoretical Approach Of Literacy For Black Boys, Aaron M. Johnson

Michigan Reading Journal

In the education landscape the literacy of Black boys is viewed from deficit framing. Often, educators, politicians, and laypeople point to scores on standardized assessments such as the MSTEP, NAEP, ACT, SAT, and NWEA, these tests only tell a part of the story. The part of the story that those assessments do tell is the abject failure of schools’ ability to engage Black boys in school-based literacy and catapult them into proficient and advanced proficient reading levels. The part of the story that those assessments do not tell is the literate lives that Black boys lead. Furthermore, schools do a …

Examining Elementary Teacher Perceptions And Experiences Of Transitioning From Knowledge-Based To Inquiry-Based Social Studies Standards, Benjamin Stephen Pinnick

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Elementary educators are responsible for the earliest years of student learning in a public setting. The amount of content students are expected to master continues to grow in scope, and the methods that are utilized shift to align with educational research and social momentum. After a decade of Common Core policies, social studies education in elementary schools has become a deemphasized subject. Reading and math, as well as science, have taken a greater precedence in today’s classrooms.

Yet, expectations for the creation of knowledgeable and participatory citizens continue to serve as a goal in elementary schools. Conceptualization of citizenship form …

Wakanda: Opening The High School Classroom To Afrofuturism, Carrie M. Mattern

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Afrofuturism has a solid place in high school classrooms thanks to the current work of Ryan Coogler, but also to those who have been in this work for decades including the Mother of Afrofuturism herself, Octavia Butler, adrienne maree brown, dream hampton, and a litany of Black poets and artists. This article leaps inside an Afrofuturistic unit curated for high school seniors with feedback and insight from their teachers and also the students who buckled up for a journey through time, space, and place.

“The Hidden Door That Leads To Several Moments More”: Finding Context For The Literacy Narrative In First Year Writing, Denise Goldman

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The literacy narrative has emerged as a useful genre in composition pedagogy because of the perceived bridge it provides between personal narrative and academic literacy. Although there remains disagreement among practitioners with regard to its purpose and efficacy, it continues to be a staple in the writing classroom because it has the potential to help students learn analytical skills while fostering investment through the features of a personal narrative. Recent efforts in the field, especially with regard to questions of transfer of writing, have focused on the benefits of genre and community discourse analysis as a means to help students …

What Do You Do When You Don't Know How To Respond? Supporting Pre-Service Teachers To Use Picture Books To Facilitate Difficult Conversations, Kathryn Struthers Ahmed, Nida Ali

Occasional Paper Series

In this paper, the authors – a preservice teacher (PST) and a teacher educator – consider how teacher education might better prepare PSTs to use picture books to facilitate difficult conversations in elementary classrooms. They share missed opportunities from their own experiences in a fourth-grade fieldwork classroom and in a graduate-level elementary literacy methods course where they felt unprepared to respond to students’ comments about “controversial” topics. They reimagine how these experiences might have been transformed to be more educative for PSTs, first by considering how they could have responded more thoughtfully in the moment and then by thinking about …

Teacher Perceptions And Implementation Of A Content-Area Literacy Professional Development Program, Osha Lynette Smith, Rebecca Robinson

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The Common Core State Standards recommend that all educators equip students with the literacy skills needed for college and careers. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine middle-level content-area teachers’ perspectives on a district-led literacy professional development program and their implementation of the literacy strategies they learned. The conceptual framework included Bruner’s constructivist, Bandura’s self-efficacy, and Knowles’s andragogy theories. These theories informed the investigation of adult learners’ perspectives regarding the way they learn and gain confidence in providing literacy instruction. Eleven English, math, science, and social studies teachers participated in the study through individual interviews. Data were …

Scholastic Liberation: Schools' Impact On African American Academic Achievement, Aaron M. Johnson

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

This article addresses some of the factors that contribute to low achievement observed in African American students. It is common that either schools or school districts are unable to fix the problem or they are unaware about how the beliefs and attitudes about African American students can contribute to their low performance in school. Furthermore, this article encourages school institutions to examine themselves and change school environments to align to the identities of African American students. African American students must be liberated from negative assumptions about them and to do that, individuals and the institution of school as a whole, …

Literacy For Life: Daily Reading Effectively Promotes Success (Reps), Karen Washington, Terecia Gill

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

Literacy is at the heart of basic education and essential for eradicating poverty, achieving equality, and ensuring that all students have the opportunity for lifelong success. Administrators, instructional coaches, and teachers will be fascinated by the simple, but effective strategy for improving the literacy skills of students at risk through authentic, highly-engaging daily “REPS” activities in every class.

