Education Commons^™

Creating Conversations, Changing Cultures: Case Study Of A Professional Development Plan, Alexis Goldberg

Graduate Student Independent Studies

There's a lot working against authentic demonstrations of thinking, and legitimate avenues of collaboration in our school cultures. We force-feed students high-stakes tests that promote a single "right answer" instead of multiple solution paths. Despite research that suggests teachers learn best from each other, we promote the ideal of the teacher-as-­maverick. Many of our systems endorse closed-set, closed-door thinking that leaves room for neither independent student thinking nor the collaborative generation of ideas.

Breaking cultures this strong, this endemic, is a weighty task. In a yearlong case study, Alexis Goldberg creates and executes a professional development plan that engages with …

Employing Cogenerative Dialogue To Share Classroom Authority, Edward Lehner

Publications and Research

In America’s high schools, particularly in large urban centers, racial and social class differences separating a teacher and students can create classroom management concerns that could seriously impede upon learning. These classroom management difficulties may branch from the misalignment between a teacher’s instructional methods and students’ learning approaches. This research reports data gathered from a New York City High School Suspension Center during a 9 month school year, including results from 56 focus group interviews and 300 hours of classroom observation. The data analysis reveals that classroom behavioral problems and authority concerns are prominent themes in this school. Informed by …