Secondary Education and Teaching Commons^™

The La Aurora: New Beginnings Project Final Evaluation Summary, Steven Rogg

Steven R Rogg

Citation: Rogg, S. (November, 2007). The La Aurora: New Beginnings Project – Final Evaluation Summary. U.S. Department of Education. Office of English Language Acquisition. Bilingual Education Professional Development Career Ladder Program (CFDA #84.195E, grant #T195E010024). Submitted to: Aurora University, Aurora, Illinois.

Background: A discretionary grant of $1.1M from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Language Acquisition was awarded to Aurora University to execute a five-year Career Ladder Program with a start date of 1-September, 2001 and completion date of 31-August, 2006.1 The stated intent of the Career Ladder Program is summarized here: “The program provided discretionary grants to upgrade …

Improving Students’ Algebraic Thinking: The Case Of Talia, Kien H. Lim

Kien H Lim

This paper presents the case of an 11th grader, Talia, who demonstrated improvement in her algebraic thinking after five one-hour sessions of solving problems involving inequalities and equations. She improved from association-based to coordination-based predictions, from impulsive to analytic anticipations, and from inequality-as-a-signal-for-a-procedure to inequality-as-a-comparison-of-functions conceptions. In the one-on-one teaching intervention, she progressed from the sub-context of manipulating symbols, to working with specific numbers, to reasoning with “general” numbers, and eventually to reasoning with symbols. Three features were identified to account for her improvement: (a) attention to meaning, (b) opportunity to repeat similar reasoning, and (c) opportunity to explore.

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 …

From The Co-Editors

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

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.

Field-Based Science Education With A Community Service Learning Focus, William H. Robertson

William H. Robertson

Field-based program of studies for future teachers provides opportunities for powerful learning through a dialectical union of reflection and action. Methods courses in academic disciplines are linked with seminars and coursework on community partnerships, critical pedagogy and culturally responsive education. This article illustrates the processes of planning, implementation and evaluation of this approach, highlighting the impacts of community service learning on parents, families, students, and schools with a focus on validating native language literacy, increasing parental involvement and providing conceptually correct science education. The project indicates that two-way dual language programs with a strong parent engagement component can help improve …

Increasing Pre-Service Teacher Science Test Success With A Tutorial Cd, William H. Robertson, Brian H. Giza, Stephanie S. Kuehne

William H. Robertson

Pre-service teachers often perform poorly on high-stakes state certification exams. Noting that there were a few particular items and concepts that seemed to be the most problematical, the authors developed a n HTML and flash-based tutorial CD that contained supplementary video and reference materials designed to assist the prospective teacher in preparing for the exam. Research subjects were studied for their preparation for self-regulated learning, as well as language environment, content background, and other factors. Data from scores on the teacher certification exam was correlated with CD use and demographics to identify the effectiveness of the CD tool as an …

El Uso De Preguntas Y Descubrimiento En El Contexto De Química, William H. Robertson

William H. Robertson

This article, written in Spanish, describes the impacts of an effort to increase the teaching abilities of a group of Chemistry Peer Leaders working with undergraduates in fundamental Chemistry classes. The provided abstracts, in Spanish and English, describe the overall approach and the results obtained from the study done in the fall of 2005. A partnership between the College of Education and the College of Science at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) which was developed in order to strengthen the pedagogical methods within the context of chemistry content for student Peer Leaders. The goal was to enhance …