Efficacy And Implementation Of Automated Essay Scoring Software In Instruction Of Literacies To High Level Ells, Aaron J. Alvero

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explored the integration of automated essay scoring (AES) software into the writing curriculum for high level ESOL students (levels 3, 4, and 5 on a 1-5 scale) at a high school in Miami, Fl. Issues for Haitian Creole speaking students were also explored. The Spanish and Haitian Creole speaking students were given the option to write notes, outlines, and planning sheets in their L1.

After using AES in the middle of the writing process as a revision assistant tool, 24 students responded to a Likert Scale questionnaire. The students responded positively to the AES based on the results …

Reading Queerly In The High School Classroom: Exploring A Gay And Lesbian Literature Course, Kirsten Helmer

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how teaching an English literature curriculum centered on the stories, experiences, cultures, histories, and politics of LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex) people constitutes a meaningful site for teaching and learning in a high school classroom. The dissertation offers insights on how the teaching of LGBTQI-themed texts in English language arts classes can be reframed by bridging the goals, practices and conceptual tools of queer theory to critical literacies teaching. The project follows principles of critical qualitative research and employs an ethnographic case study approach with the purpose of transforming educational …

Media And Democracy. A Response To "The Need For Media Education In Democratic Education", Lance E. Mason

Democracy and Education

This response supports Stoddard’s (2014) assertion that media education should be considered a crucial factor of democratic education and offers both extensions and cautions related to that end. Extensions include practical suggestions for studying the non-neutrality of technology. The author also cautions educators that if media education and democratic education are to be productively merged, a more substantive consideration of the relationship between digital technologies and dispositional factors is warranted.

Learning Families: Intergenerational Approach To Literacy Teaching And Learning, Unesco Institute Of Lifelong Learning, 58 Felbrunnenstr., 20148 Hamburg, Germany

IACE Hall of Fame Repository

Within a learning family, every member is a lifelong learner. A family literacy and learning approach is more likely to break the intergenerational cycle of low education and inadequate literacy skills, particularly among disadvantaged families and communities. The selection of case studies presented in this compilation show that for an intergenerational approach to literacy to be successful and foster a culture of learning, it is necessary to provide sustained teacher training, develop a culture of collaboration among institutions, teachers and parents, and secure sustained funding through longer-term policy support. The examples from twenty-two different countries also provide evidence of the …

Global Perspectives On Recognising Non-Formal And Informal Learning:Why Recognition Matters, Unesco Institute Of Lifelong Learning, 58 Felbrunnenstr., 20148 Hamburg, Germany

IACE Hall of Fame Repository

This book deals with the relevance of recognition, validation and accreditation (RVA) of non-formal and informal learning in education and training, the workplace and society. It examines RVA’s strategic policy objectives and best practice features as well as the challenges faced and ways forward as reported by Member States. Special attention is paid to the analysis of institutional and political requirements that give genuine value to the recognition of non-formal and informal learning; the role played by RVA in education, working life, voluntary work and social inclusion; and the interests and motivations of all stakeholders, as well as the importance …

Transforming Our World:Literacy For Sustainable Development, Unesco Institute Of Lifelong Learning, 58 Felbrunnenstr., 20148 Hamburg, Germany

IACE Hall of Fame Repository

This compilation offers global examples of innovative and promising literacy and numeracy programmes that link the teaching and learning of literacy to sustainable development challenges such as health, social equality, economic empowerment and environmental sustainability. This publication is a timely contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which promotes the engagement of stakeholders to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.’

‘‘Where I’M From’’ And Belonging: A Multimodal, Cosmopolitan Perspective On Arts And Inquiry, Tiffany A. Dejaynes

Publications and Research

The paper draws upon a year-long practitioner inquiry with adolescents who conducted auto-ethnographies as part of a research course in their urban public high school. Through ethnographic data collection, youth researched their own lives, cultures, and beliefs with the end goal of producing multimodal films that represented their embodied senses of ‘‘Where I’m From’’, broadly defined. As youth collected and interpreted culturally and personally meaningful artifacts, stories, memories, and family discourses, the cosmopolitan habits of mind and heart that it is argued are important for nurturing reflective citizens of the world. In the process of video production or self-curation, youth …

2nd Global Report On Adult Learning And Education:Rethinking Literacy, Unesco Institute Of Lifelong Learning, 58 Felbrunnenstr., 20148 Hamburg, Germany

IACE Hall of Fame Repository

Drawing on data gathered from 141 countries, the second Global Report on Adult

Learning and Education reviews progress in implementing the Belém Framework for Action, the set of recommendations made by governments at the Sixth

International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VI) in Belém in December

2009. The report adopts a global perspective, describing the commonalities and differences of Member States as they work to improve their adult education

sectors.

This second Global Report has as its special theme ‘Rethinking Literacy’. UNESCO

hopes that this will help to position literacy as the foundation for lifelong learning. The report …

Secondary Esl Round Table: Excavating Our Common Core Subject Standards Hopes And Fears, Revealing New Literacy Possibilities For Ells, Susan Adams, Kathryn Brooks

Susan Adams

Presentation at the 2012 Indiana Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (INTESOL) Annual Conference, Indianapolis, IN, October 6, 2012.

Secondary Esl Round Table: Excavating Our Ccss Hopes And Fears, Revealing New Literacy Possibilities For Ells, Susan Adams

Susan Adams

Presentation at the 2012 Literocity Conference, Indianapolis, IN, July 9, 2012.

Making Waves With Critical Literacy, Carolyn Fortuna

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

A qualitative study undertaken in 2007 that explores the application of critical literacy pedagogy within English language arts classes of an upper middle class public high school. Results demonstrate that when students recontextualize their own modalities, literacies, and cultures as part of their learning experience, they begin to understand the concept of social justice for all.

Theatre Of The Oppressed A Manual For Educators, Gopal Midha

Master's Capstone Projects

Promoting social equity and justice, I think, are not just important but essential qualities in a good educator. My experience as a graduate student at University of Massachusetts helped me understand and practice different ways in which this could be done. For instance, I learnt how I could promote social justice through changes in curriculum, co-operative learning, inter-group dialogues or multicultural education. However, my search was for a method that did not require literacy as a pre-requisite and that went beyond mere conversations about social justice. One of the key elements of the power structures which lead to oppression, I …

Global Report On Adult Learning And Education, Unesco Institute Of Lifelong Learning, 58 Felbrunnenstr., 20148 Hamburg, Germany

IACE Hall of Fame Repository

The first-ever Global Report on Adult Learning and Education is based on 154 National Reports submitted by UNESCO Member States on the state of adult learning and education as well as five regional synthesis reports and secondary literature. Its purpose is to provide an overview of trends in adult learning and education as well as to identify key challenges. It is an important reference document and an advocacy tool, and served as input to CONFINTEA VI.

Chapter 1 examines how adult education is considered in the international educational and development policy agenda, Chapter 2 presents developments in policy and governance, …

Strategy Instruction And Lessons Learned In Teaching Higher Level Thinking Skills In An Urban Middle School Classroom, Karen C. Waters

Education Faculty Publications

Through a compilation of standards-based lesson plans for small- and whole-group instruction, this chapter offers a humorous and heartbreaking perspective of the author's experiences during a yearlong university partnership “Book Bistro” in a 7th grade classroom with urban adolescent struggling readers. Using a combination of leveled, fictional, nonfictional, and culturally relevant text, the chapter is written as a personal narrative to address higher level thinking through systematic instruction in comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, and structural analysis. A step-by-step implementation procedure for each of the research-based strategies is presented, including concept of definition, discussion web, probable passage, pointed reading, semantic feature analysis, …

Literacy Initiatives In The Urban Setting That Promote Higher Level Thinking, Karen C. Waters

Education Faculty Publications

How does an urban district become a twice-nominated candidate by the Broad Foundation? In a district in which 72 languages are spoken, 38% of the students live in homes in which English is not the dominant language, and 91% of the population is minority (African American, Asian, and Hispanic), this largest school district in Connecticut not only made student learning a priority, but focused on higher level thinking as part of the process. This chapter provides insight to grassroots implementation of district and department initiatives over the course of five years that emphasized cognitive and metacognitive strategies in advancing the …

Becoming A Teacher Of Literacy: The Struggle Between Authoritative Discourses, Mindy Legard Larson, Donna Kalmbach Phillips

Faculty Publications

This study describes and analyzes the influence of an ideological conflict between a teacher education program and a school district upon one pre-service teacher’s emerging identity as a teacher of literacy. Using poststructural feminism as the theoretical framework and a single case study analysis, the study illustrates how the discourse of the school district’s scripted reading program and the discourse of the university’s comprehensive literacy positions Claire, the pre-service teacher. The data analysis demonstrates how being positioned between these two competing and authoritative discourses conflicts with her understanding of reading and reading instruction. Reflecting upon the data, the research becomes